Technics SL1210MK2Y > Reviews (14)

First of all, this turntable is really for club DJs. The main difference from any other turntable is that it has pitch control, enabling users to change the tempo of a track to seamlessly blend it together with another, creating a non-stop musical extravaganza. You probably know that if you're reading this review, so I'll move on to the more important stuff.

The 1210 (in all its incantations) is the Rolls Royce of all club turntables. It's the industry standard, a turntable with 30 years reputation behind it, and a beautiful, beautiful machine to play with. I've DJd on numerous turntables, and was lucky enough to own my own 1210s, and they simply cannot be beaten.

The technical bit: Your bog standard turntable is driven by a belt, which is used to make the table rotate. The 1210 is driven by magnets, which makes it much more precise and steady. Imagine you need to blend two records together. The first is playing at 130 beats per minute (hereafter BPM), and the other at 150 bpm. The 130 bmp song is playing to the crowd who are dancing happily, but it runs out in 3 minutes, and you have that time to get the second song slowed down from 150 bpm to 130. You do this manually, with the slide pitch adjustment. Now, with a belt driven deck, the records aren't steady. You put your finger on the side of the platter to turn it down and it stops completely. It's flimsy, and the record speeds up and down slightly as it plays, due to the belt being too stretched or whatever. The result is your mix can sound wrong, out of time and horrible, due to the unpredictability of the deck.

The 1210, run by magnets, is 99% more accurate. You can be heavy handed with it, pushing your finger into the platter, and it only slows down a bit. Most importantly, it doesn't speed up and down randomly: it stays steady.

What does all that mean? The 1210 is LITERALLY 10 times easier to mix on than belt-driven decks. It costs (a lot) more, but is worth it. A pair will set you back £700, but they hold their value well (I sold mine 4 years later for £500 with a mixer and records).

So, now to the down sides. Remember I said it was 99% accurate, well it can wobble a bit around the 0% mark on the pitch adjuster for some reason. Manual tweaking of the record sorts that out, but it takes a lot of practice to know whether to slow the record down or speed it up!

Obviously a pair of these costs a lot, and you're looking at at least £800 by the time you have a basic mixer thrown in.

There are plenty of other direct drive (maget driven) decks, some cheaper and some more expensive, but none have the reputation of Technics. Go on, just buy them!