Waiting list for the SL-1200 or SL-1210's in the 90's were well over a year and you couldnt even get B stock (ie returns resold) from Panasonic Technics either.

Waiting list for the SL-1200 or SL-1210's in the 90's were well over a year and you couldnt even get B stock (ie returns resold) from Panasonic Technics either. I will add another one to the list, their SU-A range of amps with the R-core transformer. When they first came out, I was invited to a blind listening session with Technics somewhere in London and they had some of the SU-A amps up against considerably more expensive amps and you were shocked at the quality, you could point to where the different instruments were being played left and right, you could tell whether they were at the front, middle or back of the sound stage, it was an awesome experience and the low price meant they showed up some serious big names in the hifi world. Magazines were harsh to them imo. Its just a shame they couldn't replicate the quality in their surround sound amp's but I suspect that is more to do with the encoding used then and now. But the return in audiophile quality is not proportional to expenditure above a certain price, its more exponential.