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Happy New Year, and welcome to my minute slice of Ciao.
Member since:21.11.2000
Reviews:41
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Do you remeber vinyl records - black plastic discs that scratched easily and came in 12" and 7" flavours. Well if you're in your early teens you probably will not know what I'm talking about. Unless you love dance music and collect dance tracks on 12". Well Technic SL1210's are record decks used in pubs and clubs throughout the world to play this old form of media.
If you want to set yourself up as a DJ and learn the art of mixing, then a good bet are the Technics SL1210-MK2 or the 1200's. They are expensive retailing around £350 each and in this day and age probably no the best available (technically at least). What you do get for your hard earned dollar is an extremely well built record player, that can take some serious wear and tear.
The decks are available in two colours silver(sl1200) and black(sl1210), but they are essentially the same. Both units are direct drive, with pitch controls set at +-8%. This uses a sliding scale, so the speed of the record can be alterted very acurately and easily. The tone arm is of the curved variety, to be honest I don't know what difference this makes to the overall sound quality. Some of the newer decks are starting to use a straight tone arm. However one important factor is that the styli have to purchased seperately, there are many on offer of vary degrees of quality. I went with the industry standard Stanton 500AL and these with cartridges work out at about £25-£30 each, these normally last at least 2-3 years depending on wear and tear and how much scratching you do. Alternatively if you wish to learn scratching the choice of styli it is better to choose different styli. Another extra that must be purchased if you intend to try the art of mixing are a pair of slip mats, these are normally around £10 a pair, all with different designs. There is not much difference between slip mats really apart from the design of the artwork and the softness of the material. Personally I prefer the softer slipmats.
As for sound quality, I'm no expert but I have no complaints. As these are the industry standard the sound quality is decent enough to use on the radio. However there are better record decks out there for Hi-Fi systems, but these cost a lot more and cannot be necessarily be used for DJing, as they at not as robust.
In my opinion Technics are definetly worth the money, I would consider buying second hand if you can't aford a new pair. I have owned mine for 7 years and never had any problems what-so-ever, apart from having to buy new needles and slip mats. Other decks are now coming into the fray such as Vestex and Stanton, but how will they perform over time, is a question not answered as yet?
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Good review, Technics are still the most popular of decks and I imagine they will remain so for quite some while yet. Rich
evilalarm 14.06.2005 13:45
Interesting review. Look a bit outa my league and pocket for me. You may find this review of some interest... Gemini XL300 > Reviews > Review of Gemini XL300 Turntables at http://www.ciao.co.uk/Gemini_XL300__Review_5486619
edlloyd01 05.03.2005 05:39
Crustypaul... These turntables are solida performers for DJ use. Hence why they have stayed at the top for 30 years now. However in terms of Hi-Fi (which they were originally designed for) they are not so good.
I felt you review could have listed a bit more about the specs mate and then gone into the pro's and con's of them
Advantages: proven track record, strong motor, good for club or bedroom deejay extremely robust Disadvantages: I dont see many although some people may want to change the look of the turntable
Gerryatrix 24.06.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Technics SL1210MK2Y
Advantages: Durability, Image, Usability, Layout, Strength, Power Disadvantages: Price (But you can work around this), Some say demise of vinyl (I dont agree)
buchaben 02.10.2007 (02.10.2007)
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Review of Technics SL1210MK2Y
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