The Best Turtable

Well, there have been discussions about this since ages. Everyone has it's favourite, but you could easily say the big fight is between Vestax and Technics.

Well I'll start with the beginning....

The Technics SL1200 MkII
This baby has been THE standard for years (and still is), and it's for a good reason. The motor is powerful enough to make the platter start almost instantly (well most turntables do that now as well, but imagine what it meant when the first SL1200 MkII came out... in the 70's), it's stability is very high, very low wow&flutter ( small variations in pitch), fully quartz controlled pitch for improved accuracy, can be tweaked in many ways, high quality tonearm, and it retains it's value very long (in my own case : I've had one of the first SL's ever out (I sold it last year) and it worked still like a dream) in one word : very high quality (damn i miscounted, 3 words sorry).
The only comments people have about it is that the quartz lock cannot be shut of (it can but I won't say how, because there's a big chance you'd screw up the whole system), so around the 0% pitch it's a little inaccurate when it kicks in. And the second problem with heavy scratchers is that they sometimes accidently hit the power button and shut the TT off in the middle of a scratch. Technics has just released a new version of the SL1200 called M3D. It has a lowered power switch and a quartz lockk button (like on the gemini's, to shut off the quartz lock). But I find the price difference between an MkII and an M3D too high for what it offers, so I'd still go for the MkII.

Vestax Pd-AS1
This is the most famous TT from Vestax lately. It's an evolution of the former PD-Ax1. The S means it has a straight arm. I'm not very fond of this. The straight arm annihilates the tangential forces applied on the tonearm when moving back and forth the record (so the tonearm will almost stand still when scratching). This means there's no need anymore for antiskate and it increases skip resistance. But the main downside is that it wears out the records faster (a lot). Plus, when you're TT is set up perfectly, even with an S-arm, the needle should almost never skip (I can actually move and even kick my SL without the needle skippin' :) )
The Vestax Turntables have a cool design, very high stability, I believe -/+ 10 % pitch range, 78 RPM ability, more torque than the SL (starts quicker, and you need to apply more pressure to stop the platter from spinning).
But I've had to deal with some probs with some models (especially the first) : the motor is a magnetic induction motor with 3 poles. And 3 times I've had the problem that one pole didn't work (you could compare it with cars, imagine a 4 cilinder engine only running on 3 cilinders), just because a little wire wasn't soldered right (so check it out)

I'm still in favour of the SL1200, because that's the TT you'll find most there in the scene. On paper the Vestax is better than Technics, but they've not been out there as long.

As for the budget minded people, I recommend the Gemini PT2000 or the Numark Pro TT1/2, as they are good in their price range.

Hope I've cleared some out
Peace
Dj Thy
 
Oops, forgot to mention something about the SL1200!

Have you ever heard anyone say his turntable was "fighting the beats"?
Well, this is a feature of the SL (but most of the time seen as a drawback by dj's)
When the SL was released, Technics boasted about it's very accurate speed retention. They had installed a feature (still on today Techies) that you can very easily test.
You see the strobe dots on the platter right, well set the pitch to 0%, so they stand still. Now follow my explanation : when you touch the platter or the record, the rotation speed of the platter decreases, right? This should mean that the strobe dots should go backwards for a moment (because they don't move when on 0%, but you slow the platter down), then stand still at a new position. Well notice what happens...
If you look good you'll see that the dots move backwards, but as soon as you release the plattern the dots make a short burst forward, to take their initial position again (fix one point, for example on the 9 o' clock point of the platter). They did NOT just stop again when you released the platter. Technics included this to catch up when there was something that could slow down the tune, so the song would still be at the same point and speed it should be like nothing happened. This feature jumps in action only with small adjustments, don't you think if you slow the platter a lot down, the platter will suddenly move faster a long time.

But this is a drawback for dj's when they make SMALL adjustments while beatmatching, when slowing down the record to get the beats in sync, as soon as you release the record, the SL will push the platter again a little forward so the beats are of sync again (it fights the beat).
This is the main difficulty for mastering the SL when coming from other TT's.
But it doesn't take very long to overcome that problem (generally a couple of minutes if you know what you're doing). Just apply a tad more pressure (or push it further) on the platter than you would on an other TT, and it'll all go fine.
Or better yet, do like me, as soon as the record plays in the room, don't touch the platter anymore. Use your pitch slider to make the adjustments. This has the big advantage not to have that nasty "chipmunk" effect when you adjust on the platter/record.


By the way, there is a way to disable that SL "fighting the beat" feature, involving replacing a certain resistance on the circuitboard of the SL. But as I don't find the schematics anymore, of which one to replace with what, I won't risk telling anything about it now....

Peace
Dj Thy
 
Dj Thy. Remember me? I asked u for tips on how to become a dj? Well, here I am, finally. By the way, lol, its Vestax PDX-A1s. But its cooh. I have that table, and I like it alot. It doesnt skip when I skratch. Im learning to mix. But im waiting for my other table, which I should be getting today. Arite, good posts man. Pz

impakt

by the way, do u post on Skratchpiklz board? hit me up later on.
 
Damn, forgot to say one more thing (I'm getting old).
The Vestax A1S has been discontinued...
Now you must look for the Vestax PDX-2000. New design, new features, new price...

Peace
Dj Thy
 
i know... but i dont wanna have two different tables. pz

impakt
 
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