With more than three million units sold from 1972 to 2010, the Technics SL-1200 is an icon of DJ culture. Now, the legendary turntable has been reproduced, as a special limited edition…
Who could have guessed that Technics’ SL-1200 would be sold, unchanged, for almost three decades? It was a medium through which many different music genres – from hip-hop to house – flourished. With its powerful quartz-controlled motor, start-stop button and precise speed control, Technics made blending and scratching accessible to everyone. There was hardly a DJ, MC or producer who went without a ‘Twelve Ten’ in the 1980s and 1990s – music journalist Tom Terrell even called the unit “the most important instrument of the last two-and-a-half decades.”
On the 50th birthday of Technics, and in light of the current vinyl revival, a new and improved development of the legendary turntable has been revealed in Las Vegas. The direct drive now works even more quietly, an aluminium plate makes the whole unit more stable, and digital output has been retained. A limited-edition run of 1,200 SL-Class Grand 1200GAEs will come to market in the summer, before the proper production model for the mass market, the Grand Class SL-1200G, is released in the winter.
Photos: Technics
