
Technics SL-1200G costs $4,000 because original manufacturing tools “were gone” - evo_9
http://www.whathifi.com/news/technics-explains-sl-1200g-price-and-hints-cheaper-turntable
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kqr2
Another famous example of losing the manufacturing process and tools is
FOGBANK -- a classified component used in nuclear weapons:

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOGBANK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOGBANK)
:

    
    
      It was soon realized that the FOGBANK material was a 
      potential source of problems for the program, as few 
      records of its manufacturing process had been retained 
      when it was originally manufactured in the 1980s, and 
      nearly all staff members who had expertise in its 
      production had either retired or left the agency.

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xlayn
Audiophile world it's an expensive and I would risk to say hard-to-
justify/define one.

I do like to hear music and after buying several more and more expensive
earphones/headphones you come to see it's just about certain signature on the
music... or in layman terms... EQ.

I used to research more and more in forums like head-fi but suddenly you
realize there is no way to translate, measure or get an agreement on what
things mean, e.g.

> _good texture and detail, not particular sweet in tone but good in vocal.
> Treble is decently crisp and clean, but rolls just a tiny bit off on the
> very top of the spectrum, over the 16kHz region. Bass extends decently low,
> but slowly rolls off in the sub-bass region_

With that said, I find hard to believe digital "always the same" encoded music
is inferior to this analog-vinil-trend...

~~~
seanp2k2
+1, once you start getting into the >$500 realm especially, it's more taste
than one thing being definitively better than another. There are also some
great bargains to be had for headphones / speakers / IEMs that perform way
above their price point. Brainwavs Deltas are one I've found recently, and I
still love my O2 amp + ODAC combo. I've heard more expensive gear and it's not
really worth it for me.

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dpweb
Bought my pair of 1200s about 20 years ago (wow! - it goes fast kids) - barely
used I think I paid $800 for both. Kept one cause I just like the equipment so
much and I don't even spin anymore. Just a solid piece of equipment, real pro
DJ gear.

It's sad though - in the same way that it costs $500 or whatever it is - to go
to an NFL game nowadays (which I wouldn't know anyway). Anything of real high
quality has to be priced out of reach of the average person. There's always
Walmart for most of us I guess.

Not knocking Technics, what they say may very well be true, but I do miss the
days when the best wasn't impossible to obtain for most of us.

Anyway, there's ebay and the original 12s. If you're into vinyl don't even
play around.

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pistle
They won't fly off the shelves with all that added, unnecessary weight or
cost. Oi vey.

~~~
duffdevice
For a product like this, the extra weight is a good thing.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
For a product like this, so is the extra cost.

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mariuolo
How large is today's market for this sort of things?

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pcurve
with limited run of 1200, all they will make is $4.8 million on sale. At best
they're breaking even.

~~~
soneil
There’s two models - the 1200GAE ‘anniversary edition’, and the 1200G. The GAE
is a limited run of 1200, but the G isn’t.

Given that the main difference between them is the material (magnesium alloy
vs aluminium) for the topshell, most the tooling should be re-usable across
both lines. So if they break even on the GAE, the G should provide quite a
“long tail”.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/technics-
sl-1200g-cos...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/technics-
sl-1200g-costs-3000-because-original-manufacturing-tools-were-gone/), which
points to this.

