Technics updates its five-star SL-1500C direct drive turntable with premium technology for better sonic performance

The Technics SL-1500C direct drive turntable has been a favourite of ours for many years, picking up a few What Hi-Fi? Awards and earning a spot on our best turntables list ever since we first reviewed it in 2019.

And now, an updated version has arrived in the form of the Technics SL-1500CS. This new record player carries on many of the hallmarks of the 1500C – an iron-coreless direct drive, built-in phono stage, S-shaped tonearm and rock-solid build – and features new technology first seen its more premium models.

The ΔΣ-Drive (Delta-Sigma) drive technology we first encountered in the SL-1200GR2 and Award-winning SL-1300G has now made its way into the 1500CS model. This technology aims to further reduce motor vibrations and aid rotation accuracy to deliver a more stable and accurate performance from your records.

The existing direct drive motor used in Technics turntables already accounts for unwanted vibrations and ‘cogging’ effects that affect vinyl replay. The ΔΣ-Drive technology uses the brand’s experience with signal processing to provide the motor with a purer, low-noise power feed, which further ensures “motor vibration components are reduced to an absolute minimum.”

Frank Balzuweit, Senior Product Manager at Technics Europe, explains: “The ΔΣ-Drive technology, taking sophisticated signal processing techniques used in our full-digital Technics amplifiers, is all about eliminating motor vibrations down to the very limits of measurable. Therefore, especially lighter turntable platforms, using lighter platter constructions, benefit greatly from the vibration elimination of the ΔΣ-Drive. Through this, the new SL-1500CS achieves sonic performance levels far beyond the perceived standards of its class.”

Elsewhere, the robust structure of the five-star SL-1500 is carried through in the new model. The aluminium die-cast chassis is combined with ABS and glass fibre for rigidity and vibration control. The S-shaped aluminium tonearm returns, as does the automatic arm lift function, and the deck comes fitted with the Ortofon 2M Red moving magnet cartridge.