First run of new Technics SL-1200 sells out in under 30 minutes
- Thread starter Decibel_116
- Start date
DustyOldPile
Vinyl Goddess
Considering that there's a large enough faction of AK'ers that hated it at $500 +/-, and considering that the argument still goes on as to if the original was all that and a can of Pabst or if the Hanpin-types are 'good enough' or 'almost as good', etc., I really and highly doubt that anyone except the morbidly curious and/or wealthy are going to actually plop down the beans for one. As has been pointed out, it looks too much like and performs too much like the original. Consumers can be expected to somewhat underwrite R&D, but not to *that* extent and for what appears to be not a great deal in return.
JP
7480 74111110101115
There's a goodly number that'll hate it at any price.
Is that considered general knowledge now? Based on?
DustyOldPile
Vinyl Goddess
Photos and early reviews. I suppose that the penultimate turntable comparison *would* end up being a draw, you shouldn't hear much of a difference at all when you compare Incredibly Great Direct Drive Turntable One with the new Incredibly Great Direct Drive Turntable Two, as Number One was damned good to begin with. But...something...SOMETHING has to be gained for the extra $3500. A little different and classier styling? Make it look less DJ-ish? (I doubt many DJ's are gonna pop for $8K, it would take a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnng time to get return on investment with that kind of outlay) A champagne fountain built in? Something!.....
Poinzy
Super Member
I can see it now on YouTube comment sections:
"Does it have USB?"
"Can I back-cue with it?"
Poinzy
Super Member
Basically, with this thing, you're buying what would normally be a $2000 turntable, price-accelerated by Technics branding to a $4000 turntable.
JP
7480 74111110101115
On one hand I was rather disappointed that they went with the 1200 styling. On the other, I'm happy my SP-10s have no new competition.
The W&F spec, if real, is perplexing. Though, if they're measuring with a test record, and a modern one at that, that may be the explanation. I had to resort to finding the best of the best in vintage test records to measure anything semi-meaningful. All the popular modern ones I tried were horrid.
lini
just me...
Q_L: You have to consider that the new versions are quite obviously not meant to be mass-market products anymore, foremost because the market nowadays isn't big enough for that. Hence these new Technicses aren't optimised for cost-effective manufacturing. For example, for smaller scale production one will often rather choose to machine parts than to cast these, as the minimum investment for casting would be too costly for smaller production volumes, while casting would certainly be cheaper for larger production volumes...
Dualfred's Langer No.7 basically suffers from the same problem. Unless he could be certain that it would sell way better at a somewhat lower price level, he can't really afford/justify to invest enough in advance to lower the cost of production enough to be able to reduce the price a good bit...
One could hope that Panasonic may nevertheless also intend to test the waters with the new SL1200 incarnations, in order to check, whether a larger-scale return with a more cost-effective model might be a good idea...
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
Dualfred's Langer No.7 basically suffers from the same problem. Unless he could be certain that it would sell way better at a somewhat lower price level, he can't really afford/justify to invest enough in advance to lower the cost of production enough to be able to reduce the price a good bit...
One could hope that Panasonic may nevertheless also intend to test the waters with the new SL1200 incarnations, in order to check, whether a larger-scale return with a more cost-effective model might be a good idea...
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
gusten
Addicted Member
In principle the only valid comparisons I can see is doing it oneself. Surely there is none else that can tell if the measurements between the models are relevant, if the figures make sense.
But most of all of course, how will one personally perceive the difference in SQ between the two models.
Jeff K
Super Member
This. If specs told the whole story, no one would prefer idlers and 90% of the belt drives because they don't measure as well as SL-1200's.
If looks told the whole story, then the Hanpins would sound just as good as an SL-1200.
But y'all carry on with your speculate'n.
Whaddup
Active Member
With inflation factored in I think the sl-1200 was $2k originally. Like this turntable there were not too many sl-1200's produced in the beginning and djing was in its infancy. I think there will be a non limited edition version that will go for around $2k once this has been out in the wild for a while and reviews from owners trickle in. If it takes off with dj's I could see the price dropping fast, but it is very much a cdj/controller world right now and the price is way too high. Technics probably lost allot money on this first initial run despite the high price tag.
I quit reading around page 4...
I think what people are missing is this is not a Technics SL1200.. It looks like one but it has been massively upgraded. It weighs three times as much, far superior motor etc.
The original SL1200 went for $350 in 1972 - Which works out roughly at $2000
They were so successful and sold so many, manufacturing of these progressively got cheaper. They are starting from square 1 all over again.
I don't see what the fuss is about. I'm glad they have re-released the most iconic turntable of all time. Lets face it, this turntable kept vinyl alive in the late 90s and early 2000s. The only people still playing records outside of our tiny audiophile fringe group were DJs.
I think what people are missing is this is not a Technics SL1200.. It looks like one but it has been massively upgraded. It weighs three times as much, far superior motor etc.
The original SL1200 went for $350 in 1972 - Which works out roughly at $2000
They were so successful and sold so many, manufacturing of these progressively got cheaper. They are starting from square 1 all over again.
I don't see what the fuss is about. I'm glad they have re-released the most iconic turntable of all time. Lets face it, this turntable kept vinyl alive in the late 90s and early 2000s. The only people still playing records outside of our tiny audiophile fringe group were DJs.
BrocLuno
Lunatic Member
I'd only buy another BMW with the old "shark nose" styling. Never one of the new "melted" round nose beemers... In my estimation, they have gone down hill in the last 5 years ... I can't stand I-Drive
Same for TT's for me ...
DustyOldPile
Vinyl Goddess
I'm not buying this argument anymore. How many DOZENS upon DOZENS of turntable models did Technics come out with in the past? Sure, some of them shared some parts, but for the most part, they didn't. None of those were $4000, claiming to recoup tooling and R&D costs.
It is what it is, and if they feel that they can mark it up 400%, then booyah for them. I ain't payin' it.
osageaudio
Active Member
Hi Folks,
Just to add a bit of perspective to the discussion, this new Technics turntable is the lowest-priced new turntable currently being made in Japan. The second-lowest priced model is this one: http://www.luxman.com/product.php?pid=47. It's $6799.00.
Japanese-made turntable and tonearm combinations go up in price from there. One of the big reasons for the pricing is the cost of labor and fringe benefits for Japanese workers. It's nearly three times the hourly rate of the average in any other country. When you don't have the advantage of working from a parts bin stocked many years previously, and when you don't use major parts made in China or Taiwan, then anything made in Japan is going to be more expensive than something comparable made elsewhere.
Because of how the world economy is right now, and also because of the fact that hi-fi electronics are no longer mass market products, the lower-price products are going to come from China and developing countries in Eastern Europe. And on that subject, volume does figure in to some extent as well. Panasonic, or no other company, is ever going to build 10,000 turntables a day under various brand names. We'll never see a company build 10,000 turntables a year again.
There was a time when records and the radio were the way people got their music. There are a number of other choices now, and they all compete for market share.
The hi-fi world is not the same as it was in 1975.
Happy listening.
Just to add a bit of perspective to the discussion, this new Technics turntable is the lowest-priced new turntable currently being made in Japan. The second-lowest priced model is this one: http://www.luxman.com/product.php?pid=47. It's $6799.00.
Japanese-made turntable and tonearm combinations go up in price from there. One of the big reasons for the pricing is the cost of labor and fringe benefits for Japanese workers. It's nearly three times the hourly rate of the average in any other country. When you don't have the advantage of working from a parts bin stocked many years previously, and when you don't use major parts made in China or Taiwan, then anything made in Japan is going to be more expensive than something comparable made elsewhere.
Because of how the world economy is right now, and also because of the fact that hi-fi electronics are no longer mass market products, the lower-price products are going to come from China and developing countries in Eastern Europe. And on that subject, volume does figure in to some extent as well. Panasonic, or no other company, is ever going to build 10,000 turntables a day under various brand names. We'll never see a company build 10,000 turntables a year again.
There was a time when records and the radio were the way people got their music. There are a number of other choices now, and they all compete for market share.
The hi-fi world is not the same as it was in 1975.
Happy listening.
lini
just me...
I don't think that's true, unless you'd limit that to 10000 per year of exactly the same model. Or was that specifically referring to turntables made in Japan? But otherwise I'd assume several manufacturers to be over that number again - probably foremost Hanpin, which should lead by a pretty large margin, but I'd also place my bets on Pro-Ject, Dual-Fehrenbacher and Rega, quite possibly even in that order...
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
osageaudio
Active Member
Hello Mr. Lini,
I haven't been in the Han-Pin factory since they expanded their production capacity three years ago, so I can't say exactly what kind of numbers they can build, but I do have volume numbers for last year of units sold in the U.S.
As for Fehrenbacher and Pro-Ject, I don't believe that they've upped production by any measure since I saw their operations.
Even when I'm not given numbers I'm a reasonable judge of what a given factory making anything might be able to produce by going through the factory. I'm a n industrial engineer by trade and I have nearly 40 years of experience in the field.
Besides, the point of my post was to point out that we won't see a time when 30 million turntables are sold in a year worldwide again. Panasonic won't build 2 million a year again. And while I'm at it, I'll also say that from my viewpoint from within the industry that the under $1000.00 record player segment is very crowded with competitors right now and we're going to see companies start falling out of that segment in the U.S. I thin Panasonic sees that as well.
Unfortunately there isn't much in the under $1000.00 price segment that appeals to the audiophile community, and that will be the customer base that prevails and that steers the market over the long term.
Happy listening.
I haven't been in the Han-Pin factory since they expanded their production capacity three years ago, so I can't say exactly what kind of numbers they can build, but I do have volume numbers for last year of units sold in the U.S.
As for Fehrenbacher and Pro-Ject, I don't believe that they've upped production by any measure since I saw their operations.
Even when I'm not given numbers I'm a reasonable judge of what a given factory making anything might be able to produce by going through the factory. I'm a n industrial engineer by trade and I have nearly 40 years of experience in the field.
Besides, the point of my post was to point out that we won't see a time when 30 million turntables are sold in a year worldwide again. Panasonic won't build 2 million a year again. And while I'm at it, I'll also say that from my viewpoint from within the industry that the under $1000.00 record player segment is very crowded with competitors right now and we're going to see companies start falling out of that segment in the U.S. I thin Panasonic sees that as well.
Unfortunately there isn't much in the under $1000.00 price segment that appeals to the audiophile community, and that will be the customer base that prevails and that steers the market over the long term.
Happy listening.
vinylkid58
Super Member
osageaudio
Active Member
Hi Jeff,
I think it's fair to say that hobbyists rarely have a good idea of what is going on inside the industry that their hobby is connected to. I don't think anyone thought about how pricing stacked up on current Japanese-built turntables because that information is not staring people in the face in hi-fi. And the fact that the hi-fi forums have gained a reputation of being unfriendly to hi-fi industry people has kept information that typically is not officially released from getting around to the hobbyists as well. It didn't take long for information in my first post to be questioned, and it wasn't even the central point of the post.
But the market is very much different now, and this year what the industry is seeing is the analog market is starting to narrow again to include mostly the audiophile crowd. Because of the factors of convenience and, in many cases cost, the expectation is that digital download and streaming will be what people will spend money on over the next few years, where they would have probably spent the money on analog a couple of years ago. There are a number of reasons for this, none of which would apply to everyone, and it's a topic for another discussion anyway.
Happy listening.
I think it's fair to say that hobbyists rarely have a good idea of what is going on inside the industry that their hobby is connected to. I don't think anyone thought about how pricing stacked up on current Japanese-built turntables because that information is not staring people in the face in hi-fi. And the fact that the hi-fi forums have gained a reputation of being unfriendly to hi-fi industry people has kept information that typically is not officially released from getting around to the hobbyists as well. It didn't take long for information in my first post to be questioned, and it wasn't even the central point of the post.
But the market is very much different now, and this year what the industry is seeing is the analog market is starting to narrow again to include mostly the audiophile crowd. Because of the factors of convenience and, in many cases cost, the expectation is that digital download and streaming will be what people will spend money on over the next few years, where they would have probably spent the money on analog a couple of years ago. There are a number of reasons for this, none of which would apply to everyone, and it's a topic for another discussion anyway.
Happy listening.
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