After aligning the EMT cart with my Feickert Universal Protractor, I slid the aluminum counterweight over the aft stub of the tonearm and set the tracking force using my Riverstone Audio Precision Record-Level VTF Gauge. A small auxiliary weight was supplied for use with heavier carts; it cleverly screwed directly into the butt end of the tonearm. Technics also supplied their classic thick rubber mat; I felt no need to experiment. I did, however, replace the flimsy interconnects provided with a pair of Triode Wire Labs Spirit II RCA interconnects, which fit very loosely on the GR2's gold-plated RCA connectors. The GR2's power cord was thicker and more robust than those supplied with some power amps. The GR2's feet are height-adjustable, so I used them to level the machine, but they were stiff and hard to rotate, which made this job more difficult than it should have been.
In use, the GR2 feels sleek and responsive, like a sports car. Its solidity, ease of use, consistent performance, and ergonomic flow made it seem like a musical instrument—actually making music and not just spinning the vessel that stores those precious waveforms, which our ears identify as Hank Mobley, George Jones, or Billie Eilish.
ListeningEilish is fine on the car radio or when she pops up on some playlist. Silky songs, silky voice. But if I'm really listening, her 2021 album, Happier Than Ever, is sonic swill, DOA, a muted, teen-friendly, headache-inducing tooth puller. For listening pleasure, I pull out Sonny Rollins, Stanley Turrentine, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, maybe the Beatles. Lately, I've also been pulling out my Thorens TD 124 MKII turntable, currently equipped with The Wand tonearm and a Luxman LMC-5 MC cartridge. It's not fair to compare sub-5k turntables with the $30,000 VPI Avenger Direct I routinely use, so I did all comparisons with the vintage Thorens.
Compared to the Thorens, the GR2 stepped a bit lighter playing Easy Walker, but its drive and punch were—paradoxically?—soul quickening. The Technics brought out the strengths of this late '60s mono pressing with a fat, full, spatially dense center image. (Remember: It's mono.) Now I could hear the cymbal detail and shimmer and the resonant snare drum smacks of drummer Mickey Roker, and Mr. T's tenor was hard-edged, immediate, and forceful. The Technics + EMT made very exciting music, a little forward and a bit leaner than the Thorens/Wand/Luxman combo.
Spinning on the Technics, Jackie McLean's Right Now! hit me like a hurricane. Recorded by McLean in 1965 at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio with pianist Larry Willis, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Clifford Jarvis, Right Now! is one of McLean's greatest Blue Note outings, comparable in performance, energy, and compositional power to Demon's Dance (a recent Tone Poet reissue), the experimental, Roy Haynes–fired Destination ... Out!, Jackie's Bag, and the mighty twofer Jacknife.
When the Technics/EMT combo met Right Now!, every ounce of detail was resolved within an exciting, layered soundstage. McLean blew full, fast, and mean out of the left channel as Clifford Jarvis's chunky drum work pelted me with jabs and stomps from the right. The music was clean, knife-edged, biting, soaring.
The Technics/EMT pairing was a party animal compared to the Thorens/Wand/Luxman trio. The Thorens time machine reproduced classic sounds with a clear sense of their milieu. With the EMT, the Technics was a modern assault of resolution and rhythm. Hearing what I heard, it was easy to understand why Technics turntables are considered the world's greatest deejay machines. They've got timing, pulse, and action in spades. But how much of that was the EMT?
The Technics Grand Class SL-1200GR2-S/SL-1210GR2-K direct drive turntable continues a decades-long tradition of giving the people what they want. To an audiophile, that pitch-adjustment slider may seem like a toy with no clear purpose, but other characteristics of interest to deejays proved more transferrable. Their pursuit of a lower noisefloor, more refinement, and greater purity places Technics firmly in the audiophile here and now. In any case, you've got to respect their respect for tradition. The GR2 played with dynamic punch with all types of music, worked well with and proved remarkably transparent to the character of cartridges and phono stages, and it was always fun to use. I'm not sure why Technics chose to keep the pitch slider; more than likely, they decided "why not?" But this is clearly an audiophile 'table, one capable of high performance at the price. If the $2199 price hits your wallet's sweet spot, give it a literal spin.
Footnote 2: It is only fair to note that the tonearm in this combo costs almost as much as the Technics SL-1200GR2, which, as already noted, includes a fine tonearm.
