Technics SL-P1300 CD-player Review

The Technics SL-P1300, one of the few top-loading CD players manufactured today (except for portables), looks almost identical to the SL-P1200, its predecessor, which was originally designed for use by disc jockeys and other professionals who need very accurate cueing and mixing control. The SL-P1300 carries over most of the special operating features and the rugged mechanical construction of the SL-P1200 while adding several advanced circuit features.

For a CD player, the SL-P1300 is rather large and heavy, measuring 17 inches wide, 15 inches deep, and 6-5/8 inches high and weighing a solid 35-1/4 pounds. All of its operating controls are on the slightly sloping top panel, and the display panel at the rear is tilted back a bit for improved visibility. The front edge of the cabinet contains a headphone jack and its horizontal-slider volume control. On the rear apron are the conventional phono-jack line outputs, a pair of XLR connectors carrying balanced line outputs, for minimum noise pickup in professional applications, and coaxial and optical digital outputs for connection to an external d/a converter.

Perhaps the most distinctive external feature of the SL-P1300 is its 2-1/4-inch-diameter search knob, which turns with a feather touch and will spin for several revolutions after a flick of the finger. When the search button on the panel is engaged, this knob shifts the position of the laser pickup forward or backward across the disc, providing exceptionally easy and precise cueing. A fast or slow search rate can be selected by a button on the panel. Slow search changes the cueing position in increments of 0.1 second of playing time; in fast search the increments are roughly 1 second.

Another useful feature is Auto-Cue. When this button is engaged, the player automatically goes into pause at the end of each track and positions the laser at the actual starting point of the following track. Since CD tracks are often separated by a silent interval, this feature makes it easy to begin play precisely on the first note of a track when the start button is pressed.

Most of the other control buttons on the panel will be familiar to users of conventional CD players. A numerical keypad provides direct access to any track or, with the index button, any indexed point within a selected track. It can also be used to program up to twenty tracks for playback in any sequence. The keypad also permits access to any portion of a disc by its elapsed-time position, and a time cue can be stored during play by pressing a single button. Later, pressing time recall begins playback from that point.

The entire disc, a programmed sequence, or any selected portion of a track can be repeated, and there are the usual forward and reverse track-skip and track-search buttons. The search buttons are designed to shift the laser by one track width (approximately 0.1 second of playing time) with each momentary touch, so that a user can synchronize two CD players for smooth in/out fades. Although the SL-P1300 is not unusual in having a music-scan feature that plays a few seconds of each track before proceeding to the next one, its version of the feature is unique in that the duration of the sample, normally 10 seconds, can be varied between 1 and 59 seconds with the keypad on the supplied remote control.

Finally, another unique feature of the SL-P1300 is its pitch control. When activated by a button, this slider control varies the speed of the playback (and thereby the pitch of the music) over a nominal ± 8-percent range. This feature is useful to home tapists or broadcasters who may need to adjust the length of a selection to fit an available time slot or to match the pitch or tempo of one recording to that of another.

The display window is conventional, with large numerals showing the track and index numbers and elapsed or remaining time in minutes, seconds, and tenths of a second. A “music calendar” grid shows the numbers of all unplayed tracks up to a maximum of twenty. Displayed symbols and words indicate the status of the various operating controls of the player.

Like the earlier SL-P1200, the SL-P1300 makes extensive use of multilayer damping materials within its zinc die-cast case. The entire player is supported on four large, rubber-damped spring feet, and the optical assembly and power transformers (separate for analog and digital circuits) inside the case are individually isolated from the base to minimize vibration effects. The wireless remote control operates all main-panel functions except power on/ off, disc compartment open/close, Time Recall, dial search, Auto-Cue, and pitch control. The music-scan and index-skipping functions can be performed only from the remote control.

Advanced circuit features of the SL-P1300 include an eight-times-oversampling (352.8-kHz) digital filter and an 18-bit, high-resolution D/A converter system using dual converters for each channel (one for the positive half and the other for the negative half of the analog waveform). A comparison of technical specifications indicates that the SL-P1300’s ratings are about 6 dB better than the SL-P1200’s in respect to noise and channel separation. The new player is also designed to accept 3-inch as well as standard CD’s. Price: $1,599.

Lab Tests

Meaningful performance measurements on the Technics SL-P1300 would be impossible (or at least impractical) without the very latest in test equipment, which we have in the Audio Precision System One. For example, the player’s frequency response varied only ±0.04 dB from 15 to 20,000 Hz. The equalization of the de-emphasis circuit was accurate within 0.02 dB from 125 to 1,000 Hz in one channel and within about 0.003 dB in the other. Its noise-spectrum level when playing the “signal-zero” portion of a test disc was — 120 dB at 20,000 Hz and fell to — 145 dB at 30 Hz (except for 60- and 180-Hz hum components in one channel at — 116 dB).

Low-level spectrum analysis of the output from test tones between — 70 and —100 dB showed a striking absence of resolvable harmonics, which are usually present at levels of —15 to — 30 dB in other CD players. This result was a first in our experience testing CD players with the Audio Precision instrument. The level of the 1,000-hz test tone was within a fraction of a decibel of the correct value even at — 100 dB, another indication of the low-level linearity of the d/a converter. The linearity of the playback from the sweeping tone (with dither) of the CBS CD-I disc was excellent from — 60 dB until it disappeared in the noise level at about — 116 dB.

The channel separation, almost identical on both channels, was about 130 dB at 100 Hz and about 100 dB at 20,000 Hz. The total harmonic distortion (THD) plus noise at 1,000 Hz was —96 dB (0.0016 percent) at 0 dB and —98 dB (0.0013 percent) from —40 to —80 dB. For reasons that are not clear, the distortion rose abruptly to — 86 dB (0.005 percent) at —20 dB, but from a listening standpoint, of course, that level is as insignificant as the other distortion measurements. Interchannel phase shift varied smoothly from —0.2 degree at 5,000 Hz to — 1.2 degrees at 20,000 Hz.

The А-weighted wide-band noise was — 114 dB, and quantization noise (with the d/a converters operating) was —95 dB. The dynamic range (EIAJ) was 97.5 dB. The frequency error was +0.0018 percent, and the pitch control had a range of + 9.49 percent to —7.41 percent. The 0-dB output level into an EIA load was 2.49 volts, with a channel imbalance of 0.05 dB.

The defect-tracking ability of the SL-P1300 was excellent, reaching beyond the 1,500-micrometer level of the Pierre Verany #2 test disc before audible dropouts occurred, and its impact resistance was the best we have seen in a home CD player. Only with the most extraordinary pounding on its case (more painful to the perpetrator than to the victim) could we cause brief dropouts. The cueing time of 1.5 seconds ranks with many of the faster CD players made today. Finally, the headphone volume was excellent, about 3.5 to 4 volts into typical headphone impedance loads before clipping occurred.

Comments

The Technics SL-P1300 is one of the most advanced CD players we have seen to date. While a few of its individual measurements have been equaled or slightly surpassed by some other top units, its overall performance places it at the head of its class in our experience.

We have been using an SL-P1200 for some time as a reference CD player, so we were naturally curious to compare it with its successor. Making the same measurements on both units with the same discs and test equipment, we verified that the newer circuits of the SL-P1300 do in fact produce measurable benefits. Compared with the SL-P1200, its wide-band noise level was 7 dB lower, its quantization noise was 3 dB lower, and its dynamic range was 2 dB greater. Its low-level linearity curve was visibly superior, and channel separation was about 10 to 20 dB greater.

All of these measurable differences really have little to do with the sound of the player, however, since we are dealing with infinitesimal performance aberrations. The principal significance, as we see it, is that Technics has made a number of refinements that, in the aggregate, make an excellent product even better. One of the most striking characteristics of our measurements of the SL-P1300 is their symmetry. Measurements on the two channels of a CD player almost always differ, often by a substantial amount. Even though the differences are not likely to have an audible effect, their presence suggests a degree of uncertainty that seems out of place in such a sophisticated component as a CD player. The fact that the two channels of the SL-P1300 measured so much more alike than those of other CD players suggests that its makers really had a handle on what they were doing, from the conception to the manufacture of the finished product.

The SL-P1300 is a most impressively engineered component. While I cannot say that it sounded better than other top-of-the-line CD players, or even different from them, I can say that I have not seen another CD player combining such a high level of performance and versatility with such an overall feeling of ruggedness, quality, and precision.

Read all

Technics reviews

Read all