So the fact that Technics offered a pricier model is somehow an indictment of the SL1200? ..Technics bested the SL1200 w/ a table that offered (very slightly) better measured performance, but it's not certain these improvements in wow & flutter, or ever rumble were even audible. My SL1200 speed accuracy already rivals my CD player, and motor noise is already below the noise floor of the needle. ..So it was better how? ..Probably in that it was meant to hold up for years and years with near-constant use in a commercial setting. So, yes, it has greater durability, but I doubt demonstrably better sound.
And what is it about the "economies of scale" argument you don't get? ..You seem to suggest the technologies that arose from their spending advantage were non-significant. ..Well, to those of us who like piano music and care about steadiness of pitch, their rock solid speed accuracy is very important. ...And ditto the quieter background which is also attributable to DD.
All I'm seeing is the usual "anything better than what I have is inaudible, anything worse is crap" argument. Who's to say any deviation from the specs from what you have is audible, just as you dismiss the differences between the SL-1200 and Sp-10, 25 and 15?
As Erik said, the differences in turntables is not hard to hear. I would be curious what thoughts you had on the relative sound of the tables in question, and not what you've read about them or assumed about their specs.
I'd also like to know why you think a quieter background is somehow the hallmark of DD. Why would that be the case?
And I don't know about Erik but I am dismissing the economies of scale advantage because they were expended in the early 1970s. You seem to suggest there has been no advancement in turntable thought in 40 years. While you're free to believe that, my ears suggest that they learned how to make a table more free of table/mechanism/arm coloration in that time, by employing methods that just happened to be simpler. With turntables, I believe simpler is better, if executed well. A Well Tempered Amadeus using a golf ball in a silicon bath for a pivot and a thread for a belt sounds better than all the tables in question here. But if you must use the economies of scale argument, use it for Rega as well. They staked their company on the idea that the arm was more important than anything and spread the cost of the arm out over dozens of years. They make a LOT of turntables, and even that incredible arm design was eventually evolved as things advanced, which did not happen with the 1200. I'd say put the Rega arm on the 1200 for the best of both worlds but you then lose the better approach to plinth design of the Rega and really don't gain much for speed stability, as much of what you say about the upper end Regas is hearsay, and most of that based on lower end Regas, and not even up-to-date models at that.
You're certainly welcome to your opinion of the SL-1200 but if you're going to constantly bash things you have no experience with based on your imagination while hiding behind some sort of cloak of objectivity that somehow suggests that imagining what a turntable sounds like is an objective pursuit, you're going to get an argument. And that is why the SL-1200 threads ALWAYS turn into arguments: their cult-like fan base takes the most hypocritically absurd stance on objectivity and performance. The take a mid-level 1970s table and do comparisons based on specs with tables for whom they often just make the specs up, or they compare them to one example of a lower end model that is years-old and somehow think what applies to a $300 table applies to one that costs $1400. The absurdity of this pisses people off.
And you can stop with the "audiophile" vs DJ-slight as you're just assuming a prejudice. Its a logical fallacy, a straw man argument, and a bit of an ad hominem attack at that. Especially since many of the 1200's detractors have owned them.
