Technics SL-10

Slightly severe in looks but highly desirable !

The SL-10 was designed by Yosumi Toshikazu from an R&D project initiated by Obata Shuichi and was at first planned with a lacquered black finish.
After an inital prototype with such a finish, practical reasons led to a the semi-matte natural aluminium.
The SL-7 and SL-15 variants were also designed Mr Toshikazu.

Unlike many of the early 1980s "square" TTs, the SL-10 was no gadget and is an excellent sounding turntable :
Stereo Sound Best Product in early 1980,
Stereo Sound State of the Art in late 1980,
and a japanese Good Design award, too.

Better yet : the SL-10 was delivered with a Technics EPC-310MC cartridge and there's a built-in moving-coil preamp !
Even if the T4P cartridge fitting system prevents the use of most cartridges, it seems Ortofon has restarted the production of its X1-MCP for use with T4P tonearms - good news.


Technics worked on its first tangential turntable as early as 1969 with the 100P turntable (images are at hand - stay tuned !) but probably thought the means to achieve the planned goal not accurate enough and waited ten years to really go for it - with a resounding success.