The intent was to post this last month when I got the news after
DJ Q-bert dropped a hint about the "secret" turntable that
Pioneer is developing. After the slip-up, many people started investigating and a few pics surfaced to show the prototype. As you can clearly see, it looks 95% like the classic
Technics 1200's that first came to light from the
Panasonic corporation in 1972.
The frontal view shows the strobes, tracking light, record plate, pitch slider, 45 adapter and holding slot, along with much of the writing itself looks awfully a lot like the Technics. The only exception is the Start/Stop button to the left, which is rounded for this model, instead of square. The have the pitch reset button included as well.
The side view shows the tonearm and anti-skating adjustments to also look much like the 1200's, except for the tonearm weight. The only difference being the color. In between the pitch slider and tonearm base, there appears to be pitch range buttons to take the tempo from the standard +8/-8 range, up to speeds of +16/-16 and +50/-50.
The questions to ask now are; Will the pricing be expensive or affordable? Will they be able to stand the test of time, like the Technics have? Will the weight of the overall turntable be like the Technics or heavier to help against vibrations while you DJ? Time will answer all of these questions. In the meantime. we'll be waiting to see and hopefull take a pair for a test run.
