Neat! Looks great and plays well on both of them. :D There’s a slight distortion, but I think that’s because of the mastering and transference to the lathe cut in the factory. It’s my first real vinyl production and they aren’t really that helpful in giving you feedback on how to properly mix stuff. Ideally you’d mix everything from scratch, but that would mean two separate projects for each song I make and take so much more time. However, most engineers I’ve spoken too, said the method I used is more than good enough. It’s based on 24 bit 44.1 uncompressed master mixes from my DAW which then I’ve mastered in Ozone 8 with medium settings to keep levels from going overboard. Bass frequencies from around 300Hz and below are summed to mono and there is a slight roll off of high frequencies from 10-12KHz to prevent harsh distortion in the HF range. Also the more energetic songs are kept towards the outer rim of the disc and slow and lower intensity songs towards the center - standard methods from the 80-90s really. The track mentioned is one of the more saturated songs, so the slight distortion is a little bit due to being very busy. You learn as you go, getting better each time (hopefully 😂). Thanks for the shout out, Mat! Got more vinyls coming later.
Thanks for the comprehensive comment, getting back into music production and I'm very interested in why vinyl sounds the way it does, I love the saturated sound ;)
I love your music. Finally broke down and ordered the cassette of vol. 3 and digital download. I can hardly wait. Love that FM Love. Thanks for making this music. It really makes my life a little better.
*UPDATE* I have been advised that you can still buy P-Mount cartridges - here’s an Amazon Affiliated Link to an Audio Technica one: amzn.to/2KjJHOk You’ll find lots more links to avoid in the mythical *Video Description Text Box*
Yep: Audio Technica, Grado...and Ortofon do the OMP which uses the OM range of styli. Putting the Stylus 30 on an OMP on that turntable may well bring superlative performance with inner grooves and sibilance.
If you buy an older AT P-mount cartridge, all of the 100 series styli produced over the past 40 years for the standard half inch screw fit models will fit, including the current VM range. Must be the older body though popular in the 80s and 90s, not the current type.
I have that cartridge (with the elliptical stylus) on my SL-DD20 and must say it sounds fabulous compared to the original P-30 cartridge with a (less than 2 year old) "random" reproduction stylus that the previous owner put on there. Was about the same price as finding a no-name elliptical replacement stylus for the P-30. I know it's not "the best a man can get" but I bought the whole HIFI stack the SL-DD20 came with (including the cabinet) used (mainly for the turntable) and with that new cartridge it totaled me €120.
BTW audio-technica still makes and distributes, p-mount cartridges. Also, the reduction in inner groove distortion compared to most conventional turntables is noticeable to me even in these lower priced models.
Having recently bought a new P-mount cartridge from Audio Technica I was hoping to find this comment somewhere. There are other companies still making P-mount cartridges, they're just a little harder to find than they may once have been.
Just in case someone comes across this comment train at some point looking for one, two models to throw into the room are the AT81CP (conical) and AT85EP (elliptical). Or just dig through Audio Technicas current phono cartridge catalog, which (at least in the 2019/2020 edition) shows one of these old silver Technics linear tracking turntables (with the red arrow LED as shown at 12:35 in here) as the background splash image for the P-Mount cartrige section, which is a nice coincidence
They are easy to find as a used cartridge on eBay I recently bought a Stanton 680el p-mount that I removed the extra weight from and I'm now have a D680EE stylus on it. I will be getting a new stylus soon so I can keep the actual Stanton as a reference. I know there are other p-mount cartridge still manufactured other than AT . I really like the Stanton 680/681 moving iron cartridge sound. I have the brush mounted and tracking force maxed out at 1.5 grams with my SL-7 yeah it works with the brush that add a gram and subtract a gram is zero grams. One side benefit no anti skating compensation needed at all . Self cleaning close"n"play.
The mechanisms behind audio recording is always pretty fascinating to think about, from squiggly lines in pieces of wax, insect resin, and PVC, to electromagnetic signals on a strip of plastic covered in metal powder, to 1's and 0's on a shiny plastic disc and a computer.
As a user of automatic direct drive turntable with quartz lock and autoreturn and so on I must say - it's all really convinient and fun, when set up properly. Too bad turntables today are really basic. Sometimes high fidelity isn't enough.
As a 61 year old audio electronics technician who first started fixing electronic devices around fifty years ago, I will take the basic belt drive turntables over any of these highly automated, microprocessor driven, mostly plastic units. These sorts of turntables sound okay, certainly not the equal of a good belt drive with a better tone arm, but the real problem comes when something goes wrong with them. Lots of electronics, loaded with capacitors that are pretty much ancient now, and often using photosensitive detecting devices for the arm position that are no longer available. And the linear tracking turntables have lubrication that dries up overtime, and the mechanisms to try to keep the tonearm perfectly parallel to the record while a motor drives the base of the arm straight across are finicky and hard to adjust. Typically these linear tracking mechanisms involve a motor, a belt or two, and a tightly stretched string.
And it's your honest choice, up to your preference really. If you want uncomplicated hi-fi device, you have a wide variety of models on the market and freedom to buy them, new or old. In the meanwhile, there are some people who apart from high audio quality like for example watching tonearm mechanically travelling to the exact position or when the device detects if you are playing 7'' single. And there are hardly any brand-new devices like this. I am aware of possible malfunctioning of used 30year old automatic turntables, that's why I wrote "when set up properly" - you have to take care of them. I did have to replace capacitator and photoresistors in mine... but it works. And maybe that's why appreciate it so much - because it is complicated enough to fail, but it doesn't. And that is brilliant about it. If something brings joy and isn't harmful, don't trample it with cold analitical facts. If so, collecting vinyl wouldn't be a thing.
@@sandr6769 , I understand where you're coming from, and I agree with you to some extent, but I disagree about the "cold analytical facts" as you put it. Mostly because we seem to be living in a non-fact-based world to a large extent nowadays, certainly here in the USA anyway, although that's a socio-political argument for another day and another different topic. But mostly, I feel sorry for the people who buy a complicated turntable which turns out to need service, even though oftentimes they were assured by the seller that it "works", or it's something that was used in their family 20 or 30 years ago and has been sitting in a garage or basement or attic since then, and they bring it into the shop hoping we can fix it for less than a hundred bucks say, and usually it cannot be be done for that minimal amount of money. On a rare occasion it can't be fixed it all. Which is why I tell the newbies anyway, or the people without prior knowledge and skills and access, to stick to the simpler record playing devices. Later on down the road when they're buying their second or third turn table, and have become more familiar with adjusting and fiddling with them or doing minor repairs, that's the time to buy something a little more complicated. It's kind of like my wife and myself and our three rescue dogs, we've been dog owners together for almost 25 years, mostly with large breeds such as Saint Bernards and German Shepherds, and so we have the general skills to deal with a traumatized dog who needs special help and attention to get past their behavioral issues. I certainly wouldn't advise a first time dog owner or dog rescuer to take on a dog with major behavioral problems, especially a large breed dog. I wouldn't call that a cold analytical judgment, I'd call it facing certain realities. You can't rescue and Rehab every dog, nor can you rescue and repair every turntable or other older piece of audio equipment. The woman who owns the kennel where we bring our dogs for daycare and play sessions and board them when we go away had rescued a large breed dog who had a history of biting, she worked with him for the better part of a year until he knew his commands upside down and inside out, his behavior was much improved and so she placed him in a new home, and he bit somebody. She took him back, and then he started to get in a fight with another dog and when the dogs were separated he was still in an agitated fight mode and tried to bite one of her employees, and so the dog had to be put down. Broke her heart, but that's the way it is with animals sometimes. And with audio equipment sometimes, or cars, or whatever.
@@goodun6081 If the processor goes out in my vintage turntable, I can replace it with a Teensy++ 2.0. You're right about the lubricants being difficult to access. I just bought some Krytox GPL 205 Grease, Pure PFPE/PTFE; I'm hoping it does the trick. BTW, I'm several years older than you.
@@TwoWholeWorms The American "I could care less" makes no sense as an expression, because the only thing it rules out is not caring at all, which is exactly the sentiment it's supposed to convey.
Nothing wrong with good 'Ol British engineering, my Amstrad hi-fi had a superb turntable, you placed a record on it and it automatically started at 5 and a quarter speed and slowed over the course of a record to 0 speed. This didn't bother me that much as both the speakers fell out of their case (this was on the day it was delivered by Dixons)
I have a Technics SL-J2! Pretty much the same as the SL-J6, except that it appears to be a more advanced model than either of these. It's quartz lock, sleeve-sized, direct drive. But unlike these models, it doesn't use separate buttons to select tracks. There is a single button and a digital counter to identify the track. And unlike the J6, there is a plastic window on the "close 'n' play" cover that extends all the way across the record, as on the J300. In other words, it's the same turntable as the J6 with more flashy lights and readouts. Bought it brand-new in 1989. The unit had been discontinued at that point -- the bottom had dropped out of the turntable market, and it was going for cheap -- about $150 new, if I recall correctly. Worked fine for the 10 years or so that I had it hooked up as my main turntable. The key thing is that it can identify tracks and set the needle down precisely. A wonderful technological feature that other turntables do not share. Ultimately I retired it because I wanted a more traditional tonearm. Today it resides in a box in my closet. But this was one of the coolest turntables from the period just before turntables disappeared from the market -- an example of the highest level technology achieved before vinyl went away, at least temporarily. Today we forget how quickly the LP was abandoned -- prior to today's vinyl revival, I bought my last brand-new record in 1992.
FYI: You can use your phone app to measure the speed of the turntable. There's a little tiny latch on the upper right that you can hold down with your finger and trick the turntable into thinking that the lid is closed. I sometimes have to do it with my Technics turntable because the linear tone arm occasionally gets stuck, and the only way to unstick it is to jiggle it while the motor is trying to move it.
In the 1980s I bought a Toshiba stacking system for my bacheklor pad. I loved the thing and spent many hours imbibing while listening to the radio and playing vinyl. I moved into my current home in 1991 with wife (and kids on the way). Being way ahead of the times I converted an old display cabinet into an entertainment centre complete with Hifi, TV, VCR and turntable. But then I gave in to music on CD and bought a new system. But being the hoarder I am, the stacking system and all those records and cassettes are stored in my loft. Thanks to Covid, I have rertired a bit early and after seeing your many entertaining videos I am toying with the idea of installing all my old entertainment stuff in the alcove that houses the current TV etc. Will let you know how I get on with this including convincing the wife that playing my vinyl is a great idea. I just recently got my old Kasparov chess computer going again after 30 years in the loft - that was only a five minute job and that got her fussing. :-)
I got one of these recently, it’s honestly really cool to watch the arm move along and scan the record. Sounds pretty great too even with the old cartridge it came with, miles better than my roommate’s cheap suitcase turntable too at a very similar price. 100% recommend one if you can find one on eBay or something for a reasonable price, they’re really great little turntables and much cheaper than comparable modern models
Love My SL7, it has a rare P205CMK3 cartridge which is pretty much the best P mount cart out there, maybe tied with the 310MC from the SL10. Well built and convenient, but what amazes me is how good it sounds! I gave up with a £1300 Thorens deck and stuck with the SL7, sounds great with a good phone stage and good partnering equipment. The SL7 also benefits from Quartz lock.
I Bought a Technics midi set when I was 18, saved up for a very long time,, that was in 1983, it came with the SL-J1. Think it was about 2.000 Guilders, daylight robbery come to think of it. I Broke the Amplifier, and the Cassette deck went too, I don't remember where the Speakers went, but still own the SL-J1. It's belt drive, but, it still works perfectly. Changed the Stylus years ago. I Own several turntables, but still have a sweet spot for the SL-J1 because its the size of a record sleeve and is so sleek in design.
the J300R came with a midi system, and if I remember properly was really rough and ready quality. The top technics linear trackers were the SL10 and SL7, along with the SL-QL1 and DL1 which were all metal and very substantial. If you go onto Bob Wood's channel you can see some very impressive needle drops using the Ortofon OMP40 cartridge among others...
The biggest difference between this caliber turntable and bigger, heavier, more expensive ones, is the bass. What is a solid foundation on expensive tables is turned into 50 shades of mush on plastic ones. And as you approach the worst possible - Lego turntables or something made from cardboard, those 50 shades get reduced down to 1.
I really like that newer unit. It kinda mimics the action of a CD player, automatically reading how many tracks are on the side of a record once the lid is closed.
@Dezwarteschijf A longer groove is more groove though. The same way a person with a two-pound cake has "more cake" than a person with a one-pound cake - even though they both have one cake.
WHOOSH!! and this comment flew COMPLETELY over some peoples head, lol. Remember Ronco people??? I guess not, lol. Nice to see you here Fran I am a subscriber of yours as well.
Rather than optical sensing, many older Technics turntables had a mat and platter arrangement with two slots in them and a couple of little plastic levers that came up very slightly through the slots in the mat and platter and were pushed down by the record sitting on just one lever if it was a 7 inch 45 and on both levers if it was a 12-inch LP. The later more sophisticated versions would scan up through the slot in the platter and mat looking for the underside surface of the record, to determine where the tonearm should set down.
Cool Matt! I have a SL-5 and a J2. The 5's nothing special no quartz but decent. The J2 has quartz and a single LED digit that you make show the number of tracks to skip, only. No programming. And there's brand new P-mount stock made again such as AT-3482.
Mat, I hate to be one of those utter nerds that throw a spanner in your works, but the first of the Technics record sleeve sized players with track selection was the SL-15, released in 1981. The SL-6 came out the year after the SL-15.
My ideal ultra-high-tech record player; - Compatibility with Inverted records. - Compatibility with CLV records. - Compatibility with records that have additional grooves inside the label area. - CX, DBX, MQA and Quadraphonic decoders. - Quartz-lock, Stepper motors + Belt drive. - Laser tachometer, PID controller, piezoelectric brush sensor, and ultra precise rotational position tracking. Helpful for detecting playback anomalies in advance (like skips, wow and flutter) for real-time correction. - Gyroscope, compass and accelerometer to detect sudden unexpected vibrations in the environment, and adjust all mechanisms to compensate. - Hybrid of physical and optical styli. - Optical sound output to minimize electrical interference from other devices.
When I was looking for a vintage turntable to get as my first one I watched this video and fell in love with the design of them. I couldn't find the sl-j300r but I did find an sl-j33 in very good condition, only the popup 45 adapter was broken. I absolutely love the thing and im happy this video helped me find it
@@Techmoan I do the same thing every now and then. It’s a positive endorsement from me. There’s only so many hours in the day and if I can’t watch a video because it’s time to hit the hay, well, listening is the next best thing. Drifting off into a slumber while hearing you talk about vintage pieces of audio equipment is a great way to go. Your channel is a favorite of mine, as well as LGR. Both channels have a cozy feeling and I really enjoy how informative and relaxed the vibe is. Received an SL-6 for free awhile back, and I am finally pulling it out of the box and getting it sorted out. Thanks for the detailed rundown!
For the price point, these were pretty good turntables. These are somewhat "undersung," so you can find them for not all that much money. As always, great video. I miss the puppets.
The SL-15 goes for big $ and justifiably so- it's all aluminum and examples are included in Museum of Modern Art and Design. Not to be mistaken for the 'plastic' models. ;)
Agreed! All the turntable manufacturers have lost the keys to the cupboard where the technology's kept. I like linear trackers, and in my experience they just need some maintenance to keep working for many more years to come. Nice turntables from this era are the (radial arm) Denon DP-23F and its relatives. Fully automatic with electronic tracking control and a cassette-head speed sensor. A bit of technology right there! Another great video, keep up the good work.
I fixed a DP-23 or similar model Denon a while back, the platter wouldn't spin; I replaced the open thermal fuse that sits up against the direct-drive coil (under a thick rubbery layer of shrink tubing, and not shown in the schematic or service manual) which got the platter spinning again, at what appeared to be at least a few hundred rpm! The unit turned out to have a shorted driver transistor; probably somebody left it on overnight, or a power surge turned it on and left it spinning until the driver transistor failed, then the platter spun at high speed until the direct drive motor coil overheated and the thermal fuse blew. I also had some problems with the function switches, the plastic buttons get sticky if there's the slightest bit of dust or grunge in there, so they had to be disassembled and cleaned, and I think I also replaced one or two tact switches underneath the buttons as well.
Just a little correction. There is only one motor in the lid of the SL-6 as well. The track detecting sensor is moved by the same string which moves the tonearm as well (and they are moving together and synchronized as well, of course). The only real difference is the length of the string :)
Love this video and love this channel! I recently moved house and decided now was the time to start building my own hifi. I did have a turntable and amp running in the old house but wanted to upgrade and make use of a Technics amp I've had since 2003. This video inspired me to go along the Quartz locked direct drive linear tracking route and I fell in love with the J300R purely after seeing this vid. Instantly knew it was the one for me, the colour fits the aesthetic of my other gear and after a couple of weeks eyeing up the classifieds I finally bought one today in good nick and full working order for a decent price! Thanks for this channel! I rinsed about 7 hours of content in one sitting one rainy saturday afternoon recently and I've definitely found a new obsession!
My Technics system is 32 years old and once its warmed up, it still sounds beautiful, the amplifier is showing its age as the volume selector is crackly . But once ive got it set and stable, its true 80's sound through the original speakers .
Real music fans collect the vinyls! I find it insane that people play them though - don’t people realise that they are basically dragging a knife across the vinyl every time they play them??? It’s crazy.
C. H. I preserve the pristine analogue sound onto MiniDisc then preserve the vinyl by vacuum sealing in a nitrogen environment and storing in a temperature-controlled vault. Giving me the best of both worlds - you don’t need to play vinyls to enjoy them.
@@Zveebo I take pictures of the covers and run them through software that reads the audio from the impressions the vinyl makes on the paper and cellophane and encodes them as 8kb/s mono .amr files for that pristine 2002 audio experience. Then I lock them in a sterile room at least 2m apart from one another and brick the doorway so they stay 100% unusable.
don't know if you find yourself in the US often (if ever), but if you do, you should consider stopping by Memphis to visit the STAX Museum. You seem to be a big fan of the label, and their collection is awesome. Plus..... they need money, lol
I had a dark grey Technics deck similar to these but without the track buttons (just the play/skip buttons). I bought my deck as new old stock in about 1998. I thought it sounded good and worked well for years. I've googled it and it appears to have been an early 80s unit, an SL-Q5. It still had the needle new and shrink wrapped almost 20 years later!
You've got me in the mood to go out and build my own hifi system. I've been able to find some really nice one from thrift shops for like $10( I've actually gotton 3 separate cassette decks now because I kept finding a higher end one). they all don't match but oh well. The one thing I haven't been able to find is a reasonably priced turntable all the hipsters seems to buy them right away. I guess maybe I'm a hipster now too🤔
I picked up a Pioneer PL-530 at a garage sale for $10.00 usd. Owner stated it worked but had a few issues. I got it home and opened the bottom. Only a few things ahd come loose and needed to be re-greased. Played beautifully afterwards.
Don't discount the original EP series carts fitted to these 'tables. They were quite good carts and they can be seriously upgraded with hyperelliptical and even fineline/Shibata types that yield fantastic sound.
I had a Technics SL-3 which was very similar to the SL-6 but without the track detection. It also didn’t use an optical system for determining the record size, but a mechanical lever at the rear of the machine which would be nudged by a 12” record. I thought the linear tracking was cool, but the tone arm tends to move across the record in small steps rather than a continuous motion. You can’t hear it, but capturing a record on the PC would reveal a subsonic rumble clearly visible in the audio every time the tone arm moved. Easy enough to remove with a FFT filter. It also looks to me like both your turntables have faster movement of the tone arm carriage when seeking tracks. The SL-3 was agonisingly slow when you wanted to cue a track near the centre of the record 😂
Love your videos. One thing liner tracking seems to do better at (at least for me) is with my techno/electronic records. My Onkyo tended to jump on heaver bass thumps (regardless of what I had the tracking force set at, or the volume of the stereo its self). I recently got a Aiwa LX-70, and works phenomenally well, and no more jumping.
Technics SL-10 with built in mc pre-amp is an amazing machine. 0 tracking error, 0 skating force and near 0 w/f and rumble. Quartz lock, direct drive, p mount. If you can locate one and outfit it with a good used Shure V15 type VP cartridge you will have something that rivals any and I mean any “audiophile” machine made today. Plug and play cartridge means perfect geometry without the fuss which means very little record wear or distortion. A 45 rpm Direct to Disk analogue recording played on this machine will rival any cd any day. The SL-15 is the programmable version.
I recently was able to purchase, what I thought was, a new Grado Black 3 P mount cartridge for my Technics SL-D20 turntable that I recently pulled out of storage after 25 years of non use. It ended up working fine after a bit of lubrication. Thank God for direct drive. I had to do a bit of work to find new cartridges. Apart from, the Grado I purchased, I think I also saw a couple of Audio Technicas for sale.
I just got a steal of a deal on a SL-5 today and recalled you reviewing something really similar to it so I had to find it, and I have to agree that it's a very cute little system. It sounds fantastic too and it's a solid system if you can get it at a good price.
Great vid, Mat. One thing I will take issue with on the inner groove distortion, is that you absolutely will hear the improvement even on a cheaper linear tracker once you know what you're listening for. Some cuts are better than others, but when they try to cram a loud jam with a lot of horns or something, onto the inner tracks, like Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, IGD can be night/day difference just because of the pickup angle.
hugeshows I actually thought the grooves were engineered to assume a reference length and position of a traditional tone arm, making linear tracking players the distorted ones.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 I'm not sure I understand. There are different length pivoting tonearms, plus a groove is a groove, being a mechanically produced waveform. Any manipulation of the groove would destroy the phasing at the very least.
They do make P-mount cartridges. I have a Sony PS-LX520 which needed only needed the belt for the stylus replaced (it moves the stylus on its bar) and it had a knackered Stanton cartridge. I replaced it with an Audio-Technica AT85EP with elliptical stylus The 520 is also a linear tracking turntable from the greatest era in Sony’s history, the mid-80s. I agree, unless you’re willing to get an AT-LP60 for fully automatic operation, or an old turntable that you’d have to fix, the current state of record players is poor. I’m old, I like fully automatic.
They need to make some turntables like this again... would love to add one of these to my set up for sitting back and not having to babysit my expensive manual rig.
I used to work at Lasky's in the 80's and remember handling a lot of the HiFi you've been reviewing. I'm amazed that you can still find working equipment. Great reminiscing on it though. Thanks.
As others have mentioned in the comments, several well known brands still supply P mount cartridges. Grado, Shure, Audio Technica, Ortofon and Nagaoka still have it in their catalogues. I chose the brilliant Nagaoka C-501. Very nice eliptical stylus and sonically similar to the great Nagaoka MP-110. All in all a very practical and great sounding solution with my Technics SL-QL15. Open and spacious 3D sound that packs some serious foot tapping qualities. Mount any of the cartridges in sale today on a vintage Technics and you'll be in for a sonical surprise. Keep up the good work!
The better part of Linear Tracking, is the immense reduction of weight to the tonearm... which means less record wear, and gives the audio basically no "coloration" from the source, through amplification. Stylus weight required for playback is a huge factor for fidelity
Before techmoan I thought a record player was a record player, a Walkman was a Walkman and a cassette was a cassette...how foolish I was! Great video as usual sir. I find your channel not only very informative and interesting but also very calming. I think it's your talking, there's a rythm to it haha. I look forward to Future vids about past audio formats that haven't been invented yet lol
Frankly, I had no idea that Technics made so many different linear turntables. I've "inherited" my father's J2 and it's one of my most cherished possessions. I waited too long to replace the cartridge, though - the old one had developed a balance issue - and was stuck getting an AT 85EP off Amazon, which seems to be a pretty low-end unit. The one I'd saved in my list that was a direct replacement of the old one went out of stock and never came back. I'm seriously thinking of going to LP Gear or somewhere similar and getting a nicer cartridge… the sound from that J300R was head and shoulders better than what I have!
Wow, just seen this video again and noticed the Ronco record you showed, this was my first LP I bought but had mislaid it and couldn’t remember what it was. Many thanks
I started with an SL-6 and was fascinated by the tech, but eventually the track selection thing was a bit of a gimmick I never really used it, super cool tho. I ended up passing it on to a friend when I lucked out on an SL-7 (a simpler, heavier and better sounding model with quartz lock) from ebay that needed a bit of TLC to get to working. The service manuals are readily available on the internet for these and once they've had the main metal runner cleaned and regreased and any loose o-rings replaced, they are back to top condition. The J-series were definitely a lot quicker in operation, if I remember the SL-6 was a bit slow. You can fix the slightly slow playing speeds of your SL6 with two screw potentiometers on the PCB inside the base of the machine, I think I had to take the bottom off to access them tho, if anyone is interested I'll send them the service manual. Great machines tho, the T4P tonearm/cart system is very light, so you only need between 1-1.5g of force on the cartridge, meaning less wear on your records, plus, linear tracking (rather than a pivot tonearm) means that the stylus is always perpendicular to the walls of the groove. No inner groove distortion! Only problem is with second hand records sometimes those inner grooves have been worn out by a previous owner's badly aligned system. Also the cover keeps dust away from yr records when playing which is great too. Great to see these getting some attention, although for a while they felt like a bit of a sweet secret, I expect the prices on ebay will pop up now. Think I bought the SL6 for 40quid about 5 years ago, and the SL-7 for 75 but a fixer upper (These go for a few hundred in good condition.) Entertaining and informative as ever Techmoan! :)
Your one lucky guy, you must have one understanding wife, my wife won't let me have anything other than TV and dvd player in living room, but I do have my man cave, love your videos, and thanks to you I've dug out my old vynals and got myself a system also dug out my old minidiscs and got a few players and recorders forgot how good they are, thanks for your videos keep them coming
For the one without quartz lock, you could probably calibrate the turntable via an internal trimmer pot. While not ideal for keeping it locked over time/temperature differences/random whatever, you could likely keep it close to spot on with regular tune-ups.
I was inspired by one of your previous videos to make a low cost vintage hifi setup for my home office and ultimately I settled on a vintage Pioneer receiver, and an Akai Cassette deck and matching Akai Reel to Reel player. I topped it off with a pair of JBL studio monitors that I bought new but basically never used. They sat around unused until I bought the receiver and now I know they sound awesome. I also added a bluetooth adaptor to the aux port for playing music from my iphone. What I don't have in the system is a turntable. I don't need a super duper top of the line turntable because I already have one on my main hi fi system. But now I feel like I should look for one of these Technics turntables based on this video. Maybe I also need to buy your friends music too ;)
It's obvious why no one makes automatic, feature-rich turntables, right? Most of the people listening to "vinyls" nowadays are allergic to convenience. The more basic the turntable the more authentic the experience, in their minds.
Hey Catfish, yeah I've been listening to records since the late sixties and I have a Technics SL-1900 direct drive fully automatic turntable, I guess I'm not authentic enough, lol. BUT to be fair everyone has their own wants and desires when it comes to this sort of thing so I guess live and let live... it is cool that ANYONE is still listening to records (vinyl) these days!
@@jackallen6261 I'm 24 and listen to records all the time, probably my parents' fault. It does suck that none of the new players have any of these cool features. You either buy the newer player and know you can get cheap styli / cartridges or buy a cool older player and then have to spend 4 X as much on getting it to work :/ Wish I could find a good player, with all the best tech, which won't completely break the bank. For now, I've settled for a couple of hundred pounds spent on a nice looking, average sounding player.
Eh, vinyl records are niche enough as it is. No need to get all snobby & gatekeeper-y about it. As long as it ain't one of those Crosley/Victrola/suitcase players you can find at any department store, I could care less how many or little features you prefer.
If my SL-5 is an indication you can indeed run the turntable without closing the lid -- back on the corner there is a switch that senses when the lid is closed so that the tonearm can function; just push that switch in and engage. This is how I would always clean a record before playing it. Other that that, I don't think I would ever want a turntable sitting on top of an instrument that generates heat, considering there would be vinyl records on it.
Thank you for putting the "new" turntable on the casseiver. I know it's dumb but I wanted to see it and was concerned you weren't going to do it when you said it's a different size.
Elvis Costello & the Attraction's LP "Get Happy!!" from 1980 has 20 tracks in total - 10 on each side! So then you'd need the SL-6, if you only wanted to hear track 9 or 10. :)
I bought myself a nice SL5 recently. And, it was a steal...lol... I am sometimes really lucky with my gear. I just paid 45,- Euro for it. And it works really fine. And due to me being a snob, I gifted a new Audio Technica cartridge to the turntable that cost the same price as the Turntable itself lol...And due to my laziness, it became my main turntable in the listening room...lol!
I have this exact TT. It looked like your stylus dropped a little quickly on the record and may need to be greased to make that action smoother. I also totally agree about older TT being much better. I have a really sleek looking Ion Compact LP that sounds bad and I don’t think it has any stylus options to help that, but these older players sound far better. It’s no contest.
Regarding the benefits of linear tracking, it is, regardless of cost, going to reduce distortion. A useful ten fold reduction or more in distortion products. 3% or 0.3%..? Certainly this is audible too, it's easy to hear a ten fold increase into high levels of distortion. (You wouldn't hear the difference maybe between 0.01 and 0.1%) But between 0.5 and 5% it can be dramatic, and this is the sort of range we are looking at. Keep up the great work. Still the best in your field...By a long way..
@@mescko Blimey. three years late... Yes, but really what a minor thing. The anti-skate will even out the wear and tear on both sides of the stylus and any geometry variations are still tiny. I guess though you would have to agree that it would even out wear - Because it would! Just crazy tiny worry.
That's how old clean records sound if they've been looked after properly. There's no reason at all why a record should be a pop, hiss and crackle fest, other than poor maintenance and/or a dodgy deck.
@@jasejj Vinil was replaced by cassettes that were replaced by CD's that were replaced by MP3's that in turn got replaced by just streaming MP3's. By the time I was born cassettes were on their way out. By the time I was old enough to appreciate music CD's were being replaced by MP3's. By the time I was finishing high school streaming was becoming a thing. I've never heard a record that was this clear and clean. Even cleaned records end up having some hiss or pop. Mainly because with the exception of a few hard core audiophiles 99% of the world moved from one format to the next and most vinyl just got abandoned in a box or a drawer somewhere out of sight for decades on end. If you still have old vinyl that sound like the above, congrats.
@@AlucardNoir Pedantic correction alert: most streaming uses AAC or Vorbis, rather than MP3. Both are more modern and lose less of the detail for the same bitrate (such as compressing harmonics by encoding the base frequency and then re-generating the harmonics in decode. This doesn't sound quite the same as the original or a lossless version, but is much closer than MP3.) I do understand that MP3 has become more of a shorthand for any lossy compression on audio though, since it was the first one to get real traction with consumers. I still called my solid state media player an "MP3 player" despite mostly loading AACs onto it.
@@kaitlyn__L You can probably find physical MP3 players that don't even support MP3 any more. I get what you're saying though. But in truth I don't care any more. Most streaming services have become good enough that I just don't care what they use. Does it sound good? yes? move on then. Can I play it on my device? yes? move on. The tech details, well, I & most other people no longer care about. If I do want higher quality I just buy a physical album and rip it personally as flac.
@@AlucardNoir True indeed. I enjoy backing up to FLAC too. I still use Spotify for convenience on the go but I will buy a CD of albums I especially like and get a full quality rip. (Despite format-shifting being illegal in the UK, I don't think that's really stopped anyone..) I had previously ripped my entire collection in iTunes back when my audio hardware couldn't let me tell the difference between AAC and lossless. Was quite frustrated at my lack of foresight when I had to go back and rip in FLAC, but I suppose I can't blame myself when I only had 80GB for all of my photos, music and videos.
The only real reason I avoid these vintage turntables is because they're so full of functions & features that will eventually die. Parts will wear out, circuits can fry, and all kinds of other issues that can render them useless. I can repair them, but parts will eventually wear thin, and who really wants to keep investing in a piece of equipment who's major draw is affordability vs. modern hifi components? Many entry level HiFi tables will quite nearly last forever, thanks to a paired down experience. My Rega TT has one switch... for power. That's it. I'll never have to worry about a faulty Quartz Lock, tracking motor, cueing motor, or any other thing like that. There's definitely convenience in those features, and I think they're compelling reasons to own one of these kinds of tables. I just think about how invested I'm going to be in HiFi for the long term, and am trying to plan for that.
I have a Sony PS-X75 that I bought new. The turntable has a Biotracer arm, which means it has sensors and motors to track horizontally and vertically. It also has optical record recognition and quartz speed control. In other words, it's complex. The primary failure is the computer chip stops working. This can be caused by caps in the power supply going bad and giving bad voltages to the processor. The processor is absolutely unobtainable. If the chip fails, it can be replaced by a Teensy++ 2.0 or other controller. The Teensy++ 2.0 supports 5 volts natively. Other controllers can be used with voltage converters. It takes some programming, but it works. The more challenging task is replacing the dried lubricants. There are very delicate coils that have to be removed to access bearings. In my case, the chip is working so all I have to do is make sure the power supply is robust.
I dunno, the Japanese stuff of this era was so reliable and well made that faults are rare even in old age (breakdowns are usually because they've been abused). I'm not saying it doesn't happen but motors and ICs can fail on anything, and I don't necessarily agree with the "more to go wrong" hypothesis generally.
everybody : old vs. new
Techmoan :old vs. older
And that is why I'm subbed to this channel
I'm subbed for the puppets.
Top lads
So good definition old vs older
There's no school like old school.
@@grizzly6699 Old linear turntable or new manual turntable ?
Neat! Looks great and plays well on both of them. :D There’s a slight distortion, but I think that’s because of the mastering and transference to the lathe cut in the factory. It’s my first real vinyl production and they aren’t really that helpful in giving you feedback on how to properly mix stuff.
Ideally you’d mix everything from scratch, but that would mean two separate projects for each song I make and take so much more time. However, most engineers I’ve spoken too, said the method I used is more than good enough.
It’s based on 24 bit 44.1 uncompressed master mixes from my DAW which then I’ve mastered in Ozone 8 with medium settings to keep levels from going overboard. Bass frequencies from around 300Hz and below are summed to mono and there is a slight roll off of high frequencies from 10-12KHz to prevent harsh distortion in the HF range. Also the more energetic songs are kept towards the outer rim of the disc and slow and lower intensity songs towards the center - standard methods from the 80-90s really.
The track mentioned is one of the more saturated songs, so the slight distortion is a little bit due to being very busy. You learn as you go, getting better each time (hopefully 😂).
Thanks for the shout out, Mat! Got more vinyls coming later.
Thanks for the insight!
Thanks Anders!
Thanks for commenting
Thanks for the comprehensive comment, getting back into music production and I'm very interested in why vinyl sounds the way it does, I love the saturated sound ;)
I love your music. Finally broke down and ordered the cassette of vol. 3 and digital download. I can hardly wait. Love that FM Love. Thanks for making this music. It really makes my life a little better.
*UPDATE*
I have been advised that you can still buy P-Mount cartridges - here’s an Amazon Affiliated Link to an Audio Technica one: amzn.to/2KjJHOk
You’ll find lots more links to avoid in the mythical *Video Description Text Box*
And Grado as well
Have you looked at the ADAT recording format? It's essentially an 8 track DAT recorded onto VHS tape. I used to work with them.
Yep: Audio Technica, Grado...and Ortofon do the OMP which uses the OM range of styli. Putting the Stylus 30 on an OMP on that turntable may well bring superlative performance with inner grooves and sibilance.
If you buy an older AT P-mount cartridge, all of the 100 series styli produced over the past 40 years for the standard half inch screw fit models will fit, including the current VM range.
Must be the older body though popular in the 80s and 90s, not the current type.
I have that cartridge (with the elliptical stylus) on my SL-DD20 and must say it sounds fabulous compared to the original P-30 cartridge with a (less than 2 year old) "random" reproduction stylus that the previous owner put on there.
Was about the same price as finding a no-name elliptical replacement stylus for the P-30.
I know it's not "the best a man can get" but I bought the whole HIFI stack the SL-DD20 came with (including the cabinet) used (mainly for the turntable) and with that new cartridge it totaled me €120.
BTW audio-technica still makes and distributes, p-mount cartridges. Also, the reduction in inner groove distortion compared to most conventional turntables is noticeable to me even in these lower priced models.
Having recently bought a new P-mount cartridge from Audio Technica I was hoping to find this comment somewhere. There are other companies still making P-mount cartridges, they're just a little harder to find than they may once have been.
Just in case someone comes across this comment train at some point looking for one, two models to throw into the room are the AT81CP (conical) and AT85EP (elliptical). Or just dig through Audio Technicas current phono cartridge catalog, which (at least in the 2019/2020 edition) shows one of these old silver Technics linear tracking turntables (with the red arrow LED as shown at 12:35 in here) as the background splash image for the P-Mount cartrige section, which is a nice coincidence
They are easy to find as a used cartridge on eBay I recently bought a Stanton 680el p-mount that I removed the extra weight from and I'm now have a D680EE stylus on it. I will be getting a new stylus soon so I can keep the actual Stanton as a reference. I know there are other p-mount cartridge still manufactured other than AT . I really like the Stanton 680/681 moving iron cartridge sound. I have the brush mounted and tracking force maxed out at 1.5 grams with my SL-7 yeah it works with the brush that add a gram and subtract a gram is zero grams. One side benefit no anti skating compensation needed at all . Self cleaning close"n"play.
Grado also makes a good quality P-mount
kinda amazing how much sound music you can put into some squiggly lines, rather amazing
The mechanisms behind audio recording is always pretty fascinating to think about, from squiggly lines in pieces of wax, insect resin, and PVC, to electromagnetic signals on a strip of plastic covered in metal powder, to 1's and 0's on a shiny plastic disc and a computer.
Ah yes sound music, my favorite kind of music
FACT: Listening to sounds, is one of the best ways to hear things.
Lucky bugger. I had to settle for a pair of socks and an argument.
Some Father's Day chocolates and a Techmoan video, what a nice way to start a Sunday.
I trough fathers day was 10th nov?? Is it diffrent in different countrys
@@Rainbow__cookie yes.here in Chile is 19 th June
I have that Behringer preamp. It also doubles as a very good budget DAC. Highly recommended.
As a user of automatic direct drive turntable with quartz lock and autoreturn and so on I must say - it's all really convinient and fun, when set up properly. Too bad turntables today are really basic. Sometimes high fidelity isn't enough.
As a 61 year old audio electronics technician who first started fixing electronic devices around fifty years ago, I will take the basic belt drive turntables over any of these highly automated, microprocessor driven, mostly plastic units. These sorts of turntables sound okay, certainly not the equal of a good belt drive with a better tone arm, but the real problem comes when something goes wrong with them. Lots of electronics, loaded with capacitors that are pretty much ancient now, and often using photosensitive detecting devices for the arm position that are no longer available. And the linear tracking turntables have lubrication that dries up overtime, and the mechanisms to try to keep the tonearm perfectly parallel to the record while a motor drives the base of the arm straight across are finicky and hard to adjust. Typically these linear tracking mechanisms involve a motor, a belt or two, and a tightly stretched string.
And it's your honest choice, up to your preference really. If you want uncomplicated hi-fi device, you have a wide variety of models on the market and freedom to buy them, new or old. In the meanwhile, there are some people who apart from high audio quality like for example watching tonearm mechanically travelling to the exact position or when the device detects if you are playing 7'' single. And there are hardly any brand-new devices like this. I am aware of possible malfunctioning of used 30year old automatic turntables, that's why I wrote "when set up properly" - you have to take care of them. I did have to replace capacitator and photoresistors in mine... but it works. And maybe that's why appreciate it so much - because it is complicated enough to fail, but it doesn't. And that is brilliant about it.
If something brings joy and isn't harmful, don't trample it with cold analitical facts. If so, collecting vinyl wouldn't be a thing.
@@sandr6769 , I understand where you're coming from, and I agree with you to some extent, but I disagree about the "cold analytical facts" as you put it. Mostly because we seem to be living in a non-fact-based world to a large extent nowadays, certainly here in the USA anyway, although that's a socio-political argument for another day and another different topic. But mostly, I feel sorry for the people who buy a complicated turntable which turns out to need service, even though oftentimes they were assured by the seller that it "works", or it's something that was used in their family 20 or 30 years ago and has been sitting in a garage or basement or attic since then, and they bring it into the shop hoping we can fix it for less than a hundred bucks say, and usually it cannot be be done for that minimal amount of money. On a rare occasion it can't be fixed it all. Which is why I tell the newbies anyway, or the people without prior knowledge and skills and access, to stick to the simpler record playing devices. Later on down the road when they're buying their second or third turn table, and have become more familiar with adjusting and fiddling with them or doing minor repairs, that's the time to buy something a little more complicated. It's kind of like my wife and myself and our three rescue dogs, we've been dog owners together for almost 25 years, mostly with large breeds such as Saint Bernards and German Shepherds, and so we have the general skills to deal with a traumatized dog who needs special help and attention to get past their behavioral issues. I certainly wouldn't advise a first time dog owner or dog rescuer to take on a dog with major behavioral problems, especially a large breed dog. I wouldn't call that a cold analytical judgment, I'd call it facing certain realities. You can't rescue and Rehab every dog, nor can you rescue and repair every turntable or other older piece of audio equipment. The woman who owns the kennel where we bring our dogs for daycare and play sessions and board them when we go away had rescued a large breed dog who had a history of biting, she worked with him for the better part of a year until he knew his commands upside down and inside out, his behavior was much improved and so she placed him in a new home, and he bit somebody. She took him back, and then he started to get in a fight with another dog and when the dogs were separated he was still in an agitated fight mode and tried to bite one of her employees, and so the dog had to be put down. Broke her heart, but that's the way it is with animals sometimes. And with audio equipment sometimes, or cars, or whatever.
@@goodun6081 If the processor goes out in my vintage turntable, I can replace it with a Teensy++ 2.0. You're right about the lubricants being difficult to access. I just bought some Krytox GPL 205 Grease, Pure PFPE/PTFE; I'm hoping it does the trick. BTW, I'm several years older than you.
About to go to bed, and then saw this video. It's 2 am in America. I love the videos.
At least here in the west coast of America lol
Umm, it's 6 months later and it's giving me a late night craving for my Croz.
13:08 Thank you for saying you "couldn't care any less" rather than "could care less"!
He's British, it's the form they use over there ^^
@@TwoWholeWorms The American "I could care less" makes no sense as an expression, because the only thing it rules out is not caring at all, which is exactly the sentiment it's supposed to convey.
That’s not an American expression. Only hill billies say it that way.
Nothing wrong with good 'Ol British engineering, my Amstrad hi-fi had a superb turntable, you placed a record on it and it automatically started at 5 and a quarter speed and slowed over the course of a record to 0 speed. This didn't bother me that much as both the speakers fell out of their case (this was on the day it was delivered by Dixons)
g2macs Ha brilliant... and now he’s Sir Sugar....
Amstrad, do you you remember those emailer phones? I think he bought Sinclair as well.
Built In Shoeburyness by ex EKCO/Pye/Phillips employees IIRC.
lol! Funniest comment I have read all day.
So you got one of the better ones huh
Design-wise I'm a big fan of the Technics SL-7. It has this absolutely clean timeless look😎
I agree - it’s one I’ve had my eye on too.
It’s an excellent machine. Built like a tank with the same specs as the sl-10 but without the built in mc preamp.
I have a Technics SL-J2! Pretty much the same as the SL-J6, except that it appears to be a more advanced model than either of these. It's quartz lock, sleeve-sized, direct drive. But unlike these models, it doesn't use separate buttons to select tracks. There is a single button and a digital counter to identify the track. And unlike the J6, there is a plastic window on the "close 'n' play" cover that extends all the way across the record, as on the J300. In other words, it's the same turntable as the J6 with more flashy lights and readouts. Bought it brand-new in 1989. The unit had been discontinued at that point -- the bottom had dropped out of the turntable market, and it was going for cheap -- about $150 new, if I recall correctly. Worked fine for the 10 years or so that I had it hooked up as my main turntable. The key thing is that it can identify tracks and set the needle down precisely. A wonderful technological feature that other turntables do not share. Ultimately I retired it because I wanted a more traditional tonearm. Today it resides in a box in my closet. But this was one of the coolest turntables from the period just before turntables disappeared from the market -- an example of the highest level technology achieved before vinyl went away, at least temporarily. Today we forget how quickly the LP was abandoned -- prior to today's vinyl revival, I bought my last brand-new record in 1992.
I have an SL-D202, and it's served me well for... 38 years. Man, I'm old.
FYI: You can use your phone app to measure the speed of the turntable. There's a little tiny latch on the upper right that you can hold down with your finger and trick the turntable into thinking that the lid is closed. I sometimes have to do it with my Technics turntable because the linear tone arm occasionally gets stuck, and the only way to unstick it is to jiggle it while the motor is trying to move it.
I just love that the word "casceiver" is not going away.
Helium Road And now that casseiver is here in my studio. I bought it recently. 😂
Great choice, I've been using this very model, purchased second hand around 10 years ago and its fantastic.
In the 1980s I bought a Toshiba stacking system for my bacheklor pad. I loved the thing and spent many hours imbibing while listening to the radio and playing vinyl.
I moved into my current home in 1991 with wife (and kids on the way).
Being way ahead of the times I converted an old display cabinet into an entertainment centre complete with Hifi, TV, VCR and turntable. But then I gave in to music on CD and bought a new system. But being the hoarder I am, the stacking system and all those records and cassettes are stored in my loft.
Thanks to Covid, I have rertired a bit early and after seeing your many entertaining videos I am toying with the idea of installing all my old entertainment stuff in the alcove that houses the current TV etc.
Will let you know how I get on with this including convincing the wife that playing my vinyl is a great idea.
I just recently got my old Kasparov chess computer going again after 30 years in the loft - that was only a five minute job and that got her fussing. :-)
I got one of these recently, it’s honestly really cool to watch the arm move along and scan the record. Sounds pretty great too even with the old cartridge it came with, miles better than my roommate’s cheap suitcase turntable too at a very similar price. 100% recommend one if you can find one on eBay or something for a reasonable price, they’re really great little turntables and much cheaper than comparable modern models
I got a whole Technics tower with the SL-J300R on top :)
@@seventeesweremagic Technics fans unite! ;)
Thanks to Matt for getting me to search & get a serviced J33. Like the programming feature.
Love My SL7, it has a rare P205CMK3 cartridge which is pretty much the best P mount cart out there, maybe tied with the 310MC from the SL10. Well built and convenient, but what amazes me is how good it sounds! I gave up with a £1300 Thorens deck and stuck with the SL7, sounds great with a good phone stage and good partnering equipment. The SL7 also benefits from Quartz lock.
*Your work on these videos is wonderful, Mat. You deserve even more appreciation for it than we all give. Well done as always.*
Most people watching him are jealous. Thats why. BUt he is so good at the presenting these items.
love technics, i've been using an sl q300 for a while :-)
I Bought a Technics midi set when I was 18, saved up for a very long time,, that was in 1983, it came with the SL-J1. Think it was about 2.000 Guilders, daylight robbery come to think of it. I Broke the Amplifier, and the Cassette deck went too, I don't remember where the Speakers went, but still own the SL-J1. It's belt drive, but, it still works perfectly. Changed the Stylus years ago.
I Own several turntables, but still have a sweet spot for the SL-J1 because its the size of a record sleeve and is so sleek in design.
the J300R came with a midi system, and if I remember properly was really rough and ready quality. The top technics linear trackers were the SL10 and SL7, along with the SL-QL1 and DL1 which were all metal and very substantial. If you go onto Bob Wood's channel you can see some very impressive needle drops using the Ortofon OMP40 cartridge among others...
The biggest difference between this caliber turntable and bigger, heavier, more expensive ones, is the bass. What is a solid foundation on expensive tables is turned into 50 shades of mush on plastic ones. And as you approach the worst possible - Lego turntables or something made from cardboard, those 50 shades get reduced down to 1.
I really like that newer unit. It kinda mimics the action of a CD player, automatically reading how many tracks are on the side of a record once the lid is closed.
Ronco! Who needs fidelity when you get so much more grove on the platter. ☺
Grove, did you mean groove, I'm confused?
@Dezwarteschijf More groove, not more grooves!
@Dezwarteschijf A longer groove is more groove though. The same way a person with a two-pound cake has "more cake" than a person with a one-pound cake - even though they both have one cake.
WHOOSH!! and this comment flew COMPLETELY over some peoples head, lol. Remember Ronco people??? I guess not, lol. Nice to see you here Fran I am a subscriber of yours as well.
K-Tel in America used to have 22 tracks on a single LP!!!!
Rather than optical sensing, many older Technics turntables had a mat and platter arrangement with two slots in them and a couple of little plastic levers that came up very slightly through the slots in the mat and platter and were pushed down by the record sitting on just one lever if it was a 7 inch 45 and on both levers if it was a 12-inch LP. The later more sophisticated versions would scan up through the slot in the platter and mat looking for the underside surface of the record, to determine where the tonearm should set down.
Cool Matt! I have a SL-5 and a J2. The 5's nothing special no quartz but decent. The J2 has quartz and a single LED digit that you make show the number of tracks to skip, only. No programming. And there's brand new P-mount stock made again such as AT-3482.
Mat, I hate to be one of those utter nerds that throw a spanner in your works, but the first of the Technics record sleeve sized players with track selection was the SL-15, released in 1981.
The SL-6 came out the year after the SL-15.
Whoops.
My ideal ultra-high-tech record player;
- Compatibility with Inverted records.
- Compatibility with CLV records.
- Compatibility with records that have additional grooves inside the label area.
- CX, DBX, MQA and Quadraphonic decoders.
- Quartz-lock, Stepper motors + Belt drive.
- Laser tachometer, PID controller, piezoelectric brush sensor, and ultra precise rotational position tracking. Helpful for detecting playback anomalies in advance (like skips, wow and flutter) for real-time correction.
- Gyroscope, compass and accelerometer to detect sudden unexpected vibrations in the environment, and adjust all mechanisms to compensate.
- Hybrid of physical and optical styli.
- Optical sound output to minimize electrical interference from other devices.
With the revival of vinyl it's strange that companies like Technics don't revive their turntables as well.
they do they made an audiophile sl 1200 that I think they still sell
I love my Sl-J3. Quartz drive is excellent. I found it quite easy to service as well.
When I was looking for a vintage turntable to get as my first one I watched this video and fell in love with the design of them. I couldn't find the sl-j300r but I did find an sl-j33 in very good condition, only the popup 45 adapter was broken. I absolutely love the thing and im happy this video helped me find it
And I got a similar pre-amp to the one shown in the video, its just not usb and doesn't have a headphone jack
I’m listening right now as I drift off to sleep.
I’m not sure if that’s a positive endorsement, but have a good sleep.
@@Techmoan I do the same thing every now and then. It’s a positive endorsement from me. There’s only so many hours in the day and if I can’t watch a video because it’s time to hit the hay, well, listening is the next best thing. Drifting off into a slumber while hearing you talk about vintage pieces of audio equipment is a great way to go. Your channel is a favorite of mine, as well as LGR. Both channels have a cozy feeling and I really enjoy how informative and relaxed the vibe is.
Received an SL-6 for free awhile back, and I am finally pulling it out of the box and getting it sorted out. Thanks for the detailed rundown!
For the price point, these were pretty good turntables. These are somewhat "undersung," so you can find them for not all that much money.
As always, great video. I miss the puppets.
The SL-15 goes for big $ and justifiably so- it's all aluminum and examples are included in Museum of Modern Art and Design. Not to be mistaken for the 'plastic' models. ;)
Agreed! All the turntable manufacturers have lost the keys to the cupboard where the technology's kept. I like linear trackers, and in my experience they just need some maintenance to keep working for many more years to come. Nice turntables from this era are the (radial arm) Denon DP-23F and its relatives. Fully automatic with electronic tracking control and a cassette-head speed sensor. A bit of technology right there! Another great video, keep up the good work.
I fixed a DP-23 or similar model Denon a while back, the platter wouldn't spin; I replaced the open thermal fuse that sits up against the direct-drive coil (under a thick rubbery layer of shrink tubing, and not shown in the schematic or service manual) which got the platter spinning again, at what appeared to be at least a few hundred rpm! The unit turned out to have a shorted driver transistor; probably somebody left it on overnight, or a power surge turned it on and left it spinning until the driver transistor failed, then the platter spun at high speed until the direct drive motor coil overheated and the thermal fuse blew. I also had some problems with the function switches, the plastic buttons get sticky if there's the slightest bit of dust or grunge in there, so they had to be disassembled and cleaned, and I think I also replaced one or two tact switches underneath the buttons as well.
Got a J33, cousin, that was serviced & new belt for tonearm, new stylus. Thanks to your channel. Best audio reviews on RUclips.
Just a little correction.
There is only one motor in the lid of the SL-6 as well. The track detecting sensor is moved by the same string which moves the tonearm as well (and they are moving together and synchronized as well, of course). The only real difference is the length of the string :)
My Technics SL-J300R retired after 30+ years of service. I love it a lot!
Love this video and love this channel! I recently moved house and decided now was the time to start building my own hifi. I did have a turntable and amp running in the old house but wanted to upgrade and make use of a Technics amp I've had since 2003.
This video inspired me to go along the Quartz locked direct drive linear tracking route and I fell in love with the J300R purely after seeing this vid. Instantly knew it was the one for me, the colour fits the aesthetic of my other gear and after a couple of weeks eyeing up the classifieds I finally bought one today in good nick and full working order for a decent price!
Thanks for this channel! I rinsed about 7 hours of content in one sitting one rainy saturday afternoon recently and I've definitely found a new obsession!
My Technics system is 32 years old and once its warmed up, it still sounds beautiful, the amplifier is showing its age as the volume selector is crackly . But once ive got it set and stable, its true 80's sound through the original speakers .
LP Gear also stocks a whole bunch of all kinds of cartridges, some to be found nowhere else. Love your videos, cheers from Leavenworth, KS, USA.
I don’t know what it is about Vinyl, but I love to collect it. I never collected CDs or cassettes, but Vinyl is something different.
Real music fans collect the vinyls! I find it insane that people play them though - don’t people realise that they are basically dragging a knife across the vinyl every time they play them??? It’s crazy.
@@Zveebo Actually listening to the music you buy? CRAZY.
C. H. I preserve the pristine analogue sound onto MiniDisc then preserve the vinyl by vacuum sealing in a nitrogen environment and storing in a temperature-controlled vault. Giving me the best of both worlds - you don’t need to play vinyls to enjoy them.
@@Zveebo I take pictures of the covers and run them through software that reads the audio from the impressions the vinyl makes on the paper and cellophane and encodes them as 8kb/s mono .amr files for that pristine 2002 audio experience. Then I lock them in a sterile room at least 2m apart from one another and brick the doorway so they stay 100% unusable.
Zveebo it’s not the same experience man....
don't know if you find yourself in the US often (if ever), but if you do, you should consider stopping by Memphis to visit the STAX Museum. You seem to be a big fan of the label, and their collection is awesome. Plus..... they need money, lol
I had a dark grey Technics deck similar to these but without the track buttons (just the play/skip buttons).
I bought my deck as new old stock in about 1998.
I thought it sounded good and worked well for years.
I've googled it and it appears to have been an early 80s unit, an SL-Q5. It still had the needle new and shrink wrapped almost 20 years later!
At home we have a technics Sl-B210. It works very well.
8.44 " For any odd shaped or unusual vinyl records " Yep that certainly qualifies 😁 what on earth was it ???
@@seanfennel4845 Ha ! You are right thanks !
You've got me in the mood to go out and build my own hifi system. I've been able to find some really nice one from thrift shops for like $10( I've actually gotton 3 separate cassette decks now because I kept finding a higher end one). they all don't match but oh well. The one thing I haven't been able to find is a reasonably priced turntable all the hipsters seems to buy them right away. I guess maybe I'm a hipster now too🤔
I picked up a Pioneer PL-530 at a garage sale for $10.00 usd. Owner stated it worked but had a few issues. I got it home and opened the bottom. Only a few things ahd come loose and needed to be re-greased. Played beautifully afterwards.
Many p mount new cartridges exist. I'd recommend the Grado black. I found a p-mount Shure and had it retipped, great lively sound.
Don't discount the original EP series carts fitted to these 'tables. They were quite good carts and they can be seriously upgraded with hyperelliptical and even fineline/Shibata types that yield fantastic sound.
As a former DJ I'd say without a doubt that Technics make the best turntables, the SL1200 & SL1210 are legendary.
I had a Technics SL-3 which was very similar to the SL-6 but without the track detection.
It also didn’t use an optical system for determining the record size, but a mechanical lever at the rear of the machine which would be nudged by a 12” record.
I thought the linear tracking was cool, but the tone arm tends to move across the record in small steps rather than a continuous motion. You can’t hear it, but capturing a record on the PC would reveal a subsonic rumble clearly visible in the audio every time the tone arm moved. Easy enough to remove with a FFT filter.
It also looks to me like both your turntables have faster movement of the tone arm carriage when seeking tracks. The SL-3 was agonisingly slow when you wanted to cue a track near the centre of the record 😂
Love your videos.
One thing liner tracking seems to do better at (at least for me) is with my techno/electronic records. My Onkyo tended to jump on heaver bass thumps (regardless of what I had the tracking force set at, or the volume of the stereo its self). I recently got a Aiwa LX-70, and works phenomenally well, and no more jumping.
Technics SL-10 with built in mc pre-amp is an amazing machine. 0 tracking error, 0 skating force and near 0 w/f and rumble. Quartz lock, direct drive, p mount. If you can locate one and outfit it with a good used Shure V15 type VP cartridge you will have something that rivals any and I mean any “audiophile” machine made today. Plug and play cartridge means perfect geometry without the fuss which means very little record wear or distortion. A 45 rpm Direct to Disk analogue recording played on this machine will rival any cd any day. The SL-15 is the programmable version.
I recently was able to purchase, what I thought was, a new Grado Black 3 P mount cartridge for my Technics SL-D20 turntable that I recently pulled out of storage after 25 years of non use. It ended up working fine after a bit of lubrication. Thank God for direct drive. I had to do a bit of work to find new cartridges. Apart from, the Grado I purchased, I think I also saw a couple of Audio Technicas for sale.
I just got a steal of a deal on a SL-5 today and recalled you reviewing something really similar to it so I had to find it, and I have to agree that it's a very cute little system. It sounds fantastic too and it's a solid system if you can get it at a good price.
Thanks for the helpful video. I prefer the sound of the SL-6. It looks like the cartridges are different, that could explain the difference in sound.
Great vid, Mat. One thing I will take issue with on the inner groove distortion, is that you absolutely will hear the improvement even on a cheaper linear tracker once you know what you're listening for. Some cuts are better than others, but when they try to cram a loud jam with a lot of horns or something, onto the inner tracks, like Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, IGD can be night/day difference just because of the pickup angle.
hugeshows I actually thought the grooves were engineered to assume a reference length and position of a traditional tone arm, making linear tracking players the distorted ones.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 I'm not sure I understand. There are different length pivoting tonearms, plus a groove is a groove, being a mechanically produced waveform. Any manipulation of the groove would destroy the phasing at the very least.
I have a Technics SL-Q and have used a couple AT P mounts on it. They're satisfactory.
They do make P-mount cartridges. I have a Sony PS-LX520 which needed only needed the belt for the stylus replaced (it moves the stylus on its bar) and it had a knackered Stanton cartridge. I replaced it with an Audio-Technica AT85EP with elliptical stylus The 520 is also a linear tracking turntable from the greatest era in Sony’s history, the mid-80s. I agree, unless you’re willing to get an AT-LP60 for fully automatic operation, or an old turntable that you’d have to fix, the current state of record players is poor. I’m old, I like fully automatic.
I have one of those U-Phonos. It’s great for hooking anything up to your computer for diagnostics like wow and flutter or speed accuracy.
My dad has a technics sl-j2 and I've always found the cueing mechanism so fascinating. I just used manual mode for the most part though
They need to make some turntables like this again... would love to add one of these to my set up for sitting back and not having to babysit my expensive manual rig.
Just testing myJ33, sounds great. All thanks to this channel
I used to work at Lasky's in the 80's and remember handling a lot of the HiFi you've been reviewing. I'm amazed that you can still find working equipment. Great reminiscing on it though. Thanks.
As others have mentioned in the comments, several well known brands still supply P mount cartridges. Grado, Shure, Audio Technica, Ortofon and Nagaoka still have it in their catalogues.
I chose the brilliant Nagaoka C-501. Very nice eliptical stylus and sonically similar to the great Nagaoka MP-110.
All in all a very practical and great sounding solution with my Technics SL-QL15. Open and spacious 3D sound that packs some serious foot tapping qualities.
Mount any of the cartridges in sale today on a vintage Technics and you'll be in for a sonical surprise.
Keep up the good work!
The better part of Linear Tracking, is the immense reduction of weight to the tonearm... which means less record wear, and gives the audio basically no "coloration" from the source, through amplification. Stylus weight required for playback is a huge factor for fidelity
On the sl-6 there is a switch on the right hand side near the lid that when held down you can use the speed app
I was thinking the same thing. Just push the switch to let the TT think the lid is closed. It'll think there's a 12 inch on there.
Before techmoan I thought a record player was a record player, a Walkman was a Walkman and a cassette was a cassette...how foolish I was! Great video as usual sir. I find your channel not only very informative and interesting but also very calming. I think it's your talking, there's a rythm to it haha. I look forward to Future vids about past audio formats that haven't been invented yet lol
Who could give these videos a dislike?
Wish I still had my Technics 1310 Mkii
Frankly, I had no idea that Technics made so many different linear turntables. I've "inherited" my father's J2 and it's one of my most cherished possessions. I waited too long to replace the cartridge, though - the old one had developed a balance issue - and was stuck getting an AT 85EP off Amazon, which seems to be a pretty low-end unit. The one I'd saved in my list that was a direct replacement of the old one went out of stock and never came back. I'm seriously thinking of going to LP Gear or somewhere similar and getting a nicer cartridge… the sound from that J300R was head and shoulders better than what I have!
I like the way my Grado Black1 P-Mount sounds on my Technics SL-QL15! It sounds great to me.
Thanks to you, I got a SL Q6 from Japan. Which is fantastic design and quality. Thanks Techmoan!
Wow, just seen this video again and noticed the Ronco record you showed, this was my first LP I bought but had mislaid it and couldn’t remember what it was. Many thanks
I only just realized we almost have the same receiver. I bought my Marantz NR1606 for 250 euros a few months ago. What a beast that is.
I've always wanted one
I started with an SL-6 and was fascinated by the tech, but eventually the track selection thing was a bit of a gimmick I never really used it, super cool tho. I ended up passing it on to a friend when I lucked out on an SL-7 (a simpler, heavier and better sounding model with quartz lock) from ebay that needed a bit of TLC to get to working. The service manuals are readily available on the internet for these and once they've had the main metal runner cleaned and regreased and any loose o-rings replaced, they are back to top condition. The J-series were definitely a lot quicker in operation, if I remember the SL-6 was a bit slow.
You can fix the slightly slow playing speeds of your SL6 with two screw potentiometers on the PCB inside the base of the machine, I think I had to take the bottom off to access them tho, if anyone is interested I'll send them the service manual.
Great machines tho, the T4P tonearm/cart system is very light, so you only need between 1-1.5g of force on the cartridge, meaning less wear on your records, plus, linear tracking (rather than a pivot tonearm) means that the stylus is always perpendicular to the walls of the groove. No inner groove distortion! Only problem is with second hand records sometimes those inner grooves have been worn out by a previous owner's badly aligned system. Also the cover keeps dust away from yr records when playing which is great too.
Great to see these getting some attention, although for a while they felt like a bit of a sweet secret, I expect the prices on ebay will pop up now. Think I bought the SL6 for 40quid about 5 years ago, and the SL-7 for 75 but a fixer upper (These go for a few hundred in good condition.) Entertaining and informative as ever Techmoan! :)
It sound quite good inspite of youtube compression and all plastic turntable.
Amazing how much the SL6 looks like a big brother to my SL-XP7 from 1986, the 1st portable CD player from Technics😀
Your one lucky guy, you must have one understanding wife, my wife won't let me have anything other than TV and dvd player in living room, but I do have my man cave, love your videos, and thanks to you I've dug out my old vynals and got myself a system also dug out my old minidiscs and got a few players and recorders forgot how good they are, thanks for your videos keep them coming
For the one without quartz lock, you could probably calibrate the turntable via an internal trimmer pot. While not ideal for keeping it locked over time/temperature differences/random whatever, you could likely keep it close to spot on with regular tune-ups.
I was inspired by one of your previous videos to make a low cost vintage hifi setup for my home office and ultimately I settled on a vintage Pioneer receiver, and an Akai Cassette deck and matching Akai Reel to Reel player. I topped it off with a pair of JBL studio monitors that I bought new but basically never used. They sat around unused until I bought the receiver and now I know they sound awesome. I also added a bluetooth adaptor to the aux port for playing music from my iphone. What I don't have in the system is a turntable. I don't need a super duper top of the line turntable because I already have one on my main hi fi system. But now I feel like I should look for one of these Technics turntables based on this video. Maybe I also need to buy your friends music too ;)
It's obvious why no one makes automatic, feature-rich turntables, right?
Most of the people listening to "vinyls" nowadays are allergic to convenience. The more basic the turntable the more authentic the experience, in their minds.
The more authentic the person, the less allergic they are to inconvenience.
Hey Catfish, yeah I've been listening to records since the late sixties and I have a Technics SL-1900 direct drive fully automatic turntable, I guess I'm not authentic enough, lol. BUT to be fair everyone has their own wants and desires when it comes to this sort of thing so I guess live and let live... it is cool that ANYONE is still listening to records (vinyl) these days!
@@jackallen6261 I'm 24 and listen to records all the time, probably my parents' fault. It does suck that none of the new players have any of these cool features. You either buy the newer player and know you can get cheap styli / cartridges or buy a cool older player and then have to spend 4 X as much on getting it to work :/ Wish I could find a good player, with all the best tech, which won't completely break the bank.
For now, I've settled for a couple of hundred pounds spent on a nice looking, average sounding player.
Eh, vinyl records are niche enough as it is. No need to get all snobby & gatekeeper-y about it.
As long as it ain't one of those Crosley/Victrola/suitcase players you can find at any department store, I could care less how many or little features you prefer.
This video really makes me want to restore my old SL-3
If my SL-5 is an indication you can indeed run the turntable without closing the lid -- back on the corner there is a switch that senses when the lid is closed so that the tonearm can function; just push that switch in and engage. This is how I would always clean a record before playing it.
Other that that, I don't think I would ever want a turntable sitting on top of an instrument that generates heat, considering there would be vinyl records on it.
Thank you for putting the "new" turntable on the casseiver. I know it's dumb but I wanted to see it and was concerned you weren't going to do it when you said it's a different size.
same here .... I like seeing the premise too
Elvis Costello & the Attraction's LP "Get Happy!!" from 1980 has 20 tracks in total - 10 on each side! So then you'd need the SL-6, if you only wanted to hear track 9 or 10. :)
I was given a Technics SL-B210 and Philips 308 turntable for free. The Philips one works perfectly but the Technics one needs a new stylus.
I bought myself a nice SL5 recently. And, it was a steal...lol... I am sometimes really lucky with my gear. I just paid 45,- Euro for it. And it works really fine. And due to me being a snob, I gifted a new Audio Technica cartridge to the turntable that cost the same price as the Turntable itself lol...And due to my laziness, it became my main turntable in the listening room...lol!
I have this exact TT. It looked like your stylus dropped a little quickly on the record and may need to be greased to make that action smoother. I also totally agree about older TT being much better. I have a really sleek looking Ion Compact LP that sounds bad and I don’t think it has any stylus options to help that, but these older players sound far better. It’s no contest.
The very same upgrade path I went with, I had an SL5, then an SL6, and found a SLJ-300R for a good price, and prefer it over the previous two honestly
I've started of with an SL-J1 after Technmoans Christmas Stereo videos. Love that thing, also they're quite kid friendly, not much risk for scratches.
Regarding the benefits of linear tracking, it is, regardless of cost, going to reduce distortion. A useful ten fold reduction or more in distortion products. 3% or 0.3%..? Certainly this is audible too, it's easy to hear a ten fold increase into high levels of distortion. (You wouldn't hear the difference maybe between 0.01 and 0.1%) But between 0.5 and 5% it can be dramatic, and this is the sort of range we are looking at.
Keep up the great work. Still the best in your field...By a long way..
@@mescko Blimey. three years late... Yes, but really what a minor thing. The anti-skate will even out the wear and tear on both sides of the stylus and any geometry variations are still tiny. I guess though you would have to agree that it would even out wear - Because it would! Just crazy tiny worry.
Going for the stealth black on black all blacked out devices...👌🏼💯✔ I dig it...🤘🏼
Wao these sound quality are awesome...
They haven't lost the keys to the tech-cupboard, the bean-counters have them in their tight-fists!
14:21 So that's how new clean records sound. That or this is the best turntable you've ever showcase on the channel.
That's how old clean records sound if they've been looked after properly. There's no reason at all why a record should be a pop, hiss and crackle fest, other than poor maintenance and/or a dodgy deck.
@@jasejj Vinil was replaced by cassettes that were replaced by CD's that were replaced by MP3's that in turn got replaced by just streaming MP3's. By the time I was born cassettes were on their way out. By the time I was old enough to appreciate music CD's were being replaced by MP3's. By the time I was finishing high school streaming was becoming a thing.
I've never heard a record that was this clear and clean. Even cleaned records end up having some hiss or pop. Mainly because with the exception of a few hard core audiophiles 99% of the world moved from one format to the next and most vinyl just got abandoned in a box or a drawer somewhere out of sight for decades on end.
If you still have old vinyl that sound like the above, congrats.
@@AlucardNoir Pedantic correction alert: most streaming uses AAC or Vorbis, rather than MP3. Both are more modern and lose less of the detail for the same bitrate (such as compressing harmonics by encoding the base frequency and then re-generating the harmonics in decode. This doesn't sound quite the same as the original or a lossless version, but is much closer than MP3.)
I do understand that MP3 has become more of a shorthand for any lossy compression on audio though, since it was the first one to get real traction with consumers. I still called my solid state media player an "MP3 player" despite mostly loading AACs onto it.
@@kaitlyn__L You can probably find physical MP3 players that don't even support MP3 any more. I get what you're saying though. But in truth I don't care any more. Most streaming services have become good enough that I just don't care what they use. Does it sound good? yes? move on then. Can I play it on my device? yes? move on. The tech details, well, I & most other people no longer care about.
If I do want higher quality I just buy a physical album and rip it personally as flac.
@@AlucardNoir True indeed. I enjoy backing up to FLAC too. I still use Spotify for convenience on the go but I will buy a CD of albums I especially like and get a full quality rip. (Despite format-shifting being illegal in the UK, I don't think that's really stopped anyone..)
I had previously ripped my entire collection in iTunes back when my audio hardware couldn't let me tell the difference between AAC and lossless. Was quite frustrated at my lack of foresight when I had to go back and rip in FLAC, but I suppose I can't blame myself when I only had 80GB for all of my photos, music and videos.
The only real reason I avoid these vintage turntables is because they're so full of functions & features that will eventually die. Parts will wear out, circuits can fry, and all kinds of other issues that can render them useless. I can repair them, but parts will eventually wear thin, and who really wants to keep investing in a piece of equipment who's major draw is affordability vs. modern hifi components?
Many entry level HiFi tables will quite nearly last forever, thanks to a paired down experience. My Rega TT has one switch... for power. That's it. I'll never have to worry about a faulty Quartz Lock, tracking motor, cueing motor, or any other thing like that. There's definitely convenience in those features, and I think they're compelling reasons to own one of these kinds of tables. I just think about how invested I'm going to be in HiFi for the long term, and am trying to plan for that.
I have a Sony PS-X75 that I bought new. The turntable has a Biotracer arm, which means it has sensors and motors to track horizontally and vertically. It also has optical record recognition and quartz speed control. In other words, it's complex. The primary failure is the computer chip stops working. This can be caused by caps in the power supply going bad and giving bad voltages to the processor. The processor is absolutely unobtainable. If the chip fails, it can be replaced by a Teensy++ 2.0 or other controller. The Teensy++ 2.0 supports 5 volts natively. Other controllers can be used with voltage converters. It takes some programming, but it works. The more challenging task is replacing the dried lubricants. There are very delicate coils that have to be removed to access bearings. In my case, the chip is working so all I have to do is make sure the power supply is robust.
I dunno, the Japanese stuff of this era was so reliable and well made that faults are rare even in old age (breakdowns are usually because they've been abused). I'm not saying it doesn't happen but motors and ICs can fail on anything, and I don't necessarily agree with the "more to go wrong" hypothesis generally.