04-21-09: Burnsy1
If the technics has a more homogenized, or quiet sound as some have described, but can also be upgraded in many ways...do the upgrades not impact this type of sound? If so any thoughts on what it is with the technics that is responsible for the perceived sound difference?
Out of the box, the Technics sounds compressed, as do most low cost turntables. The thing about the Technics is that some very simple tweaks open up its dynamic range. The Technics has excellent rotational accuracy, signal-to-noise ratio, and build quality and close tolerances of a much more expensive turntable. The downside is that its design was frozen in 1981 before vibration control and isolation were as well developed as they are now.
The first thing is, the tonearm wire in most of the SL12x0 machines is substandard for an audiophile piece of equipment. It imparts the dark, closed-in sound that's often described. But this can be fixed a couple of ways. The easy one is to get an SL1210 M5G, an upscale model, that comes stock from the factory with OFC wire throughout. The capacitance for the entire run of cable out to the RCA plugs is a fairly low 100pF, which is a good match with most MM cartridges. The other way to do it is to buy a lower level SL12x0 and have Kevin rewire it with high grade Cardas cable for $169. The cable upgrade (or selection of the M5G) opens up the sound, making it light and airy up top and with similar imaging to other turntables.
Second, get a better mat. The mat on a Technics has to do two things--damp the platter and isolate the record and cartridge from the mechanicals spinning it from below. There are several mats out there that will improve things. The cheapest is the Technics Supermat which weighs over a pound and which kabusa.com sells for about $20. Others have been happy with Herbie's Way Excellent Mat or the one from Iron Audio. This improves inner detail, lowers the noise floor, improves dynamic range, and lowers congestion on more complex musical passages.
Third, replace the feet with something that will drain the vibrational energy out of the turntable base and isolate the turntable from in-room vibrations. There are a couple of approaches to this: You can get brass cones that transfer energy out of the turntable to whatever its sitting on, or cushiony feet that absorb the energy, or a combination that does both. The top end replacement feet are the Isonoe Footers available from KABUSA for about $200 the set including screw-in footers, glass coasters, and sorbothane boots to go over the assembly. A second method is brass cones. You can get the Threaded Heavyfeet from Mapleshade Records for about $160/pair, or take the cheap way out (I did) and get the Dayton Speaker threaded cones from www.parts-express.com for $21/set. The threads are a perfect match for the originals. If you go with brass cones, you will for sure want to put the turntable on an isolation platform. I use the Dayton brass cones seated on a thick butcher block cutting board, which is then isolated from the shelf by something absorbent. I've variously used Vibrapods and silicone gel pads from an office supply shop.
The cumulative effect of addressing noise and vibration transforms the turntable, lowering the noise floor at the low end and raising the feedback resistant volume at the other. It also makes the sound cleaner and clearer in the middle.
Two last tweaks are the kabusa.com tonearm fluid damper and a Sumiko or LPGear headshell. The fluid damper is $150 and is easily installed in about 30 minutes. Set up properly, this lowers the resonant peak of the cartridge/arm resonant frequency and enables the tonearm to track hideously warped records without jumping the groove.
The better headshell damps resonances better and raises the effective mass of the tonearm slightly, making it a better match with many medium-compliance cartridges that came along after the Technics was designed.
When I first brought the Technics home my wife could easily hear the dynamic compression, but with the way I have it set up now it easily equals the dynamic range of the same recordings on CD and has all the clarity of a CD, but with the higher resolution and more organic microdynamics that analog brings.
I also use the KAB rubber record grip at $25. I've found it helps thin records sound like thick ones, and lowers the surface noise level a little bit.
