colinfitz.com

The DJing community and the greater dance music scene mourns the loss of a clubbing staple today. Iconic turntable manufacturers Technics will be stopping production on their universally loved Technics 1200s and Technics 1210s.

In a statement re-posted on dance board Global Hardstyle, the company behind the production of the Technics turntables Panasonic announced that they would cease the manufacture of Tehcnics turntables in February next year, citing an increasing decline in sales as the motivation behind the line’s demise.

The Australian arm of Panasonic issued a similar statement today, expressing their disappointment that the brand’s 35 years-and-running legacy was to be put to bed.

“It is a sad day today but due to low sales globally in analogue turntables a decision to stop production has been made on Technics Turntables,” Panasonic spokesman Ian North explained. “For Australia this means we will receive our last shipment in March.”

With the disappearance of Technics decks now imminent it’s becoming increasingly clear that the digital juggernaut is showing no signs of slowing down.

I had written a large piece on what a shocker this was – almost the beginning of the end for Analogue Mixing and the declaration of the new reign of Digital… However it turns out Panasonic are only discontinuing one range of turntables:

Clarification came from Panasonic UK to squash rumours. And It’s not what you might think. So here goes – the 1200MK5 and 1210MK5 WILL be discontinued leaving the 1210MK5G as the top of the range and most definitely NOT discontinued. It never was a limited edition, just a flagship special edition model. And the 1200 and 1210 MK2 will continue as normal. So now there’s some distance between the MK2 and MK5G models instead having a middle MK5 deck to confuse matters. So it’s vanilla Technics or the more expensive piano black extra pitched blue light luxury model left in the range.