Technics SL-1000R turntable

For all the talk about the wonderful return of the Technics SL-1200 turntables, the tale masks aspects of the bigger story. The tale highlights the significance of the DJ’s delight, skipping somewhat over the fact the turntable was originally one of a range of direct drive turntables for home use. The really big guns were the awesome SP-10 motor unit, and the SL-1000; the same motor unit with a housing and tonearm. Amid all the shouting about the SL-1200 models, this far more expensive, built like a tank turntable, is the real one to watch. It just might be the best product ever to carry that Technics brand name.

First though, the impact statement. This is a big turntable in a very big flight-case. The packing weight for the flight-case is 50kg and is the size of a V8 (the engine, not the juice). The deck itself brings that down to a ‘more manageable’ 40kg, and – like the SP-10 it’s based upon – comes with an external power supply. A large part of that all-up weight is the hefty platter.

The main plinth is an impressive half metre wide, and it is all beautifully brushed 25mm thick aluminium. It comes with a lid (no hinges, but little rubber feet on all four corners; you lift this off with ceremony), but you’ll want to spend your time just staring into that flawless finish. The lower section of the plinth is black bulk moulding compound over a cast aluminium frame.

The plinth sits on four feet that provide both some levelling and a degree of isolation from the environment. They are made up of silicon rubber and microcell polymer elements in a die cast zinc casing. The silicon rubber part faces the equipment support, and this makes an already heavy turntable even harder to remove.

The other most visible part of the turntable is the platter; a triple-layer composite of rubber, brass, and die-cast aluminium, which is balanced with the addition of a dozen tungsten weights around the perimeter, all weighing in at almost 8kg in and of itself. The term ‘balanced’ in audio is often taken to mean slightly better than ‘good enough’, but this is an indicator of the obsessiveness of the manufacturing, in a good way; they use the same wheel-balancing machinery used to make sure the wheels of the Shinkansen trains in Japan run smoothly… at more than 200mph.

Below the bullet-train platter, is that direct-drive motor unit. It’s a twin-coil, iron-coreless (and thus cogging free), twin-rotor design, with the sort of torque that could make it tow an Airbus. However, despite that high-torque motor (which helps to bring that platter up to speed and stop it almost instantly), it is not simply brute force, and is claimed to help contribute to the turntable’s extremely low 0.015% wow and flutter measurement. That’s impressive by direct drive standards; by belt drive, it’s off the charts good, to the point where comparisons of this rubric are almost cruel. Technics engineers have also worked to minimise motor noise, which was a legitimate concern in early direct drive designs.

The combination of advanced CAD/CAM design techniques, advanced measurement facilities, and improvements to engineering practices means, when it comes to direct drive motors, we aren’t in the 1970s anymore. Modern design means issues like spindle-bearing precision and intra-motor vibration (which made some direct drive motors sound great, and some sound like your LP was in the midst of a tank battle) are resolved, and at this level, even the rigidity of the motor housing become functionally non-issues. Such are the advantage of mass and money!

In the past, the speed controller box was a bit of a weak spot, truth be told. This wasn’t a design flaw in and of itself, but once again a function of the limitations of engineering and technology from 40 years ago. While optical sensor systems are relatively unchanged (light has not got faster in the intervening decades) the best servo mechanisms of the 1970s and early 1980s are no match for modern digital servo systems, and that relates directly to speed precision. The outboard supply offers 33.3, 45 and 78rpm speeds and allows subtle adjustments down to 0.01 of a revolution per minute. As in the first generation of products, this controller is not destined for wild changes in speed; think ‘subtle tuning’. In fact, speed control is so accurate, these adjustments become almost redundant unless you have a collection of 78s, which were rarely recorded at 78rpm!

If the SL-1000R motor and speed control hark back to the glory days of record players, the arm revels in them. It’s a classic S-shaped 10″ gimballed arm, albeit now with a magnesium arm tube and ruby bearings, with a locking collar for headshell mounting. If you start searching through the box for a headshell, you are going to come away disappointed. Panasonic UK recommends the DS Audio HS-001 Duralumin headshell, and Sound Fowndations stepped up and provided one for review. While we are on that subject, while the arm comes with cables, the phono plugs and earth terminals built into the turntable itself suggest the ones in the box are not quite up to snuff, and in this case, AudioQuest stepped in with a set of its excellent Leopard tonearm cables (again recommended). The turntable also needs a cartridge of sufficient quality to match its performance, and here we went with a Lyra Atlas SL (which is once again a popular choice, and goes some way to show how good the deck and arm are in real terms, in that they can more than handle a cartridge of this gravitas). This makes for one heck of a turntable front end, one that demands a great system with an excellent phono stage, and we went with the excellent Aavik U-150’s input.

From the outset, this turntable was something beyond the pale. Here was a precision and snap to the sound that is more akin to really well-done digital, making many a well-loved record player sound a little too ‘louche’ in presentation. A singer steps up to the mic, opens their mouth, and they sit front and centre in the mix; no wavering, no imprecision. Until you hear this first hand, you might think that applies universally. When you hear the SL-1000R in full throat, you discover just how rare that precision is in record replay. OK, maybe you expect this with the audiophile approved recordings, but it did it on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks [Warner]!

Then there is the dynamic range, which makes you wonder whether the whole digital audio thing was a decades long experiment in flat sound. I put on An Historic Return of Horowitz at Carnegie Hall [Columbia], and his 1965 assault on the pianoforte as he played the Schumann Fantasy in C Maj, was powerful, bold, and nothing like I’ve heard it on other formats. This was music played wild and not tamed but kept in place by the Technics.

Actually, it didn’t matter what disc I put on the platter, absolutely nothing phased the Technics, and it delivered everything with gusto and energy. The overall soundfield has an almost architectural physicality to it and does so whether you are playing a delicate violin recital or the fully syrupy synth swirls of The Orb. The deck toes a delicate balance between being precise and sounding ‘tightly wound’, but its ability to play music ‘red in tooth and claw’ wins out. Other decks are more mellifluous, and a few bring that to the same kind of overall performance as the Technics, but there’s no mistaking it; this is world-class vinyl performance.

Perhaps more importantly though, it’s an enjoyable experience as much as it’s a physical and a cerebral one. You understand the intent of the musicians and composer fairly quickly, and the combination of first-rate detail, an articulate and expressive vocal, wide and deep soundstage when needed, good dynamics, fine coherence, and lots and lots of bass depth coming out of a background noise that falls to almost nothing, helps bring that intent to life, but not in a po-faced or dry manner. The odd part in this is surface noise; the Technics combo doesn’t shy away from noise or mask it in any way. It’s just that surface noise comes and goes so fast, it barely registers. Leading edges do the same and the sound of percussion is, as a result, almost eerily ‘right’, but it’s that handling of surface noise that really highlights just how good this turntable system really is.

Technics pulled out all the stops with the SL-1000R. It’s built to a standard that few can hope to match, it’s made to last for decades, and it returns a sound quality that shows just what happens to vinyl when it gets really focused and played with equal amounts of gusto and finesse. I just wish it were heavier and in a far larger flight-case because then it might have been too big for Technics to pick up and take away!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Type: Direct Drive turntable with arm
• Motor: Brushless, iron-coreless, DD
• Platter: 7.9kg brass and aluminium diecast combined, 323 mm diameter, with mat
• Terminals: 2x RCA, earth connecter (cable supplied)
• Turntable Speeds: 33 1/3, 45, 78 rpm
• Adjustment Range: ±16 %
• Starting Torque: 0.39 N/m / 4.0 kg/cm
• Wow And Flutter: 0.015 % W.R.M.S.
• Diameter: 323 mm
• Tonearm type: Universal Static Balance
• Effective Length: From the tonearm pivot to the stylus, 254mm. From the tonearm pivot to the spindle, 239mm
• Overhang: 15 mm
• Tracking Error Angle:
  Within 1° 48’ (at the outer groove of 30 cm (12”) record)
  Within 0° 30’ (at the inner groove of 30 cm (12”) record)
• Offset Angle: 21°
• Arm Height Adjustment Range:
  0–15 mm
• Stylus Pressure Adjustment Range:
  0–4 g (Direct Reading)
• Applicable Cartridge Weight Range (including Headshell):
• 15.9–19.7 g (without auxiliary weight)
  18.8–23.6 g (with small auxiliary weight)
  22.5–26.3 g (with middle auxiliary weight)
  26.0–31.0 g (with large auxiliary weight)
• Dimensions (W×H×D):
  Main Unit 531 × 188 × 399 mm
  Control Unit 110 × 84 × 350 mm
• Weight: Main Unit Approx. 40.2 kg
  Control Unit Approx. 2.1 kg
• Price: £13,999

Manufactured by: Panasonic

URL: technics.com

Tel (UK only): 0333 222 8777

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