STANTONT.120 Turntable - GigaCrate Review

www.gigacrate.com

BY NICKNACK
December 1, 2008

4 years later, thoughts on the Stanton T.120C turntable

Since the mid to late 80’s it seems like the Technics 1200 turntable has had a strangle hold on the DJ industry. It has been the industry standard at least two solid decades. In recent years there have been many attempts to dethrone the king of the decks. Most of which have fallen way short.

After nearly 12 years of solid abuse, the RCA cables on one of my Technics 1200 MKIIs started to go out. I tried to service it myself and quickly realized that there are TOO many screws and parts to make it worth my while. I opted to pay a local technician about $60 to replace the RCA cables and tune the pitch controls on both my tables.

After I got them back the RCA on the other turntable went out. Frustrated, I decided it was time to find something better. Actually, I had been wanting to get a turntable with a larger pitch range for quite some time, so this RCA debacle was sorta the tipping point. Around 2004 Stanton’s T.120C turntables caught my attention. I figured I would give them a go. Here we are after 4 years of steady use and abuse. I now have enough experience with these tables to write a detailed review.

Price

The going rate for the T.120C is around $399 which is about $100 less than you will pay for a new Technics. I would be willing to bet that you can find one for cheaper than that too.

Quality

This is the #1 issue most of us DJs care about. The thing that has kept the Technics 1200MKII atop it’s throne is the fact that it is constructed from a non-resonant composite sandwiched between a cast alloy top plate and a solid rubber base. The adjustable rubber dampened feet also ensured minimal acoustic feedback (you know that nasty bass feedback you sometimes get in the club). The 1200 weighs damn near 27lbs and is built like a tank.

Well the Stanton T.120C is equally as impressive in the quality construction department. It has a rugged die cast skirt adorned with a rubberized top. It weighs about the same as a 1200 (not sure on the exact weight), but it’s heavy. All of the sliders, buttons and knobs feel very nice. The platter isn’t wobbly and the tonearm is extremely solid. No complaints at all in the quality department.

World’s strongest torque motor

Torque is the thing that determines how quick a turntable’s platter will go from complete stop to it’s play speed. The more torque the better. This becomes even more true for you scratchers out there. When we cut, we press down on the platter a tad bit. The last thing you want is for the platter to completely stop when you are scratching. And of course you want it to pick up quickly when you lift your fingers off the vinyl.

I have cut on MANY turntables. The Stanton T.120C has to be one of the best. It definitely has the strongest torque motor of any turntable I have used. The Technics 1200MKII has a paltry 1.5kgf-cm torque. The T.120C has nearly 4 times that at 4.5kgf-cm!!! To me this is one of it’s best attributes.

Improved on/off switch and start/stop buttons

You can tell that Stanton thought about DJs when they designed the T.120C. They made it have two start/stop buttons for easy access whether you have the turntable in battle or standard positioning.

They even addressed that faulty 1200 on/off switch design whereby you could quite easily, accidently, turn off the platter when beat juggling or mixing. On the Stanton there is a guard that helps prevent this.

They even provide you two knobs to adjust the start and brake times and a knob to reverse the platter direction. Very impressive!

Lots of pitch control

The biggest downfall of the Technics 1200 IMO is the limited pitch control it provides. You can only go +/- 8 on a standard 1200MKII (I know they have addressed this on other models). That’s insufficient for most of us DJs. There are plenty of times you wish you had that extra little bit to match say a 130 BPM song with a 120 BPM song. You just can’t do it on the 1200.

Stanton fixed this issue by providing a selectable pitch control where you can chose +/-8%,+/-25% or +/-50% in three different playback speeds (33, 45, 78 RPM). They even provide quartz lock and pitch bend buttons. I haven’t found a scenario where I couldn’t mix two songs together using the T.120C. The 25% mode is probably the most useful to me personally. Especially for scratching to those sloowwwww beats. Just drop the pitch to -20% and extend any scratch sound sufficiently.

My one minor complaint is that there is no notch at 0. I noticed Technics started doing this too. You do have the quartz lock button which sets it to 0. I guess I am just old school. I prefer that little notch in the pitch slider that tells me I am at 0.

Swappable

The most useful feature of the Stanton T.120C is the fact that you can A) swap out the RCA and power cables and B) use your own high quality ones. I can’t tell you how many times I have come across Technics 1200s with faulty RCA cables or missing ground wires. Both of which cause digital vinyl systems such as Serato to completely act up.

Problem solved with the T.120C! You can remove crap RCAs and put in new ones in seconds. Plus, there is NO ground wire!! Woohooo.

You can even swap out the LED light on the T.120C with ease (unlike other turntables where you have to take the entire thing apart). I am not positive, but I bet a replacement light runs a few bucks.

You don’t have to go phono out

Another neat feature is the fact that the T.120C doesn’t ONLY have phono level outs. You can flip a switch to make your output be line level. This helps lessen the likelihood of noise interference with digital vinyl systems such as Serato (since they depend on a clean signal from the time code vinyl).

It’s also worth mentioning again that there is no ground wire.

Summary

The bottom line is that the Stanton T.120C is one slick turntable. Stanton has definitely addressed all of the shortcomings of the Technics 1200MKII and introduced a plethora of very useful features. I have used and abused my own pair of T.120Cs for over 4 years and they are still ticking.

I highly recommend these turntables to any DJ.