UPDATED: Now with video that pretty much confirms what I’d worked out.
Investigative journalism is traditionally in the vein of shaking the grapevine to see what falls out, and then following up leads. But in the digital age of stuff being posted on social media, it’s often a matter of digging into websites to almost brute-force find hidden pages, or in my case using Photoshop to forensically uncover otherwise hidden details. So when Technics posted a mysteriously dark image in their Instagram channel relating to their previously announced Technics7th event, it was a clear case of letting curves and levels do the investigative work.
THE ORIGINAL
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsFZ5EdAJlE/
First port of call — get the largest version of the image I could find, which yielded a regular Instagram 1080×1080 image to work from. And a few tweaks with a combination of levels, curves, and other tools at my disposal soon uncovered a heavily compressed and thus highly pixellated image of a turntable. But is it a new turntable or an old one?
The first obvious clue is the colour of the lighting scheme. The lights on new Technics are blue, but on this image the buttons and power light are reddish, harking back to the heritage of the SL-1200 for DJs. So is this just an old turntable?
I think not. There are a few clues in the rest of the image. The blindingly obvious giveaway is the pitch button — it only appears on new 1200s. So it’s clearly a current generation rather than old model.
The colour scheme is different though. As I tweak the levels, it feels like this model is dark, but it could just be a 1210. But I’m looking in particular at the buttons. If this was an image of a silver 1200 that was processed to be darker, the text on them would still be dark. But the text is light, telling me that the buttons are actually dark. And when I compare this to the rest of the body and the brightness of the platter highlight, this looks like a different colour scheme to what we’re used to.
There is something reminiscent of 2015’s blue/gold dress malarkey about the colour scheme, especially with the image processing already taken place at Technic’s end. But I’m quietly confident that my deductions are accurate.
So going out on a limb, this looks to have the warmer lights of a classic SL-1200/1210, but is very much in the colour scheme of the new 1210GR, but darker still. There are certain differences — the anti-skate dial and tonearm screws contrast heavily with the tonearm mechanism, and look to be shiny rather than black. The tonearm also looks to be shiny chrome rather than the matt finish.
A couple of further observations — the back corner where the 45 adaptor sits is deliberately darkened. Also, there’s a sharp line on the front panel. Both of these anomalies are probably just the combination of lighting and heavy image compression, but I notice these things when the rest of the image isn’t as hidden as perhaps it could be. It’s as if they’re hidden on purpose. No, that is not a CD drive wedged into the front face.
UPDATE: The new video posted at the top shows that there definitely isn’t a CD drive in it.
OR IT MIGHT BE NOTHING
Obviously, I’m excitedly looking for things that might not even be there, and this could just be one big red herring on the part of Panasonic to throw us all off the scent. But my gut is twitching and telling me that a new SL-1210 mk7 will be announced (and logically a 1200 too), one that is quite specific to the needs of DJs. I would assume that cables would be removable too, and ideally the squidgy audiophile feet of the 1200GR changed for something more friendly to the routine abuse of DJs, especially turntablists.
Just to pour petrol on the rumour bonfire, it turns out that Technics has a stand at NAMM, strategically placed bang opposite Pioneer DJ, slap bang in the heart of the DJ section. That’s going to be a heavily trafficked spot at the show without a doubt.
Just seven days to wait, to find out if there’s anything coming for DJs at all. If the grapevine word I’ve gleaned is true though, I suspect we’ll all be a little happier next week.
What’s wrong with the mk2?
Nothing. But they were discontinued in 2010. Sometimes people like to buy new, and if a MK7 can deliver more than the MK2 offered at a price that isn’t off the scale, then it’s more choice for people.
The idea is to make it compelling for ALL DJs with MK2’s to buy an MK7. If I am going to spend likely 2K on a new set, then it better be really impressive.
This. As a collector of Technics Turntables, the price point is going to make a huge difference. With them having the same feature set at a higher pricepoint, their price will end up dropping to meet the increasing price of the MK2’s in 5-10 years.
I’d imagine one reason they don’t just continue making the MK2 or MK5 is the tooling isn’t useable anymore. Machinery wears out, and replacing it is a cost/benefit calculation. Technics have already begun producing hardware with new tools for the high-end market, so scaling down the materials and production costs makes sense.
As much as I love collecting turntables I never use, what’s the market for DJ turntables these days? Still ok I suppose?
They’re still selling, but mostly to those who are just playing vinyl as opposed to those using them to DJ vinyl and DVS.
We’ll have to see if prices of second hand Technics are impacted by the new ones. If they keep the price of the MK7 above say £800, then “classic” MK2s and MK5s will still be attractive. If it’s under that (which I honestly doubt), the second hand market could see “old” Technics fair worse, especially if it gets flooded by updaters.
well looks like my hopes are dashed for the 7inch player to become commercially available… looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us though
The SL-700 will never come from Technics.
Wishful thinking i know. (i guess i was thinking they would have the tooling for SL700 locked away somewhere).
SERATO DJ PRO MIDI CONTROLLER MADE BY SERATO COMING IN 2019
1. Stay on topic.
2. Unless it’s hardware and software made by Serato rather than in partnership, this isn’t a prediction — it’s a certainty.
3. See 1.
He is on topic
The minute a “player device with deck performance and sound quality equal to the vinyl tt” exists;
A huge chunk of the interest for tts will disappear
Ya`ll give up on great ideas WAAAAAAAY to quick, all because the group of Non djs that made the latest toy, did a crap job of designing
This aint complicated
-8.75 ” platter
-timecode output
-eq ON player
– batt powered
I don’t see anything in the picture that wasn’t on past turntables. if they really want to sell a new product they should take what worked for others and implement it in there’s.
There is an entire giant market of DJs who came up in the their teens and twenties working turntables, who are now 40 and 50 and have money to spend on upgrades to recapture the magic feelings they had as youth, but who can’t get their wives to okay $4000 but they will ok $1200-1600.
I’m in my 40’s and could care less about brand as I have owned most of them and have no interest in spending money on something that I owned twenty years ago at a third of the price they will sell for today.
The saying is “Couldn’t” care less, as in, “I`ve exhausted ALL of my concern about this.”
Otherwise you`re saying that you do indeed care, which doesn`t seem like your intention.
I’m in my 40s too and I’d love to cop a fresh pair of Technics turntables. I bet theres more of me than you! but… I refurbished my 1994 sl1200mk2s and they’ll work for another 25 years so probably not ;)
its a turntable not a circus attraction light show like you want.
the point being if you just release something you already have thousands of in the market your sale will suffer.
Sales won’t suffer because there are lots of people who want something better than SuperOEMS with their lose tonearms.
The question will be will it have an analog or digital pitch as lots of DJs who do long blends complain about digital pitch controls not staying on beat like the analogs.
Im sure Technics is aware of that.
I agree that there needs to be some differentiation between new and old. Some people will rush out to replace what they already have, because we all like new stuff. But to push out something that’s only slightly different at potentially twice the price of everything else in the market is dangerous, even for Technics.
We’ve had almost a decade of superOEMS being the alternative, and to me it seems that most people are happy with those.
Still the undisputed king of all wanabee turntables.
Obviously this will be an MK7 with classicc red strobe lights.
Price will probably around 1200
From the latest video posted by Technics:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d47974fb73a82a83c2f74c37106730bdb680688f8cd9fbbe05da3cf58b5899e7.gif
It definitely looks like a turntable. Hopefully a CD player slot on the side. It’ll never beat the Gemini CDT-5000 though.
I remember that unit.
There’s a pair on eBay in cases for £1K. If I had the funds, I’d have them in a heartbeat. And then when I’d done with them, I’d then sell them to Deft for £3K.
Could be an alarm clock?
The Gemini was an OEM job.
From the looks, I always found Numark’s approach more appealing.
Gemini let use cd and turntable at the same time, numark not.
Do people (aside from Aphrodite) still use CD’s?
I’m predicting a hipster comeback for CDs in 2019.
actually pretty spot on
Nobody cares about CDs anymore Pioneer should change their CDJ name into PDJ
LMAO
If cassettes can have a renaissance then anything is possible.
I am kinda happy to see mixtapes coming back, even as just a collector’s item. PureAcid has been giving me all sorts of feels lately.
Little offtopic, but anybody noticed next Phase delay? They’ve mailed people that they will probably release it in march because of chinese new year, they even didn’t post it on facebook, just sending mails..
I’m still waiting for Vestax to show up
No need to wait for the event I guess.
https://www.technics.com/global/sl1200/features/?fbclid=IwAR2JlHAhqkKEv73VZwS3-YIb3PmqjTw_soGc3cXqVLDBnHTiBqZjFGw15pI