Turntable Reviews

After aligning the EMT cart with my Feickert Universal Protractor, I slid the aluminum counterweight over the aft stub of the tonearm and set the tracking force using my Riverstone Audio Precision Record-Level VTF Gauge. A small auxiliary weight was supplied for use with heavier carts; it cleverly screwed directly into the butt end of the tonearm. Technics also supplied their classic thick rubber mat; I felt no need to experiment. I did, however, replace the flimsy interconnects provided with a pair of Triode Wire Labs Spirit II RCA interconnects, which fit very loosely on the GR2's gold-plated RCA connectors. The GR2's power cord was thicker and more robust than those supplied with some power amps. The GR2's feet are height-adjustable, so I used them to level the machine, but they were stiff and hard to rotate, which made this job more difficult than it should have been.

In use, the GR2 feels sleek and responsive, like a sports car. Its solidity, ease of use, consistent performance, and ergonomic flow made it seem like a musical instrument—actually making music and not just spinning the vessel that stores those precious waveforms, which our ears identify as Hank Mobley, George Jones, or Billie Eilish.

Listening
Eilish is fine on the car radio or when she pops up on some playlist. Silky songs, silky voice. But if I'm really listening, her 2021 album, Happier Than Ever, is sonic swill, DOA, a muted, teen-friendly, headache-inducing tooth puller. For listening pleasure, I pull out Sonny Rollins, Stanley Turrentine, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, maybe the Beatles. Lately, I've also been pulling out my Thorens TD 124 MKII turntable, currently equipped with The Wand tonearm and a Luxman LMC-5 MC cartridge. It's not fair to compare sub-5k turntables with the $30,000 VPI Avenger Direct I routinely use, so I did all comparisons with the vintage Thorens.

The Thorens plays records with speed, punch, panache, dimensionality, and lifelike, wow-me dynamics. There's something undefinable about how it plays music, something magical (footnote 2).

The lineup for the listening session with the Technics GR2 included Jackie McLean's Right Now! (Blue Note Liberty 84215), Sonny Rollins's What's New? (RCA LPM-2572) and Sonny Meets Hawk! (RCA Dynagroove LPM-2712), and Stanley Turrentine's treatise on kicking butt and taking names, Easy Walker (mono, Blue Note Liberty BLP 4268). These four records pack enough rhythmic punch, tonal purity and saturation, spatial splendor, and walloping dynamics to electrify the mind/body connection, assuming you're not dead.

With Triode Wire Labs Spirit II interconnects connecting the SL-1200GR2 to the solid state Aurorasound Vida II phono stage, the Technics player was great fun and very revealing. The Luxman LMC-5 and EMT TSD 15N cartridges are not dissimilar, though the EMT (on the Technics) had more piss and vinegar (footnote 3); it proved punchier and tighter with more drive than the smoother LMC-5.

Compared to the Thorens, the GR2 stepped a bit lighter playing Easy Walker, but its drive and punch were—paradoxically?—soul quickening. The Technics brought out the strengths of this late '60s mono pressing with a fat, full, spatially dense center image. (Remember: It's mono.) Now I could hear the cymbal detail and shimmer and the resonant snare drum smacks of drummer Mickey Roker, and Mr. T's tenor was hard-edged, immediate, and forceful. The Technics + EMT made very exciting music, a little forward and a bit leaner than the Thorens/Wand/Luxman combo.

Spinning on the Technics, Jackie McLean's Right Now! hit me like a hurricane. Recorded by McLean in 1965 at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio with pianist Larry Willis, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Clifford Jarvis, Right Now! is one of McLean's greatest Blue Note outings, comparable in performance, energy, and compositional power to Demon's Dance (a recent Tone Poet reissue), the experimental, Roy Haynes–fired Destination ... Out!, Jackie's Bag, and the mighty twofer Jacknife.

When the Technics/EMT combo met Right Now!, every ounce of detail was resolved within an exciting, layered soundstage. McLean blew full, fast, and mean out of the left channel as Clifford Jarvis's chunky drum work pelted me with jabs and stomps from the right. The music was clean, knife-edged, biting, soaring.

Technics's success in lowering the noisefloor, in its turntables as in its recent integrated amplifiers, is a verifiable, physical thing. Heard through this 'table, '60s Blue Note hard bop was a chunky stew of aural nourishment. But I need more than speed and vigor from a turntable. Equally important are elasticity and romance, color and a sense of mystery revealed.

So, on to the gentler rhythms of The Artistry of Helen Merrill (Mainstream S/6014), a 1965 recording with guitarists Charlie Byrd and Jimmy Raney, drummer Osie Johnson, and bassist Keter Betts. Here was lushness and desire laid bare and beautiful. The Technics naturally reproduced the bubbles, plucks, and nonchalant rhythmic debris of David Toop's Pink Spirit, Noir World (Foam on a Wave FOAW003), that 1997 meeting of technology and folklore.

The Technics/EMT pairing was a party animal compared to the Thorens/Wand/Luxman trio. The Thorens time machine reproduced classic sounds with a clear sense of their milieu. With the EMT, the Technics was a modern assault of resolution and rhythm. Hearing what I heard, it was easy to understand why Technics turntables are considered the world's greatest deejay machines. They've got timing, pulse, and action in spades. But how much of that was the EMT?

Mounting the Kuzma CAR-30 in place of the EMT and maintaining the Aurorasound phono stage brought changes primarily in the treble. Playing McLean's Right Now! again, I heard speed, density, and physicality and what I can best describe as heat. This new, fiery flavor nurtured punchier dynamics, a wider spatial spread, and better decay. An upward frequency shift in focus brought greater exposure and direction to Jackie Mac's biting, sometimes queasy alto sound peeling off Jarvis's flaming drum work.

Switching again, now to the Dynavector DV-10X5 MKII MC, shifted attention away from the treble toward the midrange and brought about a more relaxed sound. Acoustic bass was smoother and plumper. I heard similarities to the EMT, but the Dynavector played with less slam and physicality and more smoothness, evenness, and sense of stillness.

Keeping the Dynavector in line but replacing the Aurorasound with my reference Tavish Audio Design Adagio tubed phono stage changed the sound for the better. The transition was immediate and large: more flesh, blood, richness, roundness, weight, and drama. Music flowed better and followed a more musical line, with an effortlessness that allowed the Technics to produce more natural-sounding musical beauty. Tonality was heartfelt, pure. The soundstage grew wider while absolute definition, layering, and detail was reduced. Head bopping increased, music meeting the ear in sweet waves of serenity. Hard-charging tunes, like opener "Eco," wrung me out, while Willis's ballad "Poor Eric" took me away from the system and purely, deeply into the music.

Conclusion
The Technics Grand Class SL-1200GR2-S/SL-1210GR2-K direct drive turntable continues a decades-long tradition of giving the people what they want. To an audiophile, that pitch-adjustment slider may seem like a toy with no clear purpose, but other characteristics of interest to deejays proved more transferrable. Their pursuit of a lower noisefloor, more refinement, and greater purity places Technics firmly in the audiophile here and now. In any case, you've got to respect their respect for tradition.

The GR2 played with dynamic punch with all types of music, worked well with and proved remarkably transparent to the character of cartridges and phono stages, and it was always fun to use. I'm not sure why Technics chose to keep the pitch slider; more than likely, they decided "why not?" But this is clearly an audiophile 'table, one capable of high performance at the price. If the $2199 price hits your wallet's sweet spot, give it a literal spin.

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Footnote 2: It is only fair to note that the tonearm in this combo costs almost as much as the Technics SL-1200GR2, which, as already noted, includes a fine tonearm.

Footnote 3: I own that EMT. It's one of the most dynamic cartridges I've ever heard—dynamic almost to a fault, by which I mean, it can sometimes seem a bit sloppy.—Jim Austin