Forgetting of course DJ's also work with cartridges that can track up to 5 grams
to create recorded 'stability', in the rough settings they are using such TT's.
TECHNICS SL1200/1210. HYPE OR FACT?
- Thread starter John P
- Start date
to create recorded 'stability', in the rough settings they are using such TT's.bottleneck
pfm Member
If they are tracking at five grams it's not with the stock headshell. I put an Ortofon OM type "DJ" cartridge on there and could barely get 2 grams with the counterweight weight all the way at the front (my point being the table and arm were not originally designed to track at 5 grams).Forgetting of course DJ's also work with cartridges that can track up to 5 grams
It's also about customer expectation and what they expect to have to pay. The hifi buyer has over the years come to expect that "if it costs more, it's better" so he wants and expects it to be expensive. I used to have a sports car, and the manufacturer would sell a racing aeroscreen in perspex for (iirc) about £100. One of the kit car manufacturers did something similar (near identical in fact) which fitted their car - £20. Economies of scale? No, it came out of a shed in Nottingham, made by hand on a wooden former. Development costs? Hardly, it's only a bit of bent perspex. The difference was that the buyers of the completed car wanted to buy the best, so if it was more costly then it was the one. The kit car builders meanwhile were a thrifty bunch and they knew a bit of bent perspex was never worth £100. Both coexisted in harmony and still do. Even knowing that the cheaper one fitted the more expensive car the majority of owners of that car chose the one from the branded manufacturer "because it's the real thing".
sq225917
Bit of this, bit of that
You have that backwards Steve, people will pay whatever they have to for what they want. But faced with two identical options from the same source for differing prices, when it is known they are identical, people choose the least expensive one time and time again.
Sure, but the point I'm making is that if you have 2 items from 2 sources then a significant number will choose the expensive item because merely the fact that it's expensive makes it more desirable. Look at Cristal champagne. Is it the best? Not definitively. But the pop stars buying it don't care. They haven't tasted the premium offerings from Moet, Bollinger, Bouvet, etc, and don't want to. They want "the best" and Cristal fits the bill and has a price tag to match. Back in our world, Stella lager used to be advertised as "reassuringly expensive" for this very reason. The shops are full of designer labels. If a Prada T shirt was the same price as one from Asda then it would kill the brand stone dead inside 6 months.
Yes it is relevant, it's central to the point. Someone said "you look at how good a SL1200 is for £300 and you wonder how the hifi manufacturers get away with charging the same for a crappy little motor and a rubber band in a wooden box", I replied "It's about hifi consumers expecting things to be expensive or they won't take them seriously" and the rest follows. You and I both know there is nothing about a Prada T shirt that makes it worth £50 but people want to pay it, and the fact that it's insanely expensive is part of its appeal. People do this at all sorts of levels, it's basic psychology that if you can get something for loose change you don't value it and have low expectations of it.
Paul R
pfm Member
Except that's not what 'someone' said. The quote is just up thread.
The fact that some 'audiophiles' find expensive items sound better than equivalent cheap ones is obvious, but I don't think that Heybrook or Thorens priced their turntables on that basis (although Basis may have..).
FWIW I'm not at all convinced that the SL1200 outperforms (say) a Rega P3 in sound-quality terms. It would be interesting to find out one day.
Paul
The fact that some 'audiophiles' find expensive items sound better than equivalent cheap ones is obvious, but I don't think that Heybrook or Thorens priced their turntables on that basis (although Basis may have..).
FWIW I'm not at all convinced that the SL1200 outperforms (say) a Rega P3 in sound-quality terms. It would be interesting to find out one day.
Paul
sq225917
Bit of this, bit of that
Yeh the Technics cost the £600 they do because of the volume of sales and the 3 decades over which that sales volume has been achieved. Technics probably made more 1210's in their best year than Linn ever has LP12's in all their years. It's largely about economies of scale.
Rega are scalping no one with the RB arms, are they. Sadly the same can't be said for all their competitors.
Rega are scalping no one with the RB arms, are they. Sadly the same can't be said for all their competitors.
darrylfunk
Banned
what 1200 cost six hundred nicker i have bought 5 for that amount all mint!!!
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Peter Stockwell
Back for more ...
I've not heard a P3 but I've had two planar 3s (in the 80s and again in the 90s). I think I have to consider it the world's most unsatisfactory turntable. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad, it's just I always itched to get something better when I had them.
I moved from a Garrard 401 (1998 -> 2009) to the Technics SL1210, and I preferred the Technics, in stock form, to the Garrard. I believe that on the used market the Teccie is unbeatable for the money they cost.
positive_energy
pfm Member
The P3-24 is nothing like the old 80s Planar 3
TheMJ
pfm Member
Naimnut,
I originally had an LP12 / ITTOK, then went to a PTToo / AO RB250 (definite step up) and now an SL1200 Mk11 with stock arm, AT440MLa on sorbothane feet with a 1200 Acromat (the feet and mat are the biggest sound per pound mod I have heard) and this beats the LP12 and is virtually as good as the PTToo (IMHO) at less than half the price. Sure it has its shortcomings but what do you expect for £ 300 ?
sonddek
Trade: SUPATRAC
Get the transformer out of the deck and then reassess the shortcomings. The cost of parts to do this is less than a tenner.