Technics SL1200G – Why it will cost R 62,000 to buy
When the Technics SL1200G turntable was announced DJs and turntablists were excited. The iconic SL1200 had such a huge role to play in the development of DJing and when used to its fullest potential, could even be called a music instrument for some.
Locally DJs such as Ready D and internationally guys like DJ Craze were heralded as wizzkids behind a set of SL1200s, such was their mastery.
But alas, the excitement was short lived as the full story broke that the new Technics SL-1200G will cost $4,000 – that’s R 62,000 at today’s rand/dollar exchange rate!
Now the company has come out and explained why the new Technics SL1200G is destined to cost as much as a second hand budget car.
Technics says that building a new turntable is more expensive than they first expected. Duh!
According to an interview with What Hi-Fi the Technics chief technology officer Tetsuya Itani says the new Technics SL1200G will require a complete redesign and new manufacturing costs that will be passed on to the buyer.
“Because the original 1210 turntables were manufactured for so many years, the manufacturing process had got to a very low cost,” Itani said.
“Now we need to invest in all the tools again, and the price now is much higher than the 1970s.”
“All the documents were kept, all the drafts… but it was not the Technics way. If we have a chance to start from scratch, we should. With new technology, new theory – that is this guy [the Technics SL1200G]. So it’s a new model from scratch,” Itan explained in the interview.
He also reckons that the new Technics SL1200G will be more solid and ‘less plasticky’ than the original, although it’s fair to say the original was as solid as could be so we’re not quite buying this claim.
Bottom Line
In fact the bottom line seems to be that they want to recover their tooling and manufacturing costs in as short a space of time possible by charging a premium for the new SL turntable.
This seems a bit silly since you can buy an almost near identical replica in the form of the Pioneer PLX-1000 for around R 12,000.
Read our comparative review between the Pioneer PLX-1000 and an SL1200.
But these are equally decent DJ turntables both of which offer USB connectivity too.
Numark TT250USB
Reloop RP-8000
Even if you’re earning dollars, $4,000 will make the Technics SL1200G more of a collector’s item for a select few.
