VIDEO: See the new Technics turntable being made

There's no denying the eye-watering price tag on the new Technics turntables. But this video giving a glimpse of the product process might shed some light.

Technics sl-1200g manufacture

Oh how the DJ world rejoiced when the first inklings of a return of the iconic and ubiquitous Technics 1200 hit the news feeds. And then the actual product appeared in its limited edition form, with an audiophile aimed price tag of around six times that of the original. Clearly, despite Technics leaning on the somewhat accidental DJ heritage of the original, the new SL-1200GAE was not aimed at your average DJ’s wallet.

But there was hope in the shape of a non-limited edition called the 1200G. But hopes were soon dashed when the price tag was rumoured to be the same. Wait… what?

Coming in at £2700, the limited edition turntables were soon snapped up by eager collectors. I know two people who have them, and as far as I know, both will remain boxed as an investment. Canny lads.

So why is this turntable quite so taxing on your fragile bank balances? The straight answer (aside from the ease with which audiophiles will throw cash at new shiny) is that it’s all new tooling, and that is very expensive indeed, especially when dealing with precision electronics. And the low volume runs make return on investment hard.

Technics sl-1200g manufacture
Actual human uses actual eyes to quality check a new Technics turntable. I suppose he could be an android though right? Japanese manufacture is seriously advanced these days.

But perhaps the above video demonstrates rather more clearly just how much goes into manufacturing a turntable of this level. The lack of robots and reliance on skilled engineers and technicians goes a long way to explaining things. This isn’t a consumer electronics sausage factory by any stretch of the imagination. And as the video shows, the new Technics are being made on the machines that made the old ones.

Ultimately £2700 is still too much for DJs, and you’re fooling yourself if you believe for a single moment that Technics designed these for us. Yes we can use them, but spending north of £5K on a pair to spin DVS offers nothing over what is already out there. You won’t a better DJ, just a poorer one.

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Mark Settle
Mark Settle

The old Editor of DJWORX - you can now find Mark at WORXLAB

Articles: 1228

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48 Comments

  1. Good to see the all human assembly line. Its a thing of beauty and precision but even if I was super rich i’m not sure it could be justified. Great insight though.
    Side note; you would have thought they would use an unwarped bit of vinyl when testing unless that was part of the test? (2mins 28secs) ;)

      • Still you believe they didn’t design this for DJs (absolutely nonsense), yet they use a Qbert cart for testing in a promo clip.

        Pretty sure they know that DJs with more money in their pockets will buy this and perhaps some venues and clubs will also order a pair.
        Not a big market but still a market.

        • On point. Panasonic know very well that there is a market now with the “audiophile isolator rotary” dj`s buying custom mixers from Alpha or Isonoe and Thorens with a custom SME arm for very high prices. Plus all the big clubs like Berghain and The Block in Israel. Plus all the regular audiophiles that will buy it, Panasonic have a pretty nice market to go after.

      • That bits truly baffled me Mark, do you think they are not sure who they are aiming these at?? I’m willing to bet all the ‘VIP’ clubs will want to have these fitted for show off purposes, but i don’t see the point in putting them through that kind of abuse, this would be part of my home hifi system and nothing more, not that i really bother with all that home hifi stuff.

        • I think they know exactly who they are aiming them at. The cart is probably one they had hanging around from the DJ days, and has been strategically placed to appeal to DJs. But make no mistake — Technics is rising on the coat tails of the DJ scene that made the 1200 iconic. But the price alone should tell you that Technics is pitching (see what I did there?) this new 1200 as the market that the original was intended for, and that’s audiophiles.

            • Let me counter with this — can you imagine what would have happened if they’d left it off? A 1200 without a fader? EPIC FAIL… Technics hates DJs etc etc. For it to be released as a 1200, it absolutely had to have a pitch fader. But most of the target audience will never use it.

              I’ll be clear — for me, it’s going to take a sub £/$/€1K SL-1200 for me to believe that Technics has any real interest in servicing the DJ market.

              Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that these won’t be bought by DJs, and they’ll do a great job if they do. But if by targeting DJs you mean a 5x price hike for little in the way of an update to the original or tangible benefit over what is available now, then Technics is seriously taking the piss, and should be selling them with a lifetime supply of Kool Aid.

              But they’re not doing that. The Technics site is clear:

              “The direct-drive turntable invented by Technics is still highly acclaimed by audiophiles and DJs in the form of the SL-1200 Series, and there have been many requests to revive the turntable system. As such, we decided to develop a new system for Hi-Fi use.”

              Right there —FOR HI-FI USE. Yes, DJs can use them, but the new 1200 isn’t for DJs — it’s for audiophiles and is priced accordingly by the company that has very publicly planted its flag in audiophile territory.

              • Technics made every turntable aimed to HI-FI and the 1210 with the advice of some djs. It was the abuse of these equipment with bring us ttablism… Other brands tried to bring dedicated turntables with not so much sucess but djs still believe the technics are build with them in mind and this no sense bury the turntablism itself in autodestructive non understanding cycle. First Technics broke, later Vestax, lately Rane… And they reborn as HI-Fi to try be alive again and djs ask for djing and get pissed about prices… It was HI-FI and it’s still HI-FI! Even Vestax were instruments more than “mixing” equipment and because djs never took off as muscians (maybe next round with feetless faders, who knows) Vestax turned to “controllerism” and die.

                The point is even djing as artform is evolving drive by market (few diyers resist but people grow and turntablism becomes a less time hobby) and now we are just two days left to new Roland Serato one step more to “Live producing djing”. They are selling it as “revolution” but it’s another step in the Ableton>The Bridge>MsPinky maxforlive>NI Remix decks/Stems… Vector. Maybe tomorrow NI will present Maschine Deck and once again put themselves in the top…

                Turntable (or better said motorized round controllers with tonearm) are like pianos in the XIX… Today people use keys as input mechanism to play lots of diferent sounds (more with synths of course) and turntable is doing the same travel. If people keep them as relevant, they will be. If not, they will dissapear as many instruments done.

                • Then why haven’t they disappeared yet? You predictions about Vinyl and Turntable’ism is hogwash. Turntables, Jog-wheels and scratching isn’t going anywhere. You think NI will make it back to the top with real the jog-wheel’less controllers that they have now? Or something else without Jog-wheels? The reason why they fell from the top is because they somehow thought that their controllers didn’t need jog wheels. Its been downhill for NI since.

  3. If they stick to making just 30 motors a day this is never going to be a mass market item. That said once they make their investment on tooling and design back they might be open to a lower-cost model.

    • They can continue to make 30 a day @ £2700 each and probably satisfy demand — for $30m turnover per annum. Technics is positioned as an audiophile brand, so I really don’t see them bringing out anything mass market or cheaper.

    • It was due to show its face at DJ Expo, but didn’t. Other than that, I have no idea. My guess is that they’re very close to polishing the prototype seen at NAMM. It’s not just like popping out another super OEM — the VL12 is all new.

      • Can’t wait for news on this. Really keen to see the wow and flutter specs for them and get some idea about isolation. I abhor the Super OEMs, they all rumble like crazy.

  5. You kidding me? This is not an impossible investment for a larger club. I feel like that is the market they are targeting, clubs, gear rentals & festivals. Makes sense too.

  6. It’s ironic that the music they used for the video has nothing to do with the tunes these turntables will play at the hands of the buyers who obviously will abuse them to the extreme

  7. It’s ironic really when you see the guy checking the turntable wearing all of that dust inhibiting clothing when we all know what it’ll look like after 6 months in a club….:)

  8. Looks like very interesting gear. However for a product that’s so expensive I really feel like they could have upped the production value of the video a bit more. It’s got poor exposure, camera only color balance, errors in the grammar, really poor typography, and a bunch of the shots aren’t stabilized.

    If all the little details in the product matter, they sure aren’t showing it. Sweat the details on everything.

  10. anyone who still thinks that those are not aimed at DJs is pretty much a nutjob

    anyone ever used the SL-1700MK2? that had fader start for radio stations and was advertised as the turntable of choice for radio stations

    Ever since the 70s Technics has made turntables for both the consumer and the DJ

      • A nutjob? Please, do demonstrate to me with clear facts, how a total absence of DJ marketing, a price tag of 4 x that of its nearest rival, and a very clear statement on the product page that the new 1200G is a hi-fi deck, shows that this is aimed at DJs.

        • When i bought my first technics they had no rival on the market the price then was 3000 Francs (french money before Euro). One month later I bought my second technics but the price changed :4000 Francs !! Why ??! Vestax just introduced the PDX . This how Technics deal with their turntable prices. The same way Apple does with their Macbooks.

    • I have learned mixing with a TECHNICS SL-1710 MK2 then I bought a second hand 1200 to replace the other belt driven deck that I have. People buying these was very far from being DJs, they only want a device full of features looking sexy (like people these days with laptop/smartphone).

      I remember also seeing a Technics deck that had an infrared beam under the slipmat with clear holes passing thru that could detect the vinyl size and select the correct rpm. Can’t remember the name of the unit but pretty impressive technology back then.

      Technics was mostly used in radio/broadcast because the motor have the shorter starting time of it’s era. You could have top speed in exactly 1/8 of a rotation (45°). Drag was considered like minimal. So when we needed to cue a sound, we would need to step back a little bit to not have drag and flutter notes at the start.

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