Panasonic Unveils new Technics SL-1200G, will reportedly sell at $4,000

Panasonic recently unveiled the new direct-drive Grand Classic SL-1200G at CES and sent every music aficionado in a frenzy. Why, even my friends got excited upon seeing the photos and specs. The question on everybody's lips was of course, ‘How much?’

We all knew that it won't be cheap but we almost fell off our seats when we found out that the new model will reportedly cost $4000.  That's according to this article from What Hi-Fi.   

That basically takes the new SL-1200 out of reach for many of us.  At an exchange rate of 47 pesos to a dollar, the new machine will set us back by almost 200 thousand pesos!  That doesn't even include the taxes and other costs levied upon imported goods.  So it is not really an overstatement that the initial excitement turned to outrage,

There's no official word yet from Panasonic but there's buzz in the Internet that the huge price increase was due to the complete redesign of the deck to improve its performance.  It will also have a set of unique features that will control vibrations in the motor.

The new SL-1200G (I suspect it's for Grand Classic) will come our in Summer this year.  There will also be a 50th Anniversary edition which could even be pricier than this one.

And here are the specs straight out of the Technics website:

All New Design for Redefining the Direct Drive Turntable

Twin-Rotor Surface-Facing Direct Drive Motor

Direct Drive Motor ControllerHigh Sensitive Tonearm
Brass-Top Turntable Platter
Insulator

Technics Definitive Design
Inherited SL-1200 Series
Heavy Aluminium Top Plate

Turntable Speeds33 1/3 rpm, 45 rpm, 78 rpm

Variable Range Pitch
±8%, ±16%

Dimensions & Weight
W: 453 mm (17-27/32 inch) H: 170 mm (6-11/16 inch) D: 372 mm (14-21/32 inch)
Approx. 18 kg (39.7 lbs ) *Tentative *Height including dust cover

Terminal
Phono Output x 1 / SIGNAL GND x 1

Images are not mine and came from various sources in the Internet