Technics - Grand Class Direct Drive Turntable System - Black

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• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  As my old man used to say:The heavier the better

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 1000 Contributor

  My dad used to be a huge fan of music and had a good taste for audio equipments. Every time we were shopping for Amps or Turntables he used to tell me that a way to start evaluating an amplifier was "the heavier the better". And he was right at some point. On Amplifiers, big and heavy magnet transformer and big capacitors that would make the unit more expensive or heavier than others, however these conditions will guarantee a good performance. Nowadays that reasoning would change with the new design of the power supplies, but, OMG, this Technics Turntable is the heaviest that I have experienced so far. And that is a clear indication that the designer engineers has spared no one single detail to get a really high quality product, which definitely has changed the way I have appreciate music from vinyls until today. To be honest, this is my dream turntable that I have been waiting for. The unit doesn’t come with Cartridge or stylus, and obviously will need a Phono preamp. I had ordered a Ortophon 2M cartridge, and a Grado Silver3, the first one I am plaining to use for the day by day use and the Grado for recordings and special events. I am excited waiting for those to arrive. But for now, in this case, I have used the old school and never disappointing Shure M91ED, with a brand new stylus. I also tested the unit with the Audio Technica 440. However I was able to get the full performance that the Shure cartridge and its stylus can offer with this turntable. The Shure was famous for its punchy sound vibrant on the high notes, an excellent choice for Rock music, but it is very sensitive to the tracking force and antiskating, and if the turntable is a not performing well from the star to the end while playing the vinyl, it may be suffering from distortion. And this Turntable performed flawlessly! For the amp, I used the Yamaha DSP-A1000, with Yamaha Floorstanding Speakers and Yamaha Subwoofer which is an excellent old school amplifier and it is as heavy as this turntable. I also tried the separate preamp Fluance PA10 that I bought time ago while looking to upgrade my Amp. I also have a big Sony Soundbar, however, if you really want to listen high quality music, you have to remember that vinyls are recorded in Stereo, so you need an stereo amp (L and R) an preamp to really hear the music the way it was conceived. So, if you have a Ferrari, you cannot go cheap on the tires, or low octane gasoline, you want to reach the best performance you can get. Both, Yamaha with its own preamp and Fluance preamp performed great with this turntable. I think they will be wasted in any other one, which I found interesting because I was always able to find little flaws like distortion or vibration so it is definitely the turntable that make it sound great, no distortion of any kind. For the vinyls, and this is the part that I really want to test, I listened several 4 phase LPs Because the way these LPs were recorded, any flaw on the turntable or Stylus will be very noticeable, and the turntable passed all of them. I played my Beatles favorite Rubber Soul Stereo USA version, and David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and both sounded great. Then I played Mirage by Fleetwood Mac and the voice of Stevie Nicks sounded so clear and well defined, amazing. And finally Herbert von Karajan Beethoven 5th symphony and Mozart 25th. Wonderful! The setup is easy, if you are familiar with turntables you just need to follow the instructions of the Owner’s Manual. It comes with a high quality audio phono cable which I strongly recommend to use, the phono earth cable, the head shell, power cable, plate, mat and 1 main balance weight and 2 auxiliary weights. These 2 I didn’t need to use, however most likely when the Grado Cartridge arrive, I may need them, since Grado cartridge are heavy. So after you assemble the plate and its screws, your next step is a sensitive part, attaching the cartridge to the head shell. Technics has included an overhang gauge, that will let you adjust the position of the cartridge based on the distance of the stylus, on the head shell, be patient and careful while doing this so you don’t want to damage the stylus. This calibration part is important because it will guarantee a uniform performance response while playing a whole vinyl. If this is not well done, you will have distortion, vibrations or skips. I also used a Alignment Protractor cart, to make sure the cartridge alignment and calibration was right. This can be found and print from the internet. Then you attach the balance weight. Look for the specs of the Stylus you are using to apply the correct Tracking force, for the Shure I am using for example it is 1.25, but I prefer 1, and the same for the Antiskating. The Audio Technica is around 2.5, keep in mind this because the better you setup this unit you will get excellent sound performance, and you will ended up enjoying the vinyls as I am right now. And that is it. The turntable is ready to roll! Now, since is a high end unit, it includes many other manual adjustments, like the height of the arm, or the turntable start up and brake speed that are located in 3 tiny screws below the plate. I think probably the with Grado Cartridge will require some arm height calibration. As for the rest, I recommend leave it with the default setting, it works just fine. However this adjustments are available. This high end Turntable doesn’t have the automatic or semiautomatic start/Stop, which is common on low end commercial turntables. This feature usually takes power from the main motor, whish will affect the performance creating a bias or recess of power. So, in this case, you turn on the unit, use the cue lever to move the arm to the vinyl, and when the play finish, lift the cue lever and return the arm to the arm rest. The pitch control is a great tool, the slide pith has 2 options, +-8 or +-16 in percentage and you select your choice by pressing the 2x botton the strobe light looks really fancy. And then you have the stylus light switch, that will let you see the condition of the stylus, if it requires to be clean it, beside the fact that is another cool feature. The direct drive motor will always adjust the speed at 33 1/3 no matter the weight of the vinyl, it is digitally adjusted and will guarantee the right speed of the song, and direct drive is always the technology to go. This turntable is solid, well designed, every single screw feels high quality, either the tone arm (magnesium alloy) or the whole chassis (brass aluminum). Everything tells me how reliable is this unit, the high quality design prevents to get distortion, absorbs the vibration, and doesn’t allot high frequencies interfering. Vinyls have been always my favorite way of music source, you can enjoy the art design, read the lyrics, and I don’t like the 5.1 or 7.1 for music, since the original source is stereo and the natural way to listen. For example, The Beatles Albums, Abbey Road, or Revolver, are more enjoyable, to listen the music the way it was recorded, and this turntable performs amazingly. I have had several turntables, but this one beats all of them!

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  Posted 3 years ago by GEJF

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Feels like being in a studio

  • Top 500 Contributor
  • Tech Insider Network Member

  The first thing you notice as you're unpacking this turntable is the the sheer mass and weight of everything, followed by the quality of materials used. It's a solid unit that is almost a work of engineering art. Everything in the packaging comes well protected and assembling the unit is simple and straightforward, regardless if it's your first high quality turntable or not. What's most important though is the sound that it produces, and to get a better feel for how good that sound is, I did a bit of a comparison test. First up was against a high quality digital stream, basically how majority of people hear their music. As expected, this wasn't much of a contest. This turntable just blows that away to the point it was almost painful to even listen to the streamed music. Next up I brought out my budget turntable, the kind that's just plug and play. Again, this was no contest. Although we now have that vinyl sound, it's just no comparison to what even a decent quality turntable can put out. That takes us to my final comparison, this Technics SL-1210G against a decent quality, mid-range turntable. Since we're now dealing with 2 true turntables, I was able to get a good comparison by using the same speaker setup, amplifier, and even cartridge, making the turntables themselves the only variable. While this was a much closer competition in sound quality, this Technics turntable still easily won out. What I noticed the most about the sound this Technics produced which the other didn't do as well at is the fullness and depth of the music along with the clarity. It's not so much that the other turntable was bad, but how much better the Technics did in all the little things. I could more easily hear all of the smallest details of all the instruments and vocals. As I leaned back and closed my eyes it honestly almost felt as though I was in the studio. It was a truly pleasing experience. The small details is the other thing that sets this turntable apart. Not just in the parts that help create the sound, but also in its operation and how smooth it all is. For example how smooth the platter starts and stops. There's absolutely no jerkiness, no sudden stops, no overly hard braking, and it doesn't bounce backwards once it does come to a stop. Same goes for the tone-arm, just slow and smooth movements, again no jerkiness at all and no fear of it hurting your stylus or vinyl. Even the lid is smooth and stays in almost any position you put it in. And when it's too low to stay in position, it slowly lowers itself instead of just dropping down. That's what you get with this Technics unit, precise controlled movements and operation. From the speed controls and the direct drive motor, through the platter and arm all the way to the lid, which by the way is extremely easy to remove. One of the ways all of this precise, smooth operation and amazing sound can happen is the solid construction using quality heavy materials. Not only does it allow everything to work the way it does, it also helps minimize, and practically eliminate, any vibrations. That part is key to good consistent sound. As the record was playing I was checking all around the turntable and felt no vibration at all anywhere. This attention to quality also extends to the thickness of the plating on the connections, leaving you with the confidence that this unit will last a very long time. All that said, things aren't perfect. I was honestly surprised to find a fairly noticeable defect, at least with the unit I received. On the front of the unit along the edge where the top case meets the lower case, there are a couple wavy spots that stick out a little on the lower portion. I've added a picture with this review showing these spots. While they have no effect on the operation or sound produced from the unit, it's not something I'd expect to see when there's so much attention to detail everywhere else on such a high-end and high-priced turntable. That one cosmetic defect, however, is really the only negative I could find. This unit is obviously on the higher end of the price range, but is still definitely worth the cost, especially for audiophiles with a nice vinyl collection. Even if you don't consider yourself an audiophile, if you're someone who gets enjoyment from music, or someone who likes to sit back and relax while taking in the sounds of music, then won't regret making this type of investment.

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  Posted 3 years ago by CKent

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  A work of art

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  The Technics SL-1210G Grand Class is beautiful. Every piece looks like it was made with care. Yet it feels like it's built like a tank. It is very heavy coming in at over 25lbs. Everything is very sturdy with a rigid vibration dampening platter. I tried to do some light jumping around and didn't get anything to transfer to the playback. The tone arm has a very nice feel to it especially after it was balanced. The whole player is very smooth with the direct drive motor. It is really a work of art. There is some slight assembly to attach the heavy platter and then the dust cover. A big annoyance is that this player does not come with a phono cartridge. With all of the marketing about how amazing this thing is supposed to sound and perform I would of thought that they'd guarantee the satisfaction by providing a quality phono cartridge. Once I got a cartridge there was a bit of careful playing around to get everything balanced and then proper track pressure set. I don't think much of that is the vinyl player's fault, just the care that's needed to ensure proper installation. As for the sound of the player I feel like it's hard to know if I'm reviewing the player itself or the phono cartridge I bought separately. So for transparency, I bought the Audio-Technica VM540ML which is a solid choice with phono cartridges. As I had mentioned, to test more the player itself I tried to bump things and get some vibrations going. The sound stayed crystal clear. I was very impressed with this cartridge/player combo. I have a few other players and this one very much takes the cake. I also have a wood floor structure so it is prone to a lot of movement. I played classic rock, pop, and metal music and it all sounded clear, dynamic, and balanced. I think Technics produced something very high end. I imagine that this player will have a very long life with all the quality parts. This seems like it's for some one who is a big audiophile and into having a hi-fi system. I would not recommend this for someone just getting into vinyl.

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  Posted 3 years ago by acidxfrost