Technics 1200 Critic Fremer Praises the newer 1200G

glupson, "are we the only two people out there who think a new design would have been a better idea?"

No, in fact you are not.  Shortly after the SL1200GAE was introduced I posted a critique titled "What was Technics thinking?".

For those who bothered to read about them it was obvious that Technics spent a great deal of time and effort in designing their new line up of turntables.  But not everyone bothered to read about that.  Instead they jumped to conclusions based upon similarities in model numbers or physical appearance and assumed Technics simply pulled a major rip-off with higher priced offerings.  In actuality, Technics went to the extreme of recruiting a couple of the technicians from retirement who had worked on the famed SP-10 Mk 2 and 3 and EPA-100 arm to assist in the new upgrades.  I still believe Technics' decisions lead to confusion.

However it is similar to the false suggestion the SL1200 was a DJ table.  That was released in the '70s as a consumer product.  The role of the DJs was to embrace that table in the late '80s and '90s and their demand kept it in production.  It's easy to jump to conclusions if you don't bother with the facts.

chakster, you may have overshot the mark a bit in your reply.  I was certainly not denying the extent of the utilization of the Technics SL1200 series by DJs.  My basic point was to object to those who claim they were designed and marketed (originally) for DJs.  Correct or not, that carries an implication they are not then suitable for "serious" music lovers for vinyl playback.  So I've read, as you likely have too, many critiques that discredit the SL1200 series because they think of it only as a DJ table.

In actuality I expect many of the qualities that make those tables attractive to DJs such as speed consistency and build quality should also appeal to "audiophiles".  Anyway, they certainly can be thanked for keeping them in production long after they might have otherwise been discontinued.

So I think we hold similar views.

vinyl, in my opinion that "hatred" is misguided.

Those who have been in this hobby a long time such as myself will remember the advertisements from a certain belt-drive table manufacturer in Glasgow who criticized direct drive tables for cogging.  I'll admit I drank the kool-aid and abandoned interest in DD systems after that.  At least for many years.

But then I realized a few important points.  First, I'd never experienced cogging in any DD I owned or heard in friend's systems.  Second, recordings which contained long sustains such as with piano sounded more natural on DD tables than all but the most expensive belt-drive examples.  And third, few tables produced the energy and drive of the music like a decent DD example.

All this is not to suggest that decent sound can't be produced by a belt-drive system.  But I find advantages with DD which tip the scales for me.