The Technics SL-1200
is a series of turntables manufactured by Matsushita under the brand name of Technics. As of 2006, the Technics SL-1200MK2 is the industry standard turntable for DJ'ing and scratching, MK2 stands for Mark 2, and is an improvement of the Technics SL-1200 first made in October 1972. The MK2 was released in 1978 had several improvements including the motor and casing. Since 1972, more than 3 million units have been sold.
It is widely regarded as the most durable and reliable turntable ever produced, as most of the models which were manufactured in the '70s are still in heavy use.
Features
The features that set this turntable apart are:
A magnetic (no wear), direct drive (low slip) mechanism.
High torque (1.5 kgf·cm or 150 mN·m), which means the platter will spin at the desired speed almost immediately (0.7 s to reach 33-1/3 rpm from standstill).
Very low wow and flutter (0.01%), which means that the platter will stay within 1/100th of 1% of the desired speed.
Heavy base (12.5 kg), dramatically reducing the likelihood of feedback or stylus jumping.
Variable pitch control, allowing the rotational speed to be adjusted from -8% to +8% (for the purpose of beatmatching).
High reliability: many examples of SL-1200's lasting well over 15 years of heavy use and withstanding physical shock without functional impairment
Models
The original SL-1200, released in 1972, was marketed as a hi-fi turntable.
The SL-1200MK2, released in 1978, has a silver finish. This was a continuing trend as later 1200 models would be silver and 1210 models would be matt black. Technics improved the motor, shock resistance, added a ground wire, and changed the rotary pitch control to a slider style. This is now considered the baseline model, and is the oldest still in production.
The SL-1210MK2 is the matte black version of SL-1200MK2. It used to be unavailable from official Panasonic dealers on the USA market, until Technics released SL-1210MK2PK, a USA-only piano (Gloss) black model.
The SL-1210MK3, released in 1989, matte black finish like the 1210. Gold RCA plugs. Small gold foil Technics across the back.
The SL-1210M3D (1997) adds a quartz lock button which resets pitch to 0 immediately.
The SL-1210MK4 (1997) has no quartz lock but does have a 78, with a reverse function rpm option (other models only have 33 rpm and 45 rpm), and all the hardware is plated with platinum. It was also only available in japan.
The SL-1210MK5 increases the anti-skate settings from 0 to 3 to 0 to 6.
The SL-1210M5G was launched in Japan on 1 November 2002 (together with the MK5) and is a special 30th anniversary edition of the SL-1200. The difference from the MK5 model is the ability to switch between ±8% and ±16% ranges for pitch adjustment, it also featured blue target lights and blue pitch number illumination.
Finally there are the limited edition gold finishings of the SL-1200LTD (1998) and SL-1200GLD (2004) models, the latter also having a blue instead of the usual white target light.
The SL-1200LTD is based on the MK3D and the SL-1200GLD is based on the M5G.
