How CD players lost their cool & why the Technics SL-P1200 didn’t.

Forty years ago CD players were the cool new thing. The first machines were amazing technological marvels with interesting designs. But when it came to launching the second generation players most manufacturers' models started to look pretty similar. In this video I'll explain what happened and then show that there were some exceptions - you just needed to think outside the (oblong) box. I then go on to demonstrate the exception(al) CD player I bought - a Technics SL-P1200.

00:00 Show me the media
02:52 Things started off well
04:34 But then this happened
06:32 So I bought this
07:32 But I really wanted this
08:53 Let’s look at the SL-P1200
10:34 How quick
11:15 So what can it do
16:11 Summary
16:56 Patreon credits

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Regularly asked question
Q) Why are there comments from days ago when this video has just gone live today?

[mikewifak]

This is Grade A certified pure uncut techmoan. One of your best in my opinion, Matt. The only thing that could make it better is some belts to replace.

[motodevcam]

Yes, back when I was on radio those functions were essential. We had later technics drawer loaders but they had all the same features. One handy function was the "peak search" which very quickly scanned the disc then cued it up at the highest volume on the track so you could PFL the peaks and set the channel output accordingly. This was important because of the limiters at the transmitter site that would maintain an output volume. If the peak was too high the limiter would pull the gain right down but then as soon as a queter bit followed it would then be too quite and take a second to go back up. Setting the levels correctly stopped this from happening. Whenever the engineer was in the building he could tell instantly if the levels were too high and would often run down to the studio, poke his head around the door and just say "LEVELS!" With a raised disapproving eye brow!!

[cjc]

I can't believe it! Techmoan did a piece on the SL-P1200! I used 2 of these in 1987/88 at a North Carolina FM station when I was 21 years old (overnight DJ at 'elevator' music station). Those decks were heavy as trucks and looked like they came from the future, and the first player I saw that had auto cue and pitch control on a CD player. Thanks for the memories! EDIT: I love the metal buttons, too! It does look like some sci-fi/Federation/Empire console standing by to fire the photon lasers or quad beams or whatever.

[davidchew]

I worked as a DJ in a club when this model was released and I the opportunity to use it for a while. It was a godsend, as it could zoom in down to a cue point on any song in the CD, just by typing in the track, time code, and frame number on the numeric keypad. The reason for the size and heft of this model is due to the fact that Technics was trying to make it easy (an obviously attract) for discos and clubs to replace their de facto turntables (the ubiquitous Technics SL-1200 - hence the same model number for this CD player with an extra P) by making it exactly the same dimensions. However, DJs panned it because the pitch control was reversed when compared to the SL-1200 turntable (push up to slow down and push down to speed up). But, as you pointed out, the speed at which it reads, and gets itself ready was to make it convenient for DJs. The feet of this model are exactly the same as the ones on the SL-1200, being vibration absorbing.

I've been following you for years and years now, but have never been compelled to write anything until I saw this video. Your videos are truly wonderful, and my Saturday evenings (I'm in Malaysia - GMT +8) are always a treat when a new video drops! Cheers!

[DenonDJUSA]

Matt, great vid thank you!
As I was a 23-year employee of DENON, you may not have known that their 1983 "DN-3000F" model was the first professional CD player to market. US Retail Price: $8, 500.00
Features like, Auto Cue, Cue to Music, 1/75 Frame Search, Pitch, Fader Start, Pro Outputs and so much more were all developed by DENON. The SL-P1200 is based off the DN-3000F and nice job they did.

[GadgetAddict]

Until you open the tray, the disc is both in there, and.not in there.

[jtmichaelson]

Wow! That is a beautiful machine. The radio station I worked for in the 90s had all of the same features but was a rack unit. But the tabletop model is just gorgeous.

[ZGryphon]

In addition to its cool quirkiness and unusual capabilities, I find something very appealing about the SL-P1200's user interface. It looks and sounds very tactile, in a way that these things usually weren't by that time. The number pad buttons, in particular, sound like they must be _intensely_ satisfying to press.

Also, this brings back two early-CD memories:

1) My first CD deck was one of the boring black drawer models (if memory serves, it was a Garrard), but a short while into its life, it developed a weird fault: it wouldn't work with the top shell of the cabinet installed. We found this out when it stopped working and my father took the top off to investigate, at which point it worked fine until he put it back together. To solve this problem, he built a replacement top shell out of plexiglas, making it possibly the only drawer-loader you _could_ see the disc inside.

2) A friend in college had a multi-disc changer back when that was still gee-whiz moon-rocket tech, but it had the weirdest shuffle function I've ever seen. It appeared to be absolutely, truly, 100% random. It didn't check off played tracks or prevent itself from playing two adjacent tracks in a row; it just chose a random track from the pool of all that were loaded every time. I think it did force a disc change each time, but if it only had one CD in it, it would occasionally get into streaks where its RNG just kept rolling the same track number over and over.

[MIKEY]

I also remember when CD’s launched — I was a young teenager at the time in Australia. My Dad came home with a Teac all in one system with dual cassette decks, with a basic CD player below (also had a radio & turntable) Thing you need to know is that Australian Teac is like Goodmans, in other words the polar opposite of Teac in the UK. (It was so basic you could only advance forward or back by the whole track, not seek mid track it didn’t remember it’s last position if you turned it off and there was no play time displayed only track numbers) Anyhoo, for several years after buying the system the only CD’s that we’re bought had to have on their label that they were either a ADD or DDD recording and if it wasn’t listed then it wasn’t purchased. Oh, and I was banned from using it, so even if I bought my own CD’s I wasn’t allowed to play them, only the “special” CD’s were played. This was more than infuriating to a kid who had discovered the joys of music and was consuming as much of it as possible, discovering 60’s as well as the current charts of the mid eighties at the time. All ended well when I bought my own Sony player almost a year later having saved like crazy from my paper round. Dad wasn’t jealous in the slightest 🤢🤢😂😇

[ageary]

Its no coincidence its named after the Technics SL-1200 series of direct-drive turntables originally manufactured from October 1972 until 2010. Built to last and give perfect precise playback. Thank you Technics.

[TorontoJon]

1:20 YES! I've always loved the kinetics (or animated quality) of physical media moving and progressing on their specific devices (records, reel-to-reel, compact cassette, etc.) and that was most often missing when it came to CD's and certainly laserdiscs, DVD's, and Blu-rays.

[MrTonglong]

I used to have one of these! I purchased a broken unit for $20 from a junk store, managed to fix it, then sold it off for about $300. This was about 5 years ago. I have some regret getting rid of it, but it was what started the hobby of fixing electronics for me. Thanks for reminding me of this beast :)

[Max]

The cueing-by-frame system was actually the backbone of DJ mixing when using CD players. The Pioneer CDJ-500 was a very popular early DJ deck that not only featured a jogwheel and pitch control, but also offered seamless looping via the now-standard in-out yellow buttons. DJs were obviously skeptical about CDs at first compared to vinyl, but as soon as the 2000s kicked in and the CDJ-1000 deck arrived, the CD took over.

[ZReviews]

I don't even own many CD's anymore and yet I sitll would love one of these to use. Every feature just seems so fast, useful and important.

[jonathankleinow]

Our first CD player was an SL-P111, as seen at 6:02 at the bottom. My parents won it at some mystery dinner theater thing they went to. It lasted quite a long time and was part of my hi-fi in college up until 2006 or so, when it stopped recognizing discs. It was very basic, but it was simple to operate and did its job well.

[bloqk]

Pitch control was an aspect for CD players I always sought out, as when playing popular songs from CDs of 1960s, I want the tempo of the songs to be the same as they sounded on the US Top 40 radio formats of that era; as they invariably slightly sped up the vinyl record turntables when playing the songs.
In addition, the first record turntable I got with my component stereo system in 1975, I discovered later-on that the turntable ran slightly fast when measured with a strobe light/'disc; so my ears got accustomed to that tempo sound.
When I got my first CD player in the late 1980s; which did not have pitch control, those 1960s songs by the Rolling Stones sounded sluggish in tempo because then were being played at the true playback speed.

[northsurrey]

Good to see this player again. I used the BBC ones extensively when I was a studio manager and Radio One used them before buying Studers. The Studers were better as they remembered the cue points set by the operator/DJ on discs even if they were removed and replaced. Also worth mentioning that the Technics design mirrored the SL1200 turntable (same feet and pitch control layout).

By the way the Technics had the ability to access index points using the Index button but I don’t think this was ever used on a commercial CD unless anyone knows different?

[JFHeroux]

@ Techmoan As a DJ in the late 80's and early 90's, I worked with those CD decks a lot. They were the best for our needs. One important thing to note is that the weight of the machine would help prevent skips, since dance floor vibrations and bumps on the equipment would make a CD skip. I remember we didn't need to install those on a rubber band suspension like the SL-1200 record players, so either there was a small buffer in the SLP-1200 or there was a physical skip prevention mechanism.

Of course, the pitch control slider was the most important feature for us as it made it possible to mix (beat-to-beat) dance music tracks. Also, I remember how fine the search function was. This was very important for us to cue the track at the exact beat where we wanted it to start for the beat-to-beat mix to work. Along with its SL-1200 cousin, the SLP-1200 is a legend of that bygone era when DJs actually had to work to earn their pay. Nowadays, the new generation simply let the computer mix tracks together, replacing the art of mixing with computerized precision.

[brantisonfire]

The feature that adds three seconds between each track would be useful for making copies to tape, especially if you’re playing those tapes back in a deck that can do random track search. Those systems need a few seconds of silence between tracks to determine the end of one song and start of another.

[revidual]

Early CD players may have been well built, and expensive, but the internal DAC were only 4 times over sampling and resulted in a harsh sound which led audiophiles to write off the technology. This issue was only resolved with the arrival of Bitstream or 1 Bit players. My first was the £900 Meridian 206B, with its glass fronted turntable loading drawer.