Technics SL-1200G, Loving DIRECT-DRIVE turntables

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[Music] today's show is different today's show is different on a number of levels but starting with the fact that it's about my journey yes it's all about me this time no i'm just kidding it's a review of the techniques sl 1200 g now here's the thing it's a direct drive turntable and i never thought i would want to own a direct drive turntable i was a belt drive guy for life i've owned some of the best i'm not going to give you the complete list but i had actually two lynn lp 12s a roxanne xerxes a vpi classic and lastly an sme model 15. all belt drives and i never thought i would change belt drive for life but then last year in late late in october of last year i reviewed the techniques sl 1200 gr and that set something in motion first because it had a detachable headshot i could change cartridges in a minute from one cartridge to the next from a grado to an orifan to the mofi to audio technica and i just so much enjoyed as mood strikes changing cartridges and i couldn't do that with the sme nope just stuck with one cartridge the orifon cadenza blue but when i played the the techniques this point the gr i was just having a blast changing cartridges and listening to different sounds right there was something about using it the user interface on the techniques was definitely better than the sme now the sme is a better sounding turntable no doubt about it than the gr but that's what set me thinking that maybe i should try the next model up in the techniques line which is this one today the 1200 g but they look nearly identical the 1200 g and the gr but they're not identical they have different motors different tone arms different platters pretty much it's a completely different turntable and just to be graphic about it the g weighs about 40 pounds almost 40 pounds and the gr weighs about 25 pounds the the gr's platter weighs five and a half pounds and the g's platter weighs nearly eight pounds so they look similar but they're not similar and they shouldn't because one is four grand then one is seventeen hundred dollars but later on this review i'm going to talk about how they sound different is the g worth the extra price that's what i want to talk about i just want to take a second to talk about how it feels to play records because that's part of the whole deal with physical media is that you're physically interacting with it you're taking the record out of the sleep putting it on the platter putting the there's all that to it and how that all feels is part of the deal it is part of the deal and the techniques turntable just feels great now the sme 15 was a beautifully constructed you know made in the uk turntable just a stunning piece of industrial design really well crafted etc etc etc but i prefer playing records on the techniques and that's what was driving me nuts like why is this so i was playing the techniques turntable i don't know three or four times as often as i was playing the sme even though i knew it didn't sound as good but i could change cartridges and that was where this all set in motion so i requested this model here today the 1200 g now in black which is the model i have it's called the 12 10 g but from now on i'm just going to call it the 1200 g so i just want to talk a little bit about the details of the design i'm going to put up all the specs and everything so if you want to get into the minutia you can right there and of course you can go to the techniques website and learn everything you want to know and there's a lot of detail but i'm not doing that kind of review so as i said the the arm is actually magnesium on the g and it's aluminum on the gr the top plate by the way of the g the top plate of the plinth is 10 millimeter aluminum it just has a real high quality feel and the motor design is what they call coral so i'll put up a picture what the motor looks like right now that's pretty freaking special that's not an off-the-shelf motor i mean techniques has been making direct drive turntables since 1970 they did it first with the sp-10 and then the sl 1200 the original model followed just a couple of years after so they've been tweaking this technology for like over a half a century oh one other detail about the platter that's really good other than as i said earlier it weighs nearly eight pounds it is a three layer design the top part is brass looks really cool the bulk of it though is die cast aluminum not machined aluminum but die cast and then the underside the underbelly is rubber to damp the platter regarding the differences in sound between the sme 15 and the techniques 1200 g well it's a little complicated because well the smb turntable had a fixed head shell tone arm and the 1200g has a detachable head shell so in other words i couldn't quickly go back and forth between the two but i do know the sound of the 15 well enough to do some mental comparisons and i would say well first of all and most obviously the 15 is a more transparent more see-through clearer sounding turntable and the 1200 g is darker less vivid less vivid sounding than the 15. the 15 is a little lively or sounding this higher energy higher contrast through it yeah that's true but there's something easier to listen to something about the sound of the direct drive turntable that was easier to listen to i was more at ease listening to the 1200 g the bass had more drive to it kicked harder you know any bass heavy music had more energy more liveliness better pitch definition and more forward motion it just was more physically involving to listen to the 1200 g than the 15. which really wasn't what i expected so that's the way it worked out and i sold the 15 that was not on loan that was my own purchase so i sold the 15 and i'm probably haven't yet taken possession of the 1200 g but that's almost positively going to happen and so the bulk of this review today which is i think the really relevant part is comparing the sound of the 1200 g to the 1200 gr that's what i'm going to set out to do now because they look so similar except one is black and one is silver but the basic look is so similar you know mentally i thought they're gonna sound kind of similar but they didn't as for the comparisons between the 1200 g and the gr it was super easy both turntables have detachable headshell tone arms so i could swap with the same cartridge between the two and i used two cartridges over the course of this review the grado platinum 3 which is a moving iron cartridge functionally very similar to a moving magnet and the zoo denon 103 which is a moving coil cartridge the phono preamp was the same for both turntables it was a parasound jc3 plus so what we were getting here was the difference in sound between the two turntables everything else was the same the cartridge and the head shell and the phono preamp didn't change so all i could hear was the difference between the two the first music selection was this one this everly brothers record which i chose because it's a beautiful recording it's an all analog recording the mastering the mix the session was analog and it's just a gorgeous recording their vocals their harmonies are exquisite and i could hear more reverb coming from the g than the gr the gr seemed to damp things down a bit so that was the sound was a little more smeared might be a way of describing it and it felt like with the g that i was hearing like a direct connection to the session like this is happening now live and when i played it on the gr less so more like a recording less connection less emotional connection on my part to the music itself the timbre of the vocals was also just more complete with the g than the gr now the gr is a terrific sounding turntable i've been listening to it for since october and really really love it but the g was just taking it up to the next level more of well let's just call it a high end sound and the gr misses some of that it's not it's not as complete i forgot to mention this the cartridge i was using to start was the grado platinum 3. so next the next recording was this one bob dylan's oh mercy which is started out as a digital recording not a great sounding recording but it's really good i love the music on this record i think it's it's one of his better late stage although it's at this point almost 30 years old recordings anyway uh yeah i'm listening with the grado and i felt like dylan was was pushing harder you know he had more to say i felt that more with the g than the gr the music's dynamics were better the with the g than the gr and the bass line was just easier to follow it bounced more with the g than the gr continuing continuing with this one with the english beat this record is all about groove it's all about the drive of the music and yeah you kind of know where this is going right the g just pushed harder the the bass again the bass lines just had more life to them over the g than that what i was getting from the gr um the music actually seemed like a better mastering job over the g than the gr because it just i was it felt like i was hearing more from the groove with the g than the gr i just want to stop for a second because you can see where the direction is going right the g is a better sounding turntable hands down it's not a subtle difference if you play these two turntables through a reasonably high resolution system you're going to hear these differences i have no doubt about it but again as i was doing the work and i'm looking at the turntable something but they look exactly the same it was the weirdest thing but they don't sound the same and as i said earlier they shouldn't because one is more than twice as expensive than the other so you know what they say you get what you pay for it and it also did feel a little better now that where does this leave me though now i have sold the sme 15 and i'm gonna buy a new turntable and it's 99 sure that it's going to be a 1200 g preferably in silver and not black by the way and feeling really excited and energized by that prospect because i so enjoy changing cartridges i love that the g and i love the gr but the idea that i can go from dynavector to grado to sure whatever it is and just easily swap out cartridge something i have never been able to do as long as i've been an audiophile with all of my previous turntables this just turns me on matter of fact one of my friends who's also a pretty die-hard audiophile who has lived with this um not being able to change cartridges now he's probably gonna do it so it's appealing so if you're in that camp that you have a belt drive turntable with a non-detachable headshell maybe it's something you should think about so i that's where it's at i am excited about what's coming next because as i said at the beginning of this episode this is my journey and this is the next step in my journey of is it a sideways move is it a backwards move i don't know i just know that i'm really enjoying the sound of the techniques 1200 g i think i hope it's going to stick around here for a number of years speaking of sticking around it is now time for the audiophiliac viewers system of the day this one comes from freddy he lives in margate florida and well this is his system he's a bit of a spawn action figure collector as you can tell on the left side of the screen anyway he spends many hours a week listening with his girlfriend he thinks he finally has his system sounding just right as for the system his dac is identified ares 2. eq is a loki mini plus amp cambridge audio axr 100 streaming comes through a sony bravia tv speakers a are his own diy lii open baffled design with a tilt back adjustment and speakers b are the ever popular klipsch rp 600m and the subwoofer which i'm guessing he uses for both speakers is uh martin logan dynamo 700 thanks freddy okay so we are back you know if you'd like to really help support the show the best way to do that by far is to check out my patreon and see if it's right for you i will say i'll give i'll tip my hand a little bit that the top tier because there's different levels to support that you can get through patreon the top tier well they start at just a couple of dollars a month but the top tier is 50 a month and if you subscribe for 50 a month we have a conversation for about 15 minutes at the beginning of each month so that's what you get for the top tier but the others i'm more likely to respond to questions and stuff that you can email me uh if you're a patron of mine so that's a reason to do it and they you were charged for the subscription by the way at the beginning of the month the other thing i'd like to bring up is you know where i'm going now right is my podcast the audiophiliac podcast now i have a website for my podcast which is which is linked below and by the way the patreon connection is also linked below but you can also hear the podcast on apple podcasts and spotify and i heart radio and the places that podcasts pop up if you like those if you could give me five stars or like them or whatever i would very much appreciate that and of course subscribe to them if that's possible on the platform of your choice lastly well if you dig what i do here please hit the like button and also subscribe to this channel and with that i can say yeah my work here is at last complete thank you again for watching i really do hope to see you back here again very very soon bye bye you
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Channel: Steve Guttenberg Audiophiliac
Views: 175,960
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: turntable reviews, analog, analog audio, vinyls, record collecting
Id: ln3ZX6QRo8c
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)
Published: Wed Apr 13 2022
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