A New Lease On Life

Technics SL-1200GR Turntable

- Michael Trei

WAY BACK IN THE MAY 2010 issue of Sound & Vision, I compared three sub-$1,000 turntables, including one that I felt was a bit of a rebellious choice for the audiophile listener. Over its nearly 40 years of production, the Technics SL-1200 series had morphed from one of the top models in the company’s industry-leading range of audiophile direct-drive turntables into a deck that was aimed squarely at the club and DJ market. As the years passed and the remainder of the Technics high-end audio lineup gradually faded away, the brand became synonymous with just one product: the SL-1200 DJ turntable in its various guises. I didn’t know it at the time of that 2010 review, but within about six months, Technics’s parent company, Matsushita/Panasonic, would announce the end of SL-1200 production and the death of the legendary brand with it.

Fast-forward about five years, when Technics made a triumphant return at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show with an all-new lineup of high-end electronics and speakers. The only head-scratcher was that there was no turntable to be found. Had Panasonic’s bean counters decided that there wasn’t a viable future for vinyl playback? Was there any truth to the rumor that making more than three million SL-1200s over the decades had irreparably worn out the tooling used to build them? After all, a Technics equipment lineup without a turntable makes about as much sense as an Italian restaurant without pasta. Something had to give, and SL-1200 fans around the world started a petition to let the company know just how they felt.