Hoping that someone will have an opinion on this. I have a Thorens TD160 HD, which is only used when the mood takes me, so maybe one listening session every week or so.
It usually works flawlessly, however on Monday it couldn’t maintain a steady speed when playing LPs, slowing down to an almost stop. It was extremely ‘hot’ (by UK standards) when I was using it, so I was wondering whether the heat could affect either the motor (not really likely I think?) or possibly make the drive belt slip?
I’m playing an lp now (Joe Jackson - Body & Soul) and it sounds fine again.
Is this something to be concerned about? Can heat do this? Is it worth buying a new belt - this one is about 3 years old? Or should I get the deck looked at?
The only time I’ve ever had speed issues on my Michell Syncro is when the belt was old and had stretched a little too much. For the price of a new belt it has to be worth a try to see if that sorts the problem, which I suspect it will.
I decided to try changing the belt, to an OriginLive one and I’m amazed how much better the TT sounds. Speed issue is gone, and music sounds so much more dynamic. Not sure whether it’s just because it sounded a bit ‘off’ before or whether the changes are real, but really enjoying my LPs again this morning.
I changed the bearing oil in my Manticore Mantra a couple of weeks ago. (to honest there wasn’t a lot of oil to change). The sound quality improvement was obvious
The degradation in SQ over a long period of time is easy to overlook.
