Aimé Leon Dore and Technics Drop a $2,100 Mulberry-Green Turntable

Teddy Santis keeps Technics turntables in his house, his office, and in every Aimé Leon Dore store. On March 19, the ALD founder and creative director made that obsession official: the SL-1200M7ALD went live exclusively on Aimé Leon Dore's site at 11 a.m. ET, priced at $2,100.

The machine is the M7 variant of Technics' SL-1200, finished in ALD's signature Mulberry Green with gold accents applied to the control switches and tonearm. A co-branded slipmat ships with it. Beneath the colorway, the hardware stays exactly as it should: a coreless direct-drive motor that eliminates the minor speed variations caused by traditional motor impulse, an S-shaped aluminum tonearm engineered to minimize resonance without stylus skipping, and a two-layer die-cast aluminum platter with enhanced vibration dampening. This is the same lineage that Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc, and Jam Master Jay used to build the foundational vocabulary of hip-hop DJing when Technics first introduced the SL-1200 in 1972.

Santis was direct about what drew him to the project. "I still buy records today, and I still have Technics turntables in my house, my office, and in our stores," he said. "Beyond the emotional connection, I'm in love with the object itself." That specificity matters. This is not a brand licensing its logo onto a piece of audio history as a cynical flex; it is a designer with a documented, decade-long relationship with the format giving it a colorway that has defined his brand's visual identity for several seasons.

The drop landed alongside a capsule collection spanning a Logo Tee, Soccer Jersey, World Champions Crewneck, Nylon Logo Hat, and lanyards. The headline accessory was a $1,500 14k gold pendant, meaning a collector determined to own every piece of this collaboration would spend north of $3,600.

The backdrop to all of it: vinyl sales in the United States surpassed $1 billion according to 2025 RIAA data, with roughly half of that figure coming from the U.S. alone. That commercial momentum has turned the turntable into contested territory for brands well outside the audio industry. What separates the ALD x Technics release from more cynical exercises in the format is the product itself. The SL-1200M7ALD is not a display piece. At $2,100 it sits within the standard pricing range for Technics' current M7 lineup, which means buyers are paying for ALD's Mulberry Green and gold detailing, not a markup on inferior hardware.

That, in the end, is the most interesting thing about this collaboration: the case for it doesn't rest on hype alone. The turntable works.