Saturday, January 24, 2009

My third turntable, the Technics SL-5



Currently this is my main player. 1st/main turntable, the Dunlop Systemdek has been out of action for some years due to the deteriorated tonearm, an Audio Technica At1100. Have not found a suitable tonearm replacement just yet. Got my second TT, a Pioneer semiauto DirectDrive that has been active till I got the SL-5 some years back. Has been 'collecting' dust for sometime until I completed the VSPS(Very Simple Phono Stage), curious about how the SL-5 would sound,after a stylus replacement, connected it to the VSPS and I am NOT going to disconnect it for now! Will post the review soon.




Some info about the SL-5:




Direct-Drive Fully Automatic Turntable System with Linear tracking tonearm (1982-83)




Description
Type: Fully automatic
Drive system: Direct drive
Speeds: 33.33 and 45rpm
Wow and flutter: less than 0.05%
Absolute speed error: +0.1%
Rumble: better than -75dB
Tonearm: Low mass linear tracking



Review
The wow and flutter of the Technics SL-5 was very low and the speeds accurate despite the absence of quartz lock. Shock was fairly well handled which is normal for a linear tracker, and it also behaved well on the feedback test. Well constructed and adjusted, the lid mounted tonearm possessed very good geometry and a low effective mass of around 3g - £119 HiFi Choice 1983

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