Matsushita Electric Industrial or Panasonic Corporation manufactured the SL-1200 and SL-1210 turntables under the brand name Technics. They were manufactured in a number of official and unofficial versions, but the most famous version – of all – is the MK2.

The first of the Technics turntables saw the daylight in 1972, and the revised MK2 was produced from 1979 and the last of the turntables, rolled of the assembly line in 2010 (for a brief while).

The turntable was originally designed as a high fidelity consumer stereo record player but due to the Technics’ awesome technical specifications – especially its weight – the Technics SL 1200‘s quickly became quite popular in the DJ community.

At first

In my younger years I tried out some DJ’ing, at a few private parties – without much success. I’ve brought my turntable and played my onw records – those I liked. The turntable, at that time, was a Sanyo TP-B2 home stereo record player – and not a professional turntable in any way.

When people moved or jumped, even just a tiny a bit on the dancefloor, the needle skipped on the record. Really annoying, and also why I wished for a pro turntable – a Technics.

Today

A while back, I finally got my hands on a set of Technics SL1210s, with the original pop-up light bulb and original power (UK) and audio cables.

With a few modifications and a brand new mixer, my boyhood dream will finally come true.

An update

In 2016, Panasonic Corporation resumed production of certain SL-1200 models, in a slight updated version, due to popular demand and the fact that vinyl records is once again being released.