Technics SL1200's - the differences between older and newer versions

[Funky Tee]

I've recently picked up two minty Technics SL-1200's from the early 80's. I realized when opening for cleaning that this one has real rubber + screws are different.
It looks like the earlier ones has some different (more expensive?) parts than newer versions. Like the rubber element in newer versions is only a big chunk of heavy plastic.

Anynbody that are familiar with the differences?

[Mondays Child]

I'm in the process (IE trying to save up some spare cash) to modify my Technics 1200 MK2 for a small investment into a deck costing many times it's current value that'd kick most expensive high end tunrtables into the dust. Summat like this http://www.soundhifi.com/sl1200/ having used various different makes of turntables over the years, the Technics is the one I seem to keep returning to as it's rock solid, quality build and fairly easy to swap out parts. And they can sound mindblowingly good with the right arm/cart/power supply/general upgrades. It can be very expensive if you get someone else to do the mods, but a lot of 'em I can do myself. It's the parts that'll cost a bit. Things like the arm/cart and timestep power supply.

There are some places/forums ect that detail the mechanical history of the Technics, from what I've seen though, the variations are slight from early to later construction allowing for manufacturing developments, the overall design has stayed the same hence the popularity and the fact they built hundreds of thousands of the things. They were high quality but reasonably cheap to produce.

There is no was a company could produce a replica today wih the same components and have it retail at the same cost
as they were in manufacture. A similar deck would probably cost at least double now.
Good tip generally, Technics decks are pretty much buy on sight if they're in decent nick. Even rough ones can be fairly easily repaired for not much.


Edit* this might help a bit - http://www.turntabletech.com/history.htm