PrøvGOLD- Free

Technics Grand Class SL-1200/1210GR2

Stereophile|April 2024
RECORD PLAYER
- KEN MICALLEF
Technics Grand Class SL-1200/1210GR2

In the early 1980s, I worked in a pop band playing AM radio hits, grooving behind my Yamaha drums and Zildjian cymbals as sweat drenched my body and my ears rang. We danced. We pranced. My shiny silk jumpsuit led upwards to a 2"-high afro, which women ran fingers through in hopes of finding contraband smokes.

I was not proud. Our band was hot, booked year-round in hotel lounges and standalone clubs from Florida to Virginia Beach.

"Beach music" was a popular southeastern style then, an R&B variation on '40s swing and doo-wop, with close vocal harmonies, popping brass, and choregraphed dance steps. Like peanut-sized rock stars, we reveled in this insular, south-of-the-Mason-Dixonline entertainment lifestyle with its small-town intrigues, tasty southern food, and bodacious southern belles. Then overnight, everything changed.

At the beginning of the previous decade, Technics had released the SP-10, the first direct-drive turntable. That was followed in short order by the SL-1100. Clive Campbell, aka Jamaican-American DJ Kool Herc, pioneered the simultaneous use of two Technics SL1100s, initially at his sister's birthday party in the Bronx, inspiring "block parties" (rigging streetlamps for power) and hip-hop culture. Kool Herc isolated drumbeats from records by James Brown (with drummers Clyde Stubblefield and John "Jabo" Starks) and the Incredible Bongo Band (powered by master studio drummer Jim Gordon), among others, creating "breaks" for heated dance-floor partying. Soon, Lace Taylor (aka Afrika Bambaataa) and Grandmaster Flash (The Message) took Kool Herc's inventions into the mainstream, and hip-hop went global.

The SL-1100's successor, the SL-1200, released just a year after the SL-1100, quickly became the deejay's turntable of choice and continued to be until it was succeeded in 1979 by the SL-1200MK2, the first turntable to intentionally include deejay-friendly features. The world's most popular turntable was born.

Denne historien er fra April 2024-utgaven av Stereophile.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9500+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra April 2024-utgaven av Stereophile.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9500+ magasiner og aviser.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA STEREOPHILESe alt
Two things that don't suck
Stereophile

Two things that don't suck

There are things that make me feel so unpleasantly lightheaded that some days I worry my cranium might float away like a helium balloon. Like baby animals generated by AI that I can no longer distinguish from real ones. Skin care for tweens. Headlines about American politics that read like headlines about Turkmenistan. The music of Charli XCX.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2025
Stereophile

Pathos InPoL Legacy - INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

Back when gasoline had lead in it and amplifiers came with circuit diagrams in the back of the manual, there was an unspoken understanding that power meant weight.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2025
A Sorane TA-1 tonearm, the evolving tonearm marketplace, and the Ortofon MC 90X
Stereophile

A Sorane TA-1 tonearm, the evolving tonearm marketplace, and the Ortofon MC 90X

A friend who sells high-end audio gear once pointed out that people who shop for separate tonearms are very different from those interested in phono cartridges or turntables in general.

time-read
10 mins  |
July 2025
RECORD REVIEWS
Stereophile

RECORD REVIEWS

Ryan Truesdell launched his Gil Evans Project in 2012 with Centennial.

time-read
3 mins  |
July 2025
The iron-and-tube ethos
Stereophile

The iron-and-tube ethos

Woo Audio's 20th Anniversary WA24 headphone amplifier comes ina distinctive, low-slung chassis that welcomes the eye with gentle angular volumes and bright, frosty-surfaced, copper-toned controls.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2025
Stereophile

A solo Gryphon showroom in L.A.

Often in these pages (and in Industry Update), we have reported ways various brands have experimented with the traditional hi-fi-retail formula. An example: the single-company dealership, adopted most recently by the Vervent Audio Group, parent company to Focal and Naim.¹

time-read
4 mins  |
July 2025
Canor Hyperion P1
Stereophile

Canor Hyperion P1

PREAMPLIFIER

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2025
Quad 33/303
Stereophile

Quad 33/303

PREAMPLIFIER/POWER AMPLIFIER COMBO

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2025
MANUFACTURERS' COMMENTS
Stereophile

MANUFACTURERS' COMMENTS

ANY CLOD CAN HAVE THE FACTS; HAVING OPINIONS IS AN ART

time-read
3 mins  |
June 2025
Staying true to the passion
Stereophile

Staying true to the passion

Steve Jain, cofounder and managing director of Fidelity Imports, has been busy since launching the company six years ago in the Philadelphia area.

time-read
4 mins  |
June 2025

Vi bruker informasjonskapsler for å tilby og forbedre tjenestene våre. Ved å bruke nettstedet vårt samtykker du til informasjonskapsler. Finn ut mer