Technics SL-P50

First 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 nobody ever used but Marantz.
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 ICs, 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.


All about the SL-P50 at the indispensable vintage-audio-laser.com :
page 1,
page 2,
page 3,
page 4.