An upgraded mainstream
turntable yet totally unique...
The origins of this project date back
to around 2004. For a while I'd had a contract to restore
turntables for an audio dealer in London, but deep down most
of these decks just weren't up to par (these were usually
modern plastic Technics, not to be confused with vintage or
SL-1200 quality). I'd get these decks by the box load and
completely restore and refinish them in individual colours,
upgrade the audio circuitry then sell them back to the
dealer - the customers seemed to love them. But I felt that
I could spend my time finding a far better turntable and
using that as a base to build onto, and if I was going to
find a supply of good 'bases' for a reasonable price, that
meant it would have to be vintage and probably Japanese.
Enter the PL-12D.
The idea was simple - a hand built turntable
which used an existing design as a base to work on and which
could be customised to individual specifications. In the
early days I restored a few much like the Technics -
basically stripping and restoring them, improving the audio
wiring and refinishing the metal base in various colours
then reselling them, but they were mostly left standard. I
felt that basically the PL-12 was a good solid design and
that just improving sound isolation would yield a large
improvement in sound quality and result in a turntable which
was far better yet no more expensive than those modern
Technics that I was restoring before. This was where the
idea for the Pioneer 'Bronze' grew from.
I originally planned to produce a small
number of these turntables to order, but because the sheer
amount of time and cost involved with producing each
turntable I eventually decided to abandon the idea; as I've
found over the years, really high quality restorations on
vintage audio gear just aren't economically viable, it's
just an unfortunate fact and it's also the reason why I no
longer restore vintage Pioneer amplifiers and cassette
decks.
That said, the project learned me a great
deal and also spawned one complete prototype.
Click on a link below to go to that section:
The
design - Background and original ideas behind the
project
The prototype
- How the ideas transformed into the real product
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