Much like Bruce Lee on the cover of a martial arts magazine, dropping Technics into a headline on a DJ site is a guaranteed click fest. So you’d think that being in the business of needing eyes on our words, we’d inappropriately crowbar the legendary brand into the most tenuously linked stories. I swear that a ridiculous “five best DJ hats to wear when playing on Technics” listicle would garner serious traffic.
But after a string of stories around the relaunch of Technics as not at all a DJ brand, we decided to not shamelessly post anything related to the brand in a bid for clicks, simply because it was clear that the return of the 1200 was for everyone else but DJs.
But a pre-Christmas morsel has hit my social feeds courtesy of What Hifi, and it’s one that might not actually be a shameless attention grabbing piece of clickbaitery. Allow me to explain.
The Consumer Electronics Show aka CES is where Panasonic generally trots out anything to do with the Technics brand. This is where they’ve previously released 1200 related news, and of course made sure to reinforce the DJ link too, even if the new products have been entirely audiophile focussed. But this year, they’re holding a very DJ focussed event called Technics7th that features actual DJs, playing vinyl on actual turntables.
Back this up with the recent Turntablist orchestra event, and there’s just the merest glimmer of hope that Panasonic may well be doing something for us beyond a 2x priced but still unsuitable for DJs turntable. Just ask Mojaxx.
The Technics7th event is happening 7th January between 8-11.30pm PST (i.e. Europe is in bed), and is being streamed live from Las Vegas via the Boiler Room channel and Dommune, followed by the actual press event a day later.
To be honest, Panasonic might not be launching anything to do with DJs at all. But it’s important for them to be seen to be supporting the scene that allowed them to sell 3.5m units around the world over several decades, even if it means pumping marketing money into a product that they’ve already sold.
Is this event a teaser? I wonder if they’ll do close-ups of the gear during the live events? Or if they’re just using MK2s like everyone else does? My advice to Panasonic — just put new feet on the 1200GR, call it a 1200DJ (to allow for range differentiation from audiophile gear), find a way to knock 40-50% off the price, and a solid percentage of the DJ world will beat down the retail chain’s door to own a pair.
Summing up — it’s a journalistic truth that if a headline is posited as a question, the answer is usually a resounding hell no, followed by mutters of “bloody clickbait”. But with Panasonic traditionally feeling little need to do anything for the DJ scene from a marketing perspective, recent activity does indicate that something more DJ related could be coming. Time will tell.