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Say hello to Technics’ insane, $20,000 SL-1000R turntable

After so many years at CES, there are increasingly few things that make the hairs on our arms stand up these days. But a $20,000, three-armed turntable resurrected from the first-ever direct-drive wax spinner is one of them. This year at CES, Panasonic’s high-end audio branch, Technics, went back to the historical days of vinyl to turn its original SP-10 turntable into a shocking monstrosity of vinyl audiophile awesomeness. And yeah, the results sound as good as they look. Maybe better.

There are technically two new Technics turntables to discuss here: The SP-10R ($10,000), which is simply the platter, plinth, and outboard motor control unit (you select your own tone arm), and the SL-1000R, which comes packing a magnesium tone arm and a massive five-layer cabinet with modular spaces for two more tone arms of your choosing. This allows fanatics to specialize their listening with multiple cartridge types at once — the one we saw even came with a tone arm loaded with an optical-digital cartridge to read the grooves utilizing LED light instead of a Moving-Coil or Moving-Magnet design.

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At the core of both turntables is Technics’ four-layer Coreless Direct Drive Motor, which is based on the $4,000 SL-1200G turntable we saw in 2016, but takes things to even more ludicrous levels, offering even less flutter and more torque to push the tables’ massive, 17-pound platter.

The platter for both tables comprises a layer of “deadening rubber,” an aluminum die-cast base, a brass top, and 12 tungsten bearings for weight. The separated control unit allows for incredibly finite pitch adjustment between record sizes, as well as a reset key to release directly back to the original speed. As you’d imagine (and hope at this price), the table plays all three standard formats, including 33 1/3 rpm, 45 rpm, and 78 rpm records.

The SL-1000R also offers a five layer cabinet of aluminum and bulk molding compound (BMC), while for its part, the SP-10R is backward compatible for those vinyl nuts still holding on to their original 1970 SP-10 components.

All of this adds up to an insane level of solitude for your records, with virtually immeasurable flutter and a signal-to-noise ratio so low, you’d have to be one of the musicians in the studio for the original recording to get any closer to the music.

Ryan Waniata
Former Home Theater & Entertainment Editor
Ryan Waniata is a multi-year veteran of the digital media industry, a lover of all things tech, audio, and TV, and a…
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