Following more than a year of rumors that Panasonic was going to pull the plug on its Technics 1200-series turntables, word came this week that the company appears to have finally cut off production for good.

Demand for the decks wasn't high enough for them to keep making the solid, direct-drive devices they've churned out continuously since 1972.

The company issued this statement to the Tokyo Reporter: “Panasonic decided to end production mainly due to a decline in demand for these analog products and also the growing difficulty of procuring key analog components necessary to sustain production.”

The statement appears to refer to the decks' latest incarnation, the MK6, but we assume it applies to the whole line.

Our own Tech 12s have been collecting dust for more than five years thanks to Ableton Live. Some DJs prefer to pretend to be DJing on Technics, decks, however, by using them as controllers for Serato Scratch or other digital DJing programs.

We once joked that it's the same thing is rigging up a Royal typewriter controller to our laptop just to get that Hemingway feel.

To be sure, the indestructible Tech 12s played some clean, analog sounds — waves that haven't been heard in clubs in a long time anyway thanks to the digital revolution.

So will you be holding on to your Technics?

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