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F-O-U-R freaking thousand DOLLARS
4000
too much

...find a nicer guy to demonstrate Technics products than Bill Voss. I worked with him over 30 years ago at a small hi fi chain in Connecticut called Sounds Alive. He was a terrific coworker and we knew back then that he was bound for greater things. I run into him occasionly and he's still a cool guy.

A pimped out Schopper TD 124 will cost you more than $4,000. I know I own a TD 124 and while it was refurbished by STS turntables it can go much higher than $4k. With the Technics you are presumably getting a setup and forget table with hopefully a worthy tonearm all for $4k. Doesn't sound so bad to me, going to hear it tomorrow night in NYC. Looking forward to it.

Most of us in here would probably not spend 4K on a Technics.
For people who don't want something they have to fiddle with and simply want to play records and have a good deck for that purpose, this fits the bill perfectly.
I have fond memories of the old 1200s from my radio days.
They were like Timex. Not exactly a Breitling, but they "Took a lickin' and kept on tickin".

Apparently the tooling was gone so they had to start over: http://www.whathifi.com/news/technics-explains-sl-1200g-price-and-hints-...

But yeah the name and the look clearly ape the original, for good or bad. And that's likely at the heart of what's driving the angst about why "it" is so much more expensive now. This IS a Japanese company we're talking about here, so innovating style isn't part of the culture.

Some more info here: http://www.whathifi.com/news/technics-explains-sl-1200g-price-and-hints-...

I am waiting for Kenwood to update their KD-500 table.

From what I've read the engineering and build quality seems very solid. But for $4k I want something that will look good in my living room and a DJ turntable isn't it.

I'll wait for the derivative 'home' versions that will be coming later...

To me it is unfortunate so many believe the SL-1200 series was just a "DJ" table. It was introduced in 1975 as a consumer product and looked nearly the same by 2010 when it was discontinued. The best part about "DJ" in the story was not that it was designed for them, but rather that "they" discovered it and their demand kept the 1200 series in production much longer than it would have been otherwise. Two reasons for that appeal were rock steady speed and durability. Why would an audio hobbyist disparage that?

Since the new table apparently includes several design upgrades beyond the SL-1200 I feel they should have made the cosmetics more unique. That might have eliminated some of this discussion.

It will probably not sell too close to list price if it's like most other products from Technics and their close competitors.

I'd like to know the speed range.

Something tells me that this is going to be one SERIOUS turntable. I think when Panasonic designed this one, they had audiophiles in mind and not DJ's. Not that DJ's can't use this machine, but who is gong to cart 40 LBS around. The motor is what sets this one apart from the other SL1200's. A lot of research has gone into the brushless motor and is probably going to out perform anything that has been done before that is direct drive. Let's face it direct drive can be noisy and that is why audiophiles prefer belt drive. Now, as far as it selling, yes that average consumer is not going to buy this, since it is a special edition of only 1200 being sold and the introductory price is very steep. They plan to put out a model later on this year that is targeted at the average consumer that will be a little more affordable. We shall see how this goes.