Stuff that still works: the MK2

Monday, April 9, 2018 at 11:49 PM UTC

I have a lot of electronics, I love electronic devices though sometimes they seem to hate me.

I have a device that I love over all the others and I use it for 29 years now though not on a regular daily base: my turntable.

Turntables experienced a renaissance during the past decade. People like the real feel of putting vinyl on a real machine instead of just dragging mp3 files to a software. I always appreciate playing a record over playing a CD. I don‘t have a CD player for years. I used to use a high-end player from Sony back then. What I preserved over the decades was my MK2.

This turntable is iconic. It is THE DJ turntable, used around the globe by famous performers. There were a lot of clones produced by other manufacturers and even the original vendor, Technics, issued some updates. 

I own the original Technics SL-1210 MK2 which is the black version. The model itself was born in the same years as I was, in 1972.

I bought mine back in 1989 for 1000 DM (about 500 EUR) including a DJ pickup. I earned the money during my school holidays with hard physical labour at the university in Berlin. I worked in the agricultural institute for 4 weeks, digging the soil. My reward was this machine which will survive me for sure. Even the little light bulb is the original one.

There are no parts that will perish. No belt but a magnetic direct drive driven by quartz technology. I replaced the initial coil of course years ago, so this Qbert from Ortofon is the second.

As vinyl is becoming popular again I am very happy to have this baby!







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