Fitzgerald’s pure tone and impeccable phrasing is served up explicitly by the SL-1500C - her voice is utterly packed with character, and occupies centre-stage in the most natural manner imaginable. One grinding gear-changing from deadmau5 to Ella Fitzgerald’s Dream a Little Dream of Me allows the Technics to showcase its keen eye for the detail and nuance of a vocalist’s delivery. The SL-1500C is a snake-hipped listen where too many of its nominal rivals have the bass equivalent of muffin-top.Īnd above this gloriously well-controlled bottom end, the news continues to be good. The result is a sound that has all of the body and momentum vinyl-fanciers delight in, but none of the overhang. Instead, it draws an unarguably straight edge at the start of bass notes and doesn’t let their decay hang around. It absolutely snaps into low-end sounds - it doesn’t wallow, it doesn’t drone. The temptation to overstate the luxurious warmth and substance of vinyl-derived bass seems almost impossible to resist - but the SL-1500C is made of sterner stuff. Many an otherwise-excellent record player overplays its hand where low frequency information is concerned. But that’s not what is so initially remarkable about the way this Technics goes about music-making. Much of what is so prized in the vinyl format - the warmth, detail and texture of its sound, the rhythmic surefootedness, the sense of integration and unity of performance - is here in the SL-1500C, and in good measure. The slightly longer answer is ‘yes, all day long’.
So it’s out with a ‘much-loved’ (for which read ‘slightly knackered’) copy of deadmau5’s single-sided Lack of a Better Name to find out if the SL-1500C is worthy of its illustrious brand name. There’s really only one place to start with a Technics record player, and that’s with some thumping dance music. Like Technics turntables of old, the SL-1500C has big ‘33.3’ and ‘45’ rpm speed-selection buttons - and, like Technics turntables of old, pressing them at the same time delivers 78rpm performance.
Such pandering to the user is not something you’d ever catch an SL-1210 indulging in. When the needle reaches the run-out groove it can, if you so desire, return to its resting ‘off’ position. There’s even a switchable auto-stop feature. Not every stereo amplifier has the necessary oomph to make a record player audible (though every mixer attached to an SL-1210 does), but because the SL-1500C is packing sufficient pre-amplification it’s compatible with any amplifier you care to mention. It’s also fitted with a switchable phono stage. They’re pliant and have quite a lot of articulation so, while - you should always put your record player on a sturdy shelf, where it can avoid vibrations - the SL-1500C isn’t as unsettled by less-than-perfect positioning as some price-comparable but less, yes, hefty rivals. It stands on four hefty (the word ‘hefty’ springs to mind a lot when trying to describe the SL-1500C) rubberised feet. Niceties start with the Ortofon 2M Red cartridge that’s pre-fitted to the detachable headshell - it’s simplicity itself to attach or detach it from the S-shaped tonearm. Technics has gone to significant lengths to make the SL-1500C as user-friendly and painless as possible.
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