Technics is a venerable manufacturer of audio equipment especially well-known for their turntables. The distant ancestor of today’s review subject was the SL-1200, dating from 1972. From the beginning, Technics used a direct-drive motor system because it offered solutions to certain problems of speed stability and accuracy that would be of benefit to audiophiles. Almost from the beginning, DJs recognized certain advantages of the design and of Technics quality levels, and the SL-1200 series became the de facto standard in the DJ world.  

The DJ market became large enough that Technics eventually separated the SL-1200 line into two groups. They take both markets very seriously, but they realize that there are specific details that matter in one market and not in another. Motor torque is an example, where DJ’s need higher torque or start-up speed than audiophiles do.  

Product Overview 

These two features, direct-drive and DJ usage, provide ample material for misunderstandings about Technics turntables for audiophile use. Technics recognizes that in the audiophile market, historically some people felt that direct drive turntables were plagued by something called “cogging” which amounts to a slightly uneven speed fluctuation several times per revolution as the motor and its magnetic structure interact. As with many technical memes passed around by consumers, it isn’t completely clear that cogging was an important sonic variable. But, to address the real or imaginary concern, Technics has developed a coreless motor design which effectively doesn’t have variations in the fields of the motor system and thus, theoretically can’t experience cogging. Technics had previously developed a slew of other approaches to minimize other turntable “noise”, so this latest move is mainly additive to their 50-year obsession with these issues.  

One of the big new approaches to reducing noise in the SL-1210GR2 is the use of a delta-sigma circuit to drive the motor. Having banished thoughts of inherent motor noise with the coreless motor, Technics wanted to be sure the electrical signal driving the motor was as smooth as possible. This is what the delta-sigma drive circuit does, together with a new low-noise power circuit. As we will see, noise in turntables is a critical sonic variable for reasons that may not be immediately apparent. 

As may be clear, the SL-1210GR is a new offering in the Technics line aimed at audiophiles. Priced at $2200, the SL-1210GR2 comes with a built-in tonearm. That arm has several attractive features, which include on-the-fly adjustable vertical tracking angle via a knob at the base of the arm. Also adjustable via a knob is anti-skating. The arm features a detachable headshell, which is an attractive asset during setup and also because it allows the use of multiple cartridges with relative ease (the VTA and anti-skate knobs are calibrated so that you can more quickly switch between cartridges and get setup right). Technics is also highly attentive to setting tonearm mass, recognizing that this mass must be matched to the cartridge. The supplied arm and headshell will work well for many common cartridge weights and compliance levels, but to deal with all the possible permutations, the removable headshell is, again, an asset because it allows specific cartridge mass – cartridge compliance – headshell mass optimization. The tonearm also has low stiction bearings.  

The turntable feet are carefully designed to filter out common vibrations, making this essentially a suspended design. Both spring rate and damping are important to getting this right, and Technics uses measurements to dial in both factors.  

There is more technology on hand, but suffice it to say, Technics is the kind of company that warms your little engineering heart if that’s your deal. They measure and refine and measure and refine and measure and refine.  

Sound Quality 

But, as we say, it is hard to reason from technical details to sound quality. So, we listen. And we compare what we hear to a meaningful reference, which is the absolute sound (the sound of real instruments in real spaces).  

I set the SL-1210GR2 up in our small listening room. I used our current reference system, which includes the Magico A5 speakers, PS Audio BHK 600 amps, Audio Research Ref 6 preamp and the Hegel V10 phono stage all wired with Audioquest cables and Shunyata power.  

I used the Hana ML cartridge because I’m familiar with it and my sense is that a cartridge in this price range ($1200) is what many SL-1210GR2 buyers would buy. That’s because the review turntable package here is about $5000 and so the Hana seems to yield a reasonable budgetary division. I used the Wally Tools protractor and the AnalogMagik distortion measuring setup system. 

From the first record I played, it was clear that the SL-1210GR2 delivers most of what analog lovers are looking for in a great turntable. The soundstage is wide, with impressively natural instrumental placement (remembering that precision isn’t real goal, but believability is). Instruments and voices are nicely delineated, with each having a sense of air around it.  

I particularly enjoyed the reproduction of cymbals via the SL1210GR2. On Radiohead’s In Rainbows, lightly struck cymbals seemed very smooth. And you could clearly hear when the mixing engineer reduced the cymbal levels as more instruments come into the mix. Very nice.  

I also thought the balance on Taylor Swift’s Evermore, was well delivered. I use Taylor Swift albums as one reference for listening tests because the engineering seems careful and quite representative of what modern producers are trying to do. The bass on this album, via the SL-1210GR2, is meaty without being overblown at all. 

Moving back in time, I loved the sound of Enescu’s Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1, with Stokowski on RCA Victor “Living Stereo”. The tonal delicacy of the opening bars, combined with the laying of instruments as the piece proceeds, was simply wonderful.  

On Santana’s Abraxas, from 1970, the clarity of the instruments was impressive. And, while this may surprise you, my experience with this mix is that the soundstage is smaller than many modern rock or pop recordings. The Technics presents this well, in that it doesn’t artificially try to make the band sound bigger than the recording.  

Now we come to a big point in any review of the sound quality of turntables. Most of us are used to thinking about SQ in terms of frequency domain (frequency response) terms. But that, for the most part, is not where turntables differ. The big differences are in noise, and noise is a pesky thing to discuss.  

Noise as I mean the term here is not something you hear directly, as with wind noise in a car or tape hiss on tape recordings. That’s largely because noise in high-end audio is at lower levels than those that allow you to hear the noise directly. So, you might think, “it doesn’t matter if I can’t hear it”. But you can hear it!  

To understand this, you have to think about how real instruments work in real spaces. Instruments are resonators. That means that when you pluck a guitar string or play a piano note you get the fundamental tone (e.g. 256 hz for middle C on a piano). And you get the harmonics of that note (512 hz, 768 hz and on and on). The harmonic signature is what makes a piano sound like a piano and a guitar sound like a guitar. Those harmonics are spread out over time (so-called ‘ringing’) and, here’s the important part, they generally diminish in level. The punchline is that as their level gets reduced toward the noise level of your stereo and then the harmonics are masked. The same thing happens with reverb in the performance venue. Second reflections are lower level than first reflections and third reflections are lower level than second. Now combine harmonic decay with reverb and you can see, I hope, that these small sounds are important to the sense of each instrument and to its being played in a real space and so we don’t want them to be polluted by noise which makes these harmonics and reverberations less audible.  

My listening showed that the Technics SL-1210GR2 does a very good job of delivering a low noise floor. But I wanted to put that in context and Technics made this fairly simple. One of my reference turntables is the Technics SL-1210G-K which is the next turntable up in the Technics line ($4300). Using that lovable removable headshell, I played a series of albums on both the SL-1210GR2 and on the SL-1210G using the same Hana cartridge, each time set up for each specific turntable placed on the same platform with the same cables to the same phono preamp into the same preamp, amp and speakers. 

What did I hear? Very clearly, no pun intended, the image depth and instrumental air of recordings on the SL-1210G were of a higher order. Now, this turntable costs about twice as much as the SL-1210GR2, so it should do something of musical value. And it does.  

Is that difference big? Ah, the $64,000 high-end question. I think it is in the category of “if you haven’t heard it, you won’t miss it”. On the other hand, a lot of what very high-end audio is on a mission to provide is this ultra-low-noise experience, and people spend tens of thousands of dollars to get it. In that sense, the more expensive Technics SL-1200G occupies a sweet spot of price/performance for those with systems in the $30k to maybe $100k class. Or those who are aiming there in the future.  

Summary 

I think the SL-1210GR2 does a marvelous job of delivering analog beauty. It can be setup to extract the most from serious cartridges. It allows easy cartridge swapping. It is priced to allow a complete phono system to be built at less than stratospheric prices. And a reasonable person might invest some of the savings in more records.