Technics SL-Q33 is a quartz lock direct drive fully automatic (auto start and auto return) turntable, probably from the late-1970’s/early 1980’s. It’s from the consumer-level turntables Technics made, and it’s several steps up from the bottom – the lowest levels were belt drive turntables, then there were semi-auto and fully-auto direct drives, then a semi-auto quartz lock direct drive, and this one was the next level up (about 7 from the bottom, in their huge range). It has a plastic base, but it’s not as lightweight as some of their plastic turntables, and it should be capable of excellent performance.
Specifications:
Wow and flutter: 0.025% WRMS or ±0.035% peak weighted (both using a test record) or 0.012% WRMS measuring directly from the motor frequency generator, but not playing a record, so it just relates to the platter, but not the tonearm and cartridge. The first two figures are more relevant to the real world, but the last measurement was used by some other companies, including Denon and Sansui (among others), mainly because it looks more impressive! Sony, Technics and JVC were always a bit more honest, and gave both figures (FG measured figure, and test record figure).
Rumble: -56dB unweighted or -78dB weighted
Tonearm: universal s-shaped, medium weight with detachable headshell
Total Weight: 7.3kg
Manuals are available for download free of charge from here
http://www.vinylengine.com/library/technics/sl-q33.shtml .
The JVC QL-FX5 is also a quartz locked direct drive fully automatic turntable – no surprise there, as JVC invented the quartz locked turntable. I doubt there’d be much difference (probably none) in wow and flutter or rumble specifications – JVC was majority owned by Matsushita, the Technics parent company, when they were built, so their turntables were fairly similar. If anything, JVC was slightly ahead in some areas on their best consumer turntables, which had fully active electronic tonearms. However this is (I think) one of their cheaper models – probably still very good, but with a lighter plastic (by the look of it) base, and a standard non-electronic tonearm.
I can’t find much info on it, but there are several service manuals for it for sale on Ebay, so you can see what it looks like. There were two colours – the silver QL-FX5, and a black QL-FX5B. Unfortunately the manual sellers don’t show the specifications pages – grrrr! It has a lightweight straight tonearm from the picture, and was from the mid-1980’s, as the service manual was printed in 1985. I couldn’t find it in my listing of models sold in Australia in 1985, but not all models were sold here.
According to the front page of the manual, there were two models of the QL-FX5/QL-FX5B, the Type A, which had a universal straight tonearm (half-inch mount) with a removable ADC-type headshell (from the exploded view picture), and the Type B, which had an “integrated tonearm”. That may mean a p-mount tonearm, and as a sister company of Technics, JVC also used them a lot, or it may be one of JVC’s strange tonearms with a proprietary cartridge that can’t be removed from the arm. That’s all I could find about it.
So in essence, they are similar turntables – fully automatic quartz lock direct drives, but the JVC is from a few years later, and has a slightly better straight half-inch mount tonearm, or (possibly) a p-mount tonearm. Toss a coin – there won’t be much difference between them!
