Or does some hifi (especially turntables ) look better in the flesh than on photographs ?
My point is I fully agree with HH’s comments that this is not a lovely looking deck , but it is a Thorens and they know their onions as well as Rega, Linn or Michell
I guess it depends on whether they’re in your living room or you have a separate room. Sound comes first, but looks are a factor. Few, at least here, would have one purely based on looks, but I expect them to be a factor for many. I suspect if you’re saying it’s really only about how it sounds you’re in a minority.
So for my tastes, I don’t find the TD-1601 particularly nice looking but could live with it in my living room if it sounded great. The Rega P8 or P10 on the other hand, best hidden away IMO. It’s why I never auditioned any above P6, but did end up with a Technics. (Great sounding, and while not beautiful, acceptable looking)
Hi,
I beg to differ. The turntable
is the icon of Hi-Fi for people like me - and I suppose a number of other forum members - who are in their (late…) 60s. Our passion for audio grew typically in the early 70s and a turntable was a mix of technology and pure audio suggestion. Physics-related issues [ tracking force, anti-skating, rotation consistency, rumble. wow-and flutter] weren’t seen as enemies but as unavoidable, acceptable obstacles to musical fulfillment. The S-shaped tonearm, the height and thickness of the platter, the shape of the counterweight, all had an evanescent chance to be proportioned or not at the designing desk. A TT could be an object of beauty.
After LP was declared dead in 1986, now TTs are more alive than ever. In this respect consumer industry, in its voracity, has produced a number of senseless designs - $100,000 units, produced in just 50 samples and personally installed in your home by a technical equip from the factory who’s in charge to also build a seismic base in your home, I’m not kidding - and the want to sell induces companies to be in a constant race with one another to come out with something new, better, more appealing.
rega turntables are not bad at all in my opinion: Mine
sits quietly under a Japanese print and does its job unobtrusively, adding a touch of modernity to the picture.
Unfortunately, the Age of Commodity has spoiled us into seeing only the inconvenient in what is not technically up-to-date; while I understand that for someone with an uncomfortable past modernity at all costs can be solace, I personally see a fine turntable as a precious connection to my younger days and the revenge of fragile beauty vs. the omnipotence of The Convenient.
My opinion only,
best
m.
Not sure the nowadays Thorens is the same as the past Thorens.
(Mechanic razor).
Beautifully written Max and so true
Thanks very much!
Best
Max
A passionate and articulate reply
I’m a bit verbose, I know. I can’t help it… Thanks.
m.
Max, I have always enjoyed your postings/comments over the years.
…don’t ever change.
Don’t tempt me…
m.
Something like this, I’m not knocking Clearaudio as a brand, but there is part of me that thinks this is way OTT
Now that is a lovely looking TT. Decks like the Garrard 301 and the Thorens 160 still look as good today as they did when they first appeared. The LP12 has evolved enormously but still looks very much the same as it did when it appeared in the 70s. Yet the new Thorens is merely a bloated simulacrum of the originals. It’s a poor update that looks bad. A nod to the past is no bad thing when it’s done well but in this case it’s not done well and looks totally unbalanced.
Speaking of Regas, I was very wary of the 8 and initially felt it didn’t look like a ‘proper’ record player. I like the way the company has evolved its decks around the principles of lightness coupled with rigidity, taken to extremes with the Naiad, and first brought into production with the 8. Here is mine, sitting beneath a painting by the Cornish artist Neil Davies. Small is, I feel in this case, beautiful.
You’re making a very convincing argument for the beauty of the turntable - and I thought my Thorens TD 160 was indeed beautiful.
I am certainly as attached to the past as you are - I wouldn’t have kept my first Naim and my first 35mm camera otherwise.
What I mean is that lots of people would not consider a turntable a thing of beauty, and they would rather keep it hidden it away in a cupboard. To find it beautiful, I agree that you have to have some kind of personal connection to it and/or be able to appreciate the technical beauty of the thing.
Most people would rather have your Japanese print than the turntable below, I’d argue.
I reckon some of the new Thorens decks probably look better in the flesh than they do in the pictures. However, that re-born TD-124 is lovely, and I’d be very happy to have one, although for the same money I might rather have a perfect original with some Schopper touches.
I’ll put my hand upon here and confess that I’m a bit of a Thorens fan, having had a number of TD125s, TD150s and TD160s through my hands over the years. And I still have a pair of TD126 MKIIs, a couple of 160s and too many 150s to count (admittedly some are just in bits awaiting re-birth into something slightly different). They have always been very well engineered and in plentiful supply second-hand. I’m sure they have been a gateway into vinyl for many, and probably still are. It’s good to see them back and I wish them every success.
Nigel,
I totally agree. I have a soft spot for some Pioneer decks from the 70s but I now have a P2. BTW, I like the looks of your ‘skeletal’ P8 a lot. Time ago, when I decided to go moderately serious about vinyl, I bought a Pro-ject Carbon RPM3:
but I am sorry to say that safe from its very functional looks it had assembling issues and highish tolerances in a few critical parts. For the same money or less, a P2 is better. Nice painting above the P8; I can’t remember if it was there when we visited your place back in - oh, well. Your kids were still playing with the Wii.
I have one of these
in a cupboard and every once in a while I take it out and wonder if I can still buy slides and have some fun. I know all about the FTb but haven’t yet learned how to use a Nikon D40 we have at home and is steadily set for all auto.
Richard,
my Thorens ownership is limited to a couple of TD124s, a TD147 (which I traded in for my first Planar3 in I believe 1984 or so) and a TD160 soon before I left vinyl. In my experience, the best sounding one was, and is, the 124.
m.
I wonder what the last £10 are for.
m.
It’s to pay for the canvas bag to cover the ridiculous contraption so you don’t need to look at it.
