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Second
generation professional CD player from Technics - one before the
well remembered SL-P1200.
However,
this was in a different league, build-quallity-wise, size-wise and...
price-wise: 800,000¥ !
By today's standards, there isn't much that would justify such an
extravagant bill but the SL-P50 could be remote-controled through
an RS-type plug and sported XLR outputs and the usual professional
features: locate functions with 13,3ms
precision, custom fade times & levels, a shuttle to scroll through
the content, a built-in monitor speaker and old style VU meters.
The structure is worthy of a 1980s sci-fi engine (all aluminium
diecast and non-resonant) and there still was the mysterious "sub-code"
output which, I believe, nobody ever used... The
"monitor play" button allows to search for content while
being offline - we are indeed in the broadcast world.
Digital to analogue conversion is made by two 16-bit
AN6806 chips, with a special Technics error correction circuit
added. The laser is of the 3-beam kind and the total load on your
shoulders when moving the P50 is of 18kg.
Still,
Sony and Denon made most of the sales for these early professional
players (CDP-5000S
and DN-3000/F/FC) while the Technics SL-P series were more in the
pro-sumer range. Except for the SL-P50...
but it remained -and is even more now- an ultra-rare rarity.
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