Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdirty
Reading about the sl1200 upgrading it with a rega 301 tonearm sounds like a viable option. what are some other TT's in this price range? would bumping my budget up to a 1500 dollar TT/tonearm out perform an upgraded sl1200?
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For about 700USD or less, if you buy the basic RB250 tonearm and mounting plate straight from
Origin Live in England, and get an SL1200MK2 locally, the Technics is pretty hard to beat.
You can then afford a really nice quality of moving coil cart like the Dynavector DV10 or even DV20XL which work very well indeed on a Rega arm. Coupled with your other existing kit this will given you a vinyl front end which will compete with all but the very very best.
For similar money you could get a VPI Scout which is a firm favourite around here, or a Clearaudio or a Michell.
These level of belt drives will leave the Technics in the dust without the tonearm upgrade, but with a Rega arm on the Technics it will be more down to different aspects of the sound which a direct drive can do better than a belt drive and vice versa.
The Technics is rock solid in timing and gives a real sense of power to a performance, whereas modern belt drives at this level will generally have a more capacious soundstage, be slightly quieter or, if they have a supsended subchassis, they'll give you a rhythmic snappiness which can make the Technics sound a little mechnical by comparison.
These are fairly nebulous differences though which will be more apparent with different types of music when listening to the decks side by side. If I were you and spending this much money I'd find a local dealer and see if you can listen to some decks in a proper demo to see what's on offer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VIrak /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The stock tonearm is better spec'ed than the RB301, and fluid damping takes to the next level.
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Not unless you value the ability to change carts conveniently over sound quality. There have been many threads about this. Here is a recent one.
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/tec...pgrade-420699/
As for using a fluid damper with a low compliance moving coil cart, this is not what it's really designed for and not going to be much help, being much more in keeping with high compliance carts like the Ortofon concord or Stanton 881.
KABUSA are experts on Technics decks for sure but you have to remember that they have become experts by serving a DJ market for the last 30 years and some of the things this market values are not strictly speaking necessary or best practice purely for playing records at home.
I'm sure your system sounds great and lots of the upgrades you've made, like the mat and footers are superb, but if you really want to take your deck to next level, loose the antique tonearm.
You can get a lot of decent modern beltdrives for the money you're spending, and something like a Michel Gyro SE will wipe the floor with a stock Technics. A large part of the difference is the Rega tonearm though, so fitting this to a Technics SL1200 will even the ground.