Technics SL-1200  •  SL-1210  •  SP-25

from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan!

Is the Technics SL1200/SL1210 a DJ deck or an audiophile turntable? Wikipedia has this to say "The Technics SL-1200 is a series of turntables manufactured since October 1972 by Matsushita under the brand name of Technics. Originally released as a high fidelity consumer record player.... "   And indeed we now bring you the bearing upgrade and power supply for the original consumer audio SP-25.

It is a common misconception that direct drive motors hunt, in fact the servo mechanism is entirely analogue and does not hunt or jitter.  By contrast an AC motor belt drive deck can suffer from cogging as the motor steps from magnet to magnet.  DC motors can easily suffer commutator noise and vibration too.  Belt drives often suffer from belt oscillation.  However, all Hi Fi decks are designed to minimise these problems, and so is the SL1200!  The SL1210 is the black version and the SL1200 is silver.  There isn't any significant difference in all the versions, the MK II is the simplest and cheapest.  All our mods will fit any version of the SL-1200 or SL-1210.

Our modifications take away the DJ part of the DNA and restore it to it's original audiophile birth.  Our modifications are not at all suitable for DJ use !  Before we go on take a look at these arm choices:
 

A close up of the Funk F●X carbon fibre modified arm with Denon DL-103 and Funk platter
 

A customers SL-1210 MKII with SME 309, rather tasty?
 

A customers SL-1210 MKII Copper Mat 2 with SME V and Koetsu Rosewood Signature!
Note the record label recess in the platter.
 

A customers Dynavector DV507-II fitted by us to a SL-1210
 

The Timestep Evo with SME309-TE ready to go out of the box!  click here for more details

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Arms & Cartridges:

The Standard Arm is not that bad and a lot better than some cheaper audio turntables.  The easiest thing to do is to fit an Audio Technica AT120e or an AT440MLa.

The SME 309 is very cool indeed.  We suggest the OC9, Audio Technica AT33EV, or Transfiguration Axia .  You will sleep at night knowing you have a superb combination. 

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Arms plates:

The original arm plates have been replaced by new anodised plates available in silver or black.  The correct VTA will be obtainable whatever thickness of mat is fitted.  They are a composite sandwich design that also has better energy dissipation.  They have taken a long time to design and represent the ultimate Technics arm plate, expensive, yes!  but you only get what you pay for!

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Recommended arm - cartridge combinations

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Audiophile mats:

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Feet:

The standard SL-1200 SL1210 feet are designed for a hostile DJ environment, and made to a cost.  Our feet make a huge difference in sound and we give you a choice!

Feet 1:  Our best solution is to replace them with fixed and compliant Sorbothane feet.  The fitting is both simple and very fiddly!  They are slightly oversized and need careful 'coaxing' to go in, a couple of minutes and you are done. They also stick to your furniture instead of staying in the deck.  Annoying although they are, they are truly the best low cost solution. Hi Fi Choice raved over them! You can't adjust the turntable levelling as they are fixed, so your support must be level, in our experience it usually is!  The difference in sound is amazing!
Feet 2:  These are screw-in adjustable black coloured Polyimide Reinforced Nylon.  Fitted in a flash and they allow for level adjustment.  Probably the most sensible feet out there for the SL-1200 but not sonically as good as our Feet 1.
Feet 3:  Isonoe isolation Feet are equally effective at blocking the ingress of vibration from the mechanical assemblies of both turntables and CD players. Designed utilising cutting-edge 3D CAD modelling and simulation, the Isonoe Isolation System is machined from raw magnesium alloy billets by multi-axis CNC machinery to within a tolerance of 1 micron.  Stainless-steel bearings in the base of the outer body block the transfer of energy by keeping the point of physical contact area between surfaces to a minimum (akin to a more contemporary version of spikes in hi-fi). Accompanying Sorbothane Boots are also available to seat the bearings and maximise isolation.  Instrument Glass pads are also available for the perfectionist.
Feet 4:   46mm diameter x 45mm high with a rubber section so that it doesn't stick to your furniture! These are for big turntables. They will fit straight into the SL-1200 and sound better than anything we have ever heard.

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Power supply:

The SL-1200 has three problems with its power supply   a) the transformer mechanically hums and this is audible through the cartridge,   b) the transformer has an electromagnetic field also audible though the cartridge, and c) the existing power supply dips on some motor demands giving variable and poor dynamics to the feedback system.  This low noise power supply eliminates all these problems.  If you can solder, you can easily fit it yourself. We supply fully colour illustrated step by step instructions, if you can solder one joint, you can fit this easily yourself.   For more much details on how we designed this PSU click here.  Other power supplies are not created equal, click on the link to find out why?  5 year guarantee.  A lot of customers have asked if ours is better than the KAB.  Well they are nice guys, but ours is a) a better power supply, and  b) ours eliminates the internal regulator ripple.  So is it better?  yes it is significantly better, so much so that if you have a KAB, you really ought to upgrade, you won't know what you are missing!!  Click here to find out why?  For high end applications we will always use linier power supplies, just like this one!  We will never use a switched mode power supply (SMPS) to drive the SL-1200 series!  90/100 - 110/120 & 220/240V versions available.

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Strobe disable mod:

Some customers say they can tell the difference if the strobe light is disabled.  With our External PSU this is very unlikely as it has proper regulation and the strobe current pulses are not a problem.  However, we are always ready to help and if the External PSU is fitted by us then we can make it so!

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Motor dynamics mod:

Belt drives suffer from 'belt flutter' whether they use AC or DC motors, there isn't much you can do about it.  However with a direct drive, you can alter all the characteristics by simply changing the loop filter.  This modification reduces the phase comparator loop filter gain and moves the turn-over point, thereby totally eliminating the low frequency instability. To be honest, the effect isn't as dramatic as our 'zoomed in' scope shows, but it is very worthwhile.  This modification gives über  pure bass, if you thought the SL-1200 had a handle on bass, and it does, then this will blow your socks off!  No good for DJ's, but wonderful news for audiophiles!

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Bearings:

The standard bearing on the left cannot keep the oil in place.  Instead a high viscosity "anti-fling" oil must be used.  The Timestep bearing has the spindle as a solid single piece of polished 303 Stainless Steel with a much larger base diameter and the bearing is polished PB102 Phosphor Bronze. A silicon nitride ball and PTFE thrust pad are fitted. The whole assembly is in a captive oil bath so that you can use more suitable thin oil, or any oil of your choice. 

The far right image shows the Timestep bearing shaft on the left and the Technics on the right. The Technics bearing shaft has a cut out just below the brass part, resulting in a diameter of just 5.9 mm, the Timestep bearing shaft at this point is 10.4mm. This gives the Technics a critical bending moment around the reduced diameter.

The main part of the Technics shaft bearing surface is 7.1mm diameter and the Timestep one is 11.1mm which results in a bearing surface increase of nearly 2.5 times more (actually 2.445). And that's a lot!  The other image is looking down into the captive shaft bearing. At the bottom would normally be the P.T.F.E. thrust pad and the silicon nitride ball bearing, and a lot of very nice oil.

So with 1.76 times diameter at the weakest point and 2.5 times more bearing surface area, you can see why we get such great performance.

There are stories on some forums about other bearings sticking, some propagated by me, and some from recent users. I remember doing the Bristol show with a very expensive German turntable. It had been in the van overnight and as the bearing warmed up over a few hours, the different materials expanded at different rates giving intolerable wow and then a complete seizure. Later that evening it finally stabilised. But you have to wonder how it would perform in a normal house in the winter after the heating had come on early in the morning? So where is this leading? well materials and tolerances, you need both the right material and the right tolerance. It's no good making a bearing so tight it introduces drag and takes a lot more power from the motor. Oil is meant to sit between bearing surfaces, a tight bearing will not allow that. Conversely it's no good making a sloppy bearing. We use similar tolerances as Linn and after a lot of research, measurement and listening, we discovered that the same sort of oil that Linn uses was better, except ours is golden not black, and it is 100% pure synthetic. It does have EP additives but not excessively so.

As you can see, there is more to bearings than you might first think. Time, patience, pure engineering skills, measurement equipment and good ears are required, and Timestep and its staff have all of those.

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Prices

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Reviews:

•  Hi Fi World review of a SL-1210 with most of our options, click here to read it.

•  Tone Audio review of the SL-1200 with some options  click here to read it.

•  Hi Fi World review of the Timestep EVO SL-1210  click here to read it.

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Notes from the web,  latest one is at the bottom of this list

Note:  16 February 2010:  There are new mats out there!  Instead of trying hard and getting it to fit inside the platter, they have taken the easy route and made it a stock size.  This means it drapes offer the platter only supported at the very edge.  Instead of making it properly they hid the fact with some mumo jumbo.  It costs more to do things properly and we believe in that.  We will never take short cuts, our power supply is a testament to that!

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SP-25, SL-1025:

The Technics SP-25 is basically a SL-1200 in a new plinth mount chassis.  It has a lower profile transformer and less space inside.  The Timestep bearing will fit and gives quite a big improvement. The Timestep Power Supply Unit wires straight in and has a very good performance.  This will enable 120/110V versions to run on 220/240 and also 220/240 version to run on 120/110V.  We recommend simply removing the existing transformer.  The 78rpm mod will not fit. 

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SP-15, SL1015:

The Technics SP-15 is basically a SL-1200 in a new plinth mount chassis with a whole load of extra electronics to do digital pitch adjustment and 78rpm.  This is a lovely turntable totally spoilt by the internal switch mode power supply!  It needs the new Timestep HE+ PSU at £475.00.  This will enable 120/110V versions to run on 220/240 and also 220/240 version to run on 120/110V.  None of our bearing upgrades will fit.

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SL-120 MK I, SL-1500 MKI, SL-150 MKI, SL-1200 MKI, SL-1400 MKI,  SL-1401 MKI, SL-1900 MKI,:

These direct drive turntables really are good and we can make them even better by providing an external power supply.  Our standard unit is £299.00.  None of our bearing upgrades will fit.

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Other Turntables

We can modify and service most Technics turntables, just ask.  We can modify and repair almost any direct drive turntable, it might take time and it might not be cheap, but we can do it!  We can fit almost any tonearm to almost any turntable.

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Mail order & Prices
We will often match or beat any price.  Postage/shipping please ask.
Just telephone, Fax or e-mail and order by Credit Card, Debit Card, Cheque and other ways. We ship in the UK by Citylink and the rest of the world by insured Fed Ex.
All prices shown include UK VAT.

27 December 2011

Sound Hi Fi

PO Box 2001  Dartmouth Devon  TQ6 9QN  Great Britain

Telephone 01803 833366  Fax 01803 839498  e-mail sales@SoundHiFi.com