After much speculation, Panasonic have now confirmed that they will stop producing Technics turntables.
The bad news has been in the air for a while, but fans of the brand held out hope while Panasonic delayed confirming a recent statement on a Japanese website. But the company has now spoken, in a statement sent out yesterday:
“Panasonic has confirmed that it ceased the production of its Technics-branded analogue turntables this autumn.
“After more than 35 years as a leading manufacturer of analogue turntables, Panasonic has regretfully taken the decision to leave this market. However, Panasonic will continue to sell headphones under the Technics brand.
“We are sure that retailers and consumers will understand that our product range has to reflect the accelerating transformation of the entire audio market from analogue to digital.
“In addition, the number of component suppliers serving the analogue market has dwindled in recent years and we brought forward the decision to leave the market rather than risk being unable to fulfill future orders because of a lack of parts.
“Panasonic employees who have been working on the analogue turntable range have been redeployed elsewhere within Panasonic – many of them continuing to work in Panasonic’s Audio Video Business Unit.” [via Resident Advisor]
RA have more on the story, after talking to JC Faxas, Technics’ biggest distributor in the United States. He confirmed that a key factor in the decision was that most of the manufacturers of essential parts for Technics have gone out of business. He then goes on to say that the brand could have survived if Panasonic had valued it more highly.
Update: Regarding the lack of a statement on Panasonic’s website that’s been brought up in the comment section, we spoke to the company this morning, and they confirmed that this press release came from them and that the news is true:
Hi Sean,
Thanks for your call earlier. As promised please find below statement regarding Technics analogue turntables:
Production of analogue turntables has ceased
[above statement repeated]
With Best Regards,
Tom Gibson
Press Officer – Systems Group