New Technics SL 1200 GAE

bill stevenson
Looking over this thread it would appear that you and I are the only owners of GAEs

I don't but there are several others that do, and post here [analog] on occasion. 
As would have it they rarely discuss their collections.

The Zupreme headshell from LP Gear has azimuth adjustment and happens to sound very good compared to other headshells I have tried on the GAE.  VTA can be adjusted on the fly on the GAE.  Setup is extremely fast, easy, and repeatable too. This is a real strength of this design.  The layout and design just work very, very well.. As a young man I worked in high end audio shops for almost 10 years back in the 1970s, and was the TT setup specialist.  In terms of ease of setup and use, all Technics turntables excel. 

@raymonda 

DJ's with money will buy them. Who do you think bought all those gold plated 1200's, customized, powdered. coated, bling out 1200's. As soon as the big name DJ's have them the masses will follow. $1600 today is close to the actual cost of a 1200 in the early 80's.

maybe it's not the right forum to talk about djing, but i've been in this business for 20 years, the cost of the 1200mk2 since the mid 90s was $400-500 new, now (20 years later) about the same for used in perfect condition. The limited gold 1200 ltd wasn't the mass product, something like 1000 units only. Millions of djs would never buy pair of GAE for $4000, they do rather spend everything on records instead, they are not audiophiles and in most cases even super star djs are more concerned about studio equipment for music production, active monitors and similar stuff. In this world the 1200mk2 is a legendary turntable. Today i got pair of 1200mk2 for rewiring from a friend who own them for 30 years and never changed anything (typical dj phylosophy), because they are good enough and works fine. At the same time i'm not trying to they the don't like GAE, they are just overpriced for djs, they don't care about audiophiles stuff. In my opinion the GAE will never be a dj standard or club standard like it was with 1200mk2. Cheaply made Pioneer turntables filled the pro marked along with Stanton  when the Technics quit production of 1200mk2 not so long ago.

I wish we could live in a better world where local discoteques or bar invites djs to play jazz, disco or soul vinyl on TAD/Kinoshita speaker with tube amps and turntables like GAE as a standard. In reality it's possible only in Japan.             

@billstevenson and @audiofun 

I, too, own this marevlous piece of engineering.  It sounds wonderful in addition to being way better built than many tables out there, especially in its price range.  It's a rock. 

Here's my question--

When I went to adjust the torque, I flipped the switch from auto to manual, yet when I went to adjust the actual torque the setting appeared to be at what would be 7:10 on an analog clock--which I equate to being as low as possible.  Is that right?  I had trouble getting the screw to move and didn't want to strip it so I left it be.  Maybe I need a better fitting micro screwdriver--I'm already using a tiny one.  

Thoughts? Is that where your torque setting was?  

Jbhiller: 

definatley don't use a lot of force on the potentiometer (it is not a screw).
When you are making these changes I would have the unit powered down or unplugged from the wall socket.

the fact that it was aleafy turned down doesn't mean anything as it should have been defaulted to the "Auto" mode which means the unit ignore the position of the pot. 

You should have been able to easily turn the pot clock-wise which would indicate it was at the end of its range in the counter-clockwise direction.

Set the flip switch to manual and then adjust the pot such that it is 1/5 of the way up which you mean it is mostly turned counter-clockwise. 

Hope this helps.

never force the potentiometer.