Technics at Purité Audio

[anmpr1]

I read somewhere that for your twenty large Technics doesn't include a headshell in their SL-1000 package. That's just hearsay, or readsay. I really have a hard time believing it. And although it's beyond my pay-scale if I serious about this machine, and wanting to stretch my twenty thousand dollars, I'd definitely be asking my dealer to throw in a free headshell along with a Shure M-91 Hi-Track--mounted. LOL

 

[Purité Audio]

I will let you know, maybe even take a photograph!
Keith

 

[digicidal]

Do you know many DJ's ready to pay 2x10k's for 2 turntables?

Not that it brings anything to a thread about these turntables (sorry Keith) but here are 20 DJ's for whom 40K for 2 tables & arms would likely be something they'd consider... for a vacation home - they probably wouldn't be expensive enough for the main house. There are many more between those and the rest of us (dozens just working the clubs here in Vegas top 7 figures annually - for around 100 "working" nights/year). If you can even call that working.

Man did I pick the wrong career...

 

[audiopile]

While the level of routine abuse that all the dumpster dived SL-1200's i owned was disappointing-swapping a new OEM arm in was easy and cheap. Those days are gone - at least as far as cheap goes. These arms are way better than folks give them credit for. So Hi Fi News tests the 1200GAE's magnesium arm - and is very impressed (so am I). Technics had said this cast magnesium arm was ONLY going to be available for the run of 1200 GAE's -then no more. Very out of character for me - but bought a 1200GAE (about four months after mine arrived - they said not really on mag arms being a limited run -going to be on the standard upper range model too). I have enjoyed probably about 1500 hours of listening to a silly variety of cartridges with the GAE arm/table - I remain puzzled why it seems to just get along nicely with any cart I've attached to it ? To me -does not seem out of place on the upper tier Technics tables.

 

[Purité Audio]

Coming soon to a cinema near you...
Technics SL1000-R probably just the one arm to begin with


Keith

 

[Purité Audio]

While the level of routine abuse that all the dumpster dived SL-1200's i owned was disappointing-swapping a new OEM arm in was easy and cheap. Those days are gone - at least as far as cheap goes. These arms are way better than folks give them credit for. So Hi Fi News tests the 1200GAE's magnesium arm - and is very impressed (so am I). Technics had said this cast magnesium arm was ONLY going to be available for the run of 1200 GAE's -then no more. Very out of character for me - but bought a 1200GAE (about four months after mine arrived - they said not really on mag arms being a limited run -going to be on the standard upper range model too). I have enjoyed probably about 1500 hours of listening to a silly variety of cartridges with the GAE arm/table - I remain puzzled why it seems to just get along nicely with any cart I've attached to it ? To me -does not seem out of place on the upper tier Technics tables.

I respect Frank and Serge’s opinion ( both old codgers) when it comes to turntables, rotational accuracy , low rumble, wow flutter, some resistance to external vibration in this regard Technics are exceptional.
In the U.K. many gullible ’audiophiles’ were indoctrinated to believe that somehow a kitchen table belt drive design was better.
You could also argue that Linn’s ’single speaker’ demonstrations set back accurate domestic reproduction.
Keith

 

[anmpr1]

I respect Frank and Serge’s opinion ( both old codgers) when it comes to turntables, rotational accuracy , low rumble, wow flutter, some resistance to external vibration in this regard Technics are exceptional.
In the U.K. many gullible ’audiophiles’ were indoctrinated to believe that somehow a kitchen table belt drive design was better.
You could also argue that Linn’s ’single speaker’ demonstrations set back accurate domestic reproduction.
Keith

Linn demos (as I remember them) often pitted their Sondek suspended chassis design with a 'run of the mill' SP-10. The arm for both was the Keith Monks unipivot mercury damped device. You could lift the entire arm off its base and place it on the other deck, eliminating one variable since essentially the same arm/cartridge was used to compare. [I owned one of Keith's tonearms, but never mounted it. I'm not even sure you can buy mercury over the counter anymore. Does the EPA allow that?]

However it was, early direct drives usually came in 'flimsy' bases--typically resonant wood, or like the SL-1100a, a hollow cast aluminum shell. It was only later, with the advent of the SL-1200 v2 which was used in pro environments (discos), that internal mass damping was really investigated. I know that Kenwood had bucked the trend a little earlier with their concrete-resin base KD-500.

SP-10 v2 marked a change in this. First, it was heavy and the factory base was more solid and massive. Too, aftermarket 'hobbyists' started modifying the big DD. Most notable was Mitch Cotter, who stripped the motor off its aluminum shell, mounting it on a dense layered acoustically dead (and massively ugly) expensive blue base. Sao Win took an alternate approach, fitting the Technics motor within a damped suspended spider (hearkening back to his work with Ira Gale), encasing it all in a very beautiful (and very expensive) Lucite case.

I have no idea how this latest and greatest fares among the higher priced record players. But I imagine it is right up there with the best of them. Sure, it's expensive, but in this case it actually looks like you are getting your money's worth.

Below are some pics to compare: Gale DD, Sao Win turntable (this is the SDC which didn't use the SP-10 motor, but it is said to look the same as the later Technics derived SEC-10), and the Cotter contraption.

 

[Purité Audio]

Serge, ran a HiFi business in the U.K. at that time, I recall that Limm placed him under considerable pressure not to stock turntables that could be considered competitors to the Sondek, threatening to withdraw his dealership unless he complied.
Keith

 

[anmpr1]

Serge, ran a HiFi business in the U.K. at that time, I recall that Limm placed him under considerable pressure not to stock turntables that could be considered competitors to the Sondek, threatening to withdraw his dealership unless he complied.
Keith

I recall a dealer's anecdote (I think it was a Miami area dealer, but this is all coming from memory so don't hold me to it)--the store had the Cello (née, Mark Levinson) franchise. The dealer sold a couple of Cello amps and an Audio Palette/preamp combo to a customer. Big (I mean really big) dollars. The owner called Cello to place the order, and ML evidently went ballistic, reading him the riot act, complaining and asking why the store didn't also sell the customer a pair of Cello loudspeakers, as a package deal? The store owner couldn't believe the way he'd been treated, and it left a bad taste in his mouth. If none of this is true I apologize to everyone involved... I wasn't there, just read it on-line from the dealer's post. I think you probably have to have really thick hide to be in this high-end business.

 

[audiopile]

My favorite hi end manufacturer/head up #%s story was a expensive (for the time) mini-monitor that we special ordered for a customer. Customer came -picked up his factory sealed units - took them home and we hear from him the next day- he is heartbroken. The manufacturer had put the invoice/wholesale bill in with the speakers and the customer was very upset that despite discounting them for him - we had still made a profit. He never visited or bought another thing from our store. I've heard since that he never listened to those speakers - too offended by our mistreating him by profiting from a sale. My boss called the speaker company and they said they always put the invoices in with the speakers when they shipped them -saved a stamp. We lost interest in that company then and there.

 

[Purité Audio]

Tonearm measurements are class leading according to Paul Miller’s review for Hi-Fi News.
https://www.hifinews.com/content/technics-sl-1000r-turntablearm
In fact all the Technic’s measurements are absolutely state of the art.
Keith

 

[sergeauckland]

Serge, ran a HiFi business in the U.K. at that time, I recall that Limm placed him under considerable pressure not to stock turntables that could be considered competitors to the Sondek, threatening to withdraw his dealership unless he complied.
Keith

Just for the record, I never had the Linn agency. I applied for it, together with Naim, as in those days it was necessary to do both. Neither would give me the agency, Linn because I stocked Pink Triangle and heavily promoted CD, and Naim because I didn't have Linn, and stocked Quad and Musical Fidelity.

As I refused to play their game, I lost out.

S

 

[Purité Audio]

My apologies Serge, I remember you mentioning them, I haven’t encountered that particular problems, a couple of brands have insisted on retailers having a ’concrete’ shop, fewer of those around these days.
Keith

 

[Purité Audio]

Technics SL-1000R at Purité Audio, London.


Keith