💿 Technics SL-P1200, a sexy CD player

Make CD players cool again!

CD players have been generic and you used to see the magic of the disc spinning while playing your favorite songs.

But the Technics SL-P1200 is the most attractive look'n and durable CD player I've ever seen. Originally for FM radio broadcasts and recording studios, it's a digital-to-analog professional stereo CD player with pitch control, it has outputs for broadcasts and analog outputs (no digital). It was manufactured between 1986 to 1994. It has built-in speaker but you can hook it up to bigger analog friendly speakers (Not sure if it's compatible with matrixing for Dolby Surround/Pro-logic CDs.) and has a headphone output. The player also comes with a remote, just in case your too lazy to get up for some reason.

Image credit: Powerhouse Collection

It's also the fastest loading CD player, it quickly reads the data off the disc in no less than 2 seconds. This is faster than today's CD payers, that's just sad... When you put the disc on the top loader of the player and press play, you can see the magic of the technology while it's spinning, CD players don't do this anymore (except for the portable ones).

Specifications:

Disc format: CD (not compatible with any other CD variants or amendments)

Digital converter: 2 x PCM54HP-M, 16 bit linear

CD Mechanism: SOALP1200

Frequency response: 4Hz to 20kHz

Dynamic range: 96dB

Signal to Noise Ratio: 106dB

Channel separation: 106dB

Total harmonic distortion: 0.0025%

Line output: 2V

Dimensions: 430 x 380 x 168mm

Weight: 14.5kg

Price: Around $1000 or £1000

There is a pitch control slider, but you can't DJ'ing or scratching here : the jog is for track/time locating and not for mad crazy remixing.

It doesn't show the CD amendments like you do with today's players but it has the basic features that displays the chapters and time of the music data.

I have to admit it's an awesome machine, the sound quality is very detailed and clean, with great depth and transparency, vividly reproduced sound stage with great depth and clout. There's no digital output nor can it read burnt CDs, but who can complain? CD players were the cool new thing forty years ago, the first machines were amazing technological devices with interesting unique designs, but when the next generation players came out, most manufacturers' models started to look pretty similar and generic.

If you want this beast, it costs a pretty penny of over $1,000. Similar model is the Technics SL-P50 with analog frequency indicator.