How does the Technics SL 1200 compare with....

Audio is obviously very subjective and there is simply no accounting for taste. That is not to say that there is no basis for ojective analysis, but people have different priorities and are sometimes willing to put up with some major downsides to get even a single major upside. It takes a much more ambitious product than either of these to aspire to being uncompromised. In my original review that I posted in the now defunct thread, I noted that my reference Maplenoll table understandably blew both the Rega and Technics out of the water. I couldn't live with either of those as my sole table. One of the two LP used to test had very challenging sybilance and the Rega had a real problem with it. The 1200 handled it better but was muddier across the board, although quieter. I suspect that this is plinth and arm related rather than direct vs. belt issue. The high mass, highly damped plinth of the Technics is the poloar opposite of the purposefully low mass highly rigid, undamped plinth of the Rega. Choose your poison.

I'm not trying to persuade anyone that A is better than B (as a side note - might some of the differences in opinion about the Technics table revolve around experiences with a stock SL1200 series TT vs a KAB modified version?)- just trying to relate my experience and also confirm what Johnnyb has said, "the Technics is giving me a lot of musical enjoyment". Two recent changes have contributed greatly to this: 1) I purchased a used Lehman Black Cube phono-pre (in part because of a thread response by Tvad (though not the SE version). This replaced a very entry level NAD PP-1. 2) I did a DIY Mapleshade knockoff using a heavy, 2&1/4" thick Cuisinart chopping block from the kitchen organizer dept at Lowes along with 4 Dayton speaker cone spikes from Parts Express (thread of the accompanying studs is a perfect replacement for that of the Technics stock footer). I'm using Isonoe boots (orginally purchased for the stock TT footers) under the cutting board. The benefit of this latter tweak may go to Tvad's point above about the need for damping. Whatever the cause(s), vinyl on the KAB Technics SL1210 M5G is sounding amazing to me.

Tvad,

I don't see myself as offering a "point of view" so much as observations and hypotheses. It makes sense to me that a direct drive would need damping. I did not at all intend to say that the Rega low mass undamped technique is better, just that it may contribute significantly to the differences between the two tables. My Maplenoll is VERY high mass and very damped but rigidly with lead and corian rather than rubber like the Technics. There are a alot of folks that believe that evacuating resonance is more effective than soft damping which they argue traps the resonance within the component. Perhaps the Maplenoll optimizes both by damping rigidly in a way that facilitates evacuation as well. I don't get that there is any "right" way to handle these issues, just lots of different roads any of which need to well tended and balanced to be comprehensibly effective. My sense is that the art of Turntable design and resonance management has evolved a bit since the Technics team made there (significant) investment. They got alot right, especially for a $500 table. I can easily relate what I heard to Johnnyb's comment, "the Technics is giving me a lot of musical enjoyment". My initial impression was, "mmm, comfy." The Rega was simply more incisive, but at a cost.

Incidentally, I heard recently that A. J. Conti compared the speed stability of his upper end Basis table, a belt drive using an exeedingly thin but super accurately ground rubber belt to the Technics 1200 with excellent results. Go figure.

Thom Mackris sums up this dynamic nicely in an unrelated adjacent thread:

"...while specific "superior" architectures may well arise, that ultimately, mature designs arise from multiple different architectures ... in the hands of a skilled and aware designer. I truly feel that these superior (yet divergent) architectures tend to converge on musical truth."

or as someone else once sung it:

"it ain't the meat it's the motion."