Thorens TD150 and the Road to Vinyl Bliss

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#1 Thorens TD150 and the Road to Vinyl Bliss

Post by Cressy Snr »

Now then,

As you all know our Ant had given me a TD 150 he'd got from Phil as a basket case. Only fair really as he had dismantled my LP12 and made all manner of things from it. He had fitted a Rega RB251 to Phil's old Thorens and had tried to get me interested in vinyl once again, after a three year hiatus. Getting hold of Nick's non-functioning WAD phono clone and restoring it to working order had given another boost to my interest in the black stuff.

The turntable had sounded good on first acquaintance, since it had been a long time since I had last heard vinyl. This did not last I'm afraid. Over the few weeks I've had the TT the things that really piss me off big style about vinyl had begun slowly to reassert themselves and once again my interest interest was on the wane. Nick's phono stage did provide a measure of relief from this, but being a revealing sort of phono stage after a while it was beginning to get me really hacked off with vinyl again, I'm sorry but my SB3 wiped the floor with vinyl in terms of not possessing the characteristics that drove me mad about the black stuff.

You see the thing that really pisses me off with records is not the scratches etc as a good deck makes these relatively unobtrusive. No; it's the insidious fuzz that starts to overlay everything, as the arm traverses the last couple of tracks on a side. Worse even than that is spitting on sibilants and cymbals that go Tfffffffffff. This is, in a way, worse than end-of-side distortion, as it can appear anywhere and is not dependent on how far the arm is from the centre spindle. I CANT STAND IT! Once I know it's there I sit waiting for it and bang goes the musical enjoyment. Digital simply does not suffer from this and because of this one overriding fact, I can forgive digital all of its other alleged sins. With the Squeezebox I listen to music not the sound of records. yesterday I stuck it on random play and had hours of music playing with not a smidge of listening fatigue.

I've had all manner of stylus tips during my vinyl career, from Shibatas to Fritz Gyger profiles and Garrott Bros tips. I've had Shure V15s, Goldring 1042s, Nagaokas, Glanz MFGs, more Audio Technicas than you could shake a stick at, ADCs, Sonus Blues, Ortofons, Corals, Regas, A&R P77s, E77s and C77s...on and on we go. The rush of hearing an "improvement" with one of these cartridges quickly gave way to the realisation that we were, at the end of the day, still left with the same old vinyl problems, just presented differently.

Despite all this frustration I have persevered with vinyl, God knows why but there is something about it that would be capable of satisfying my every musical desire if it weren't for that damnable fuzz and "sssspit". That's the deal breaker every time!

You see, like Greg with his aversion to single ended triode amplification, much of the vinyl I have heard at the various fests we have had, whatever the deck arm or cartridge, has spoiled itself at some point with the self-same fuzziness and has reinforced my liking for the digital style of presentation. Nicks SP10/Hadcock and Will's 401 have come closest to not tripping up. The only TTs I have heard that have not tripped up at all have been the various air bearing parallel trackers, so there is hope. But as Greg, on the whole prefers pp amps I still, on balance, have much preferred digital in the form of computer audio. Until now that is :)

So to the turntable,
Getting the earthing sorted was the first step to noise-free playback but the problems that plagued my enjoyment still remained.

Today I finally got around to making up a new armboard for the Thorens.

I think the original board had been made for a Rega RB250 and as such, it would have been fine; except that the Origin Live Option 1 version of the Rega arm I had was actually the new RB251 with the three point plastic mounting.

This meant that the rear hole for the arm mount overhung the back of the armboard by a quarter of an inch, meaning that the arm could only be mounted by two screws, which is how it had come from our Ant.

So in order to give the Thorens a fighting chance of changing 30 years of simmering hostility to the vinyl LP, I thought I'd better sort out the armboard. I fashioned a replacement board out of a piece of MDF and moved the Rega mounting hole further round the mounting radius toward the edge and further forward. The rear mounting hole was now well away from the rear of the armboard and the fouling problem was eliminated.

Here are a few pics:

Image

Here's the controversial Rega three point mounting in close up. Personally I can't see what the problem is with it but it has certainly raised a few hackles in cyberspace.


Image

Here we see the deck in a full shot. Note how the Rega arm is placed over to the right of the armboard. It cannot be mounted on the centre line due to it being a ten inch arm. Centre line mounting puts the hole too far back on the armboard, which was the problem with the original one.


Image

The business end of the arm is a Stanton club cartridge from the 680EL series. I have also a Stanton 890SA club cart but with Nick's phono it had a bit too high an output, which restricted the volume control range on the amp. This lower output 680EL mkII gives a bit more flexibility with the amp volume.

Well after setting the suspension again, fitting the cart and firing up the deck we now have a turntable that can compete and beat the sound of my SB3. The record you see on the platter is an old Jazz Juice Latin set from the 1980s. This was a record I could never get to play without the dreaded ssssssth sound, even on the second track in, a shame as the music is superb.

Well the Thorens Stanton Rega combo sailed through the whole of the first side with not a whimper of protest, sounding secure, rhythmic and detailed. To be honest I was gobsmacked!

I pulled out "The Raw and the Cooked" by Fine Young Cannibals and proceeded to cue up "Ever Fallen in Love" I was fully expecting something horrible, but again the combo sailed through this loud, compressed end-of -side track without a hint of spit or sizzle.

For me this is revelatory. For the first time I am getting a sound from vinyl that I can live with. It does not need excuses making for it. I don't feel that I have to like it because the connoisseurs say I ought to. It is simply doing what it should have been doing all along and playing music without accompanying it with fizzy noises.

Reading a few snippets on the Interweb some folks reckon that the Rega arm is one of the worst arms you could possibly fit to a suspended subchassis deck. It does not work. I have never read such bollocks in my life! The combination of the new Rega RB251 and a Thorens TD150 is quite magical. Maybe it is the new mounting arrangement, who knows? Roy Gandy might actually know what he is doing by changing the arm mounting, after all it is his product when all is said and done.

In terms of cartridges, the Stanton 680EL with its gull-wing mounting brackets and replaceable stylus should be a mediocre performer, but again it sings in this company and tracks superbly, better than the 890SA, which fizzed and spat on a few records, much as the Shure M3D does. Looking at a few DJ sites, the 680EL appears to have a formidable reputation on the club circuit for its clean, clear and secure sound when playing through a big PA rig. It is not made any more so is highly prized by the DJ set. Genuine NOS styli are still available however. I'm having a couple of spares as I'd hate to lose something that has actually managed to convince me that vinyl can be better than digital.

Quite where this crap about the Rega arms not working on LP12s Thorens decks and other subchassis types originated from, I don't know. I can't help thinking that had I fitted one of these to my LP12, instead of the Akito maybe my vinyl experience would have been more positive.

Steve
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Nick
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#2

Post by Nick »

Well, when I had the LP12 I replaced the Basik arm with a OL RB250 and it was a huge improvement, so what do I know :-).
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#3

Post by Greg »

Hi Steve,

Interesting experience you've had. With no disrespect, I expect this is simply about you finally getting an arm and turntable properly set up. I don't think the original board you received from Anthony was a OL version. Mark Baker of OL uses a template I supplied him with for the Rega arm to be used with an LP12 armboard and I know my dimensions were correct. At the time I had rebuilt my TD150 with a LP 12 board, making a new plinth to accommodate the wider armboard and a Rega arm. Certainly on an LP12 armboard, the arm can be mounted along it's centre line. As you have found, if you stick to the original TD150 armboard dimensions, the arm has to mounted off centre to the right. Certainly it should not need to be hanging off the end of the board.

My original TD150/Rega 250 was significantly upgraded (I've described the path here before) and I ended up doing a comparison with my LP12/Valhalla/Ittock II in a dealers showroom. My LP12 was well set up and we had to conclude that although the LP12 was marginally better, The Thorens had alot to offer.

I've not experenced all those bad sounding elements of vinyl replay you comment on for many years. Personally I have always concluded this to be a combination of moving into the use of properly dimensioned equipment coupled with the art of knowing how to set up a TT properly, and be sure (maybe reflecting on your Linn/Naim days) most of the staff in Linn retail outlets offered the set up service but actually were not very good at doing it.

My TD150 replaced a Rega Planar 3 my parents had and with their passing, my brother now happily uses it. Where will you go from here? Remember, I moved on after the LP12 to an OL suspended chassis TT which at the time was top of their range to be improved by a Gyro to be further improved by an Orbed Gyro to revert back to a 401 in Mahogany and now finally in Slate. Every step has been a sound improvement.

Yes mate, you're on yet another slippery slope :lol:

Best wishes,

Greg
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#4

Post by Cressy Snr »

Hi Greg

The armboard was definitely not an OL item. According to Anthony it had been made up by Phil to accommodate an RB250 with the old style mounting. No problem with that arm but the three point mount arm simply did not fit properly in that position.

Re turntables
I started with a Pioneer PL12D/ Shure M75ED in 1974 and it served me pretty well until 1980. I don't remember it manifesting any nasty problems at all. The trouble started when I started buying "Popular Hi-Fi" magazine around 1979.

I sidegraded the PL12D to a Dual CS505 their minimum recommended TT and straight away the problems began. then came a Thorens TD166, which had a crappy arm but sounded more like the PL12D than the dual had. An upgrade to a Rega Planar II with A&R C77/E77/P77 did nothing to alleviate the trouble so I moved to a Linn Axis/Basik Plus/ K9 as by then I was a committed follower of Christ Frankland and his Hi-Fi Review magazine, then an LP12 Basik Plus/K18 which TBH was very very impressive until the novelty wore off and I realised the nasties were still there. The arm was changed to an Akito and numerous carts were tried to no avail.

The attitude of the various dealers at the time was that it did not matter whether the cartridge mistracked as long as it boogied on down.

CD was a revelation as it removed at a stroke the main thing that bothered me about vinyl. Computer audio was even better and the situation has remained like that until recently.



Steve
Last edited by Cressy Snr on Sun May 24, 2009 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#5

Post by pre65 »

Greg wrote:Hi Steve,
I don't think the original board you received from Anthony was a OL version.
Greg
If it was the one that was fitted to the Thorens when Ant purchased it then it was made by me !!
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#6

Post by Mike H »

That "Phil" ! :D


Very interesting Steve, what's particularly interesting is you've managed to do it without it costing a mortgage, and with a 30 odd year deck!

Think it was about that long ago when I made a conscious decision to stop buying Hi-Fi mags, A. no way could I afford the stuff they're talking about anyway so it's all academic, so just another mag to while away a Sunday afternoon then like any other; B. most of the time they seemed to be talking bollox. Nary a mention of actually listening to any music or anything which is what it's for, they're all totally bogged down in technical specs and wet themselves on discovering some new equipment with with 0.002% less distortion.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant
 
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#7

Post by Cressy Snr »

Mike H wrote:That "Phil" ! :D


Very interesting Steve, what's particularly interesting is you've managed to do it without it costing a mortgage, and with a 30 odd year deck!
My take on this is, why should it have to cost thousands of pounds to make vinyl acceptable?

The second you move away from the high rigidity, spike everything then tighten your cartridge to boilermaker's torque levels mantra, the price of entry to good vinyl sound plummets.

I think it was Jimmy Hughes in the late 80s who along with Dennis Morecroft of DNM fame who first began to question the rigidity at all costs brigade, along with the fire hose speaker cable philosophy. Naturally they were pilloried by HFR.

A DNM pre power combo with the DNM solid core cables was absolutely slaughtered by Christ & Co in the last days of HFR for using plastic cases and not being a Naim basically. One of the best quotes from this review was where they took the lid off and blasted the power amp for its simplicity of design, laughing at the parallelled resistors in the emitter followers saying that Morecroft had done this because he "didn't have one the right value" Yeah right.

It was then that I began to realise that the mag had completely lost it and was fast losing credibility. A few months later it folded.

It has taken me 15 years to get out of that spiky rigidity mindset and the results have been rewarding to say the least.

Steve
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#8

Post by pre65 »

That TD150 replaced a PL12D and originally came with an SME3009 (the one that Ant had-and sold) and was "upgraded" with a brand new RB300 and a set of Linn springs.

It fell out of use once the home built special (with the RB300) based on a Logic DM101 deck was finished and a Garrard 401 + Yamaha DD acquired.
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#9

Post by cressy »

having had an assortment of everything and anything vinyl related for the last few years from an 18 quid jvc to the lp12 with a pro-ject carbon fibre arm i can at least offer an opinion on relative merit for various stuff. the lp12 was tons better with the ghastly basik k18 combo off it. it had an ortofon 540 on it with the project arm. that was about 9 years ago. i bought the arm and cart with my first wage! it was quite edifying to see the lp12 'majik' version theyve started offering which is the same as i has nearly 10 years ago!

i bought the thorens off phil and the denon off greg so i could compare the different drive types and see what i preferred. that was rendered a moot point as i quickly realised that its pointless trying as they all have qualities that are very beguiling. the lenco has a lovely immediacy to it, the denon a metronomic prescision and i never got round to the thorens as the better half bought me the yamaha pf 800 (dc motor, electronic speed control and belt drive so loosely equivalent to an origin live or gyro maybe). this bugger has lp12 style errr PRAT, (snigger) a similar analytic quality to the denon and a good amount of that lenco immediacy.

i can quite happily live with any of them as none exhibit the qualities of getting spitty. but this is after much headscratching, setting up, changing carts and arms and generally spending money hand over fist. but its been very enjoyable getting there. after dumping the dl 103 for the benz micro.

i have just bought another td150 though as quite frankly its fantastic value for money and building a new plinth for it (it hasnt got one) will be a nice project to put me on (havent made anything decent since i made the amp so im itching to do something) and ive got my eye on a technics sl110. hopefully i'll have better luck than i did with the sl150 or the sl3110

i find tbh that accepted wisdom for th most part when it comes to this sort of thing is blinkered and geared towards a certain product. it was commented by an aquaintance of mine with more money than sense and an affection for linn above all others that my removal of the lp12 from its natural home into that ply/perspex solid plinth was sacrelige but i just like playing with them so no doubt ill have something else to bugger about with by owston!
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#10

Post by al newall »

Sounds like a thumbs up for the new Rega arm then.

As far as my new venture into vinyl is concerned.
The only thing i can say for certain is that it's an improvement on any turntable i've had before. Despite the Heath Robinson quirky arm it actually has less "end of side distortion" than my other setups. More detail too.
I wouldn't say it's consistently nicer to listen to than CD yet, but sometimes it is definitely more convincing.
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#11

Post by colin.hepburn »

Hi All
Well I have my Thorens TD160 B mk2 / Rega250/goldring 1042
All running into the custom built WD phono3 and 12B4a Headphone amp and the solid state NAD 352 wharfdale 8.3s The Rega 250 has been Cardias rewired /foam filled by Audio Origami just got to add the highly recommended rear heavy stub and low slung rear weight see link http://www.audioorigami.co.uk/AO_Rewires/AORewires.htm

Well listening to the TD160 on the NAD Amp is very good fast and rhythmic foot taping stuff on the 12B4a Headphone Amp its fast and rhythmic with more low level detail coming thorough
I have only heard the sibilants that Steve the shadow is referring to on two albums one being Suzanne Vega solitude standing on her vocals ands the other album promises by Sade again on vocals which I took to be bad recordings and I cant say I have noted any fuzz that Steve also refers to
But on the other hand I haven't had my vinyl up and running for the last 12 years so maybe I'm deaf to these problems for the moment time will tell next job on the TD160 will be a new plinth
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#12

Post by Cressy Snr »

colin.hepburn wrote:Hi All

I have only heard the sibilants that Steve the shadow is referring to on two albums one being Suzanne Vega solitude standing on her vocals. Next job on the TD160 will be a new plinth
Ahhh Suzanne Vega. Lovely example Colin...

"I am ssssszzzitting in the morning
At the diner on the corner"

Or how about Edie Brickell...

"Me...I'm a part of your ssshhhhhircle of friends
And we... notissssth you don't come around"

AAAAAAAAAAGRH! :x

Not any more :D Not with the Thorens/Rega/Stanton/Combo
I'm actually starting to relax a bit more when listening to records.
Problem is you have to get up and turn them over after 20 minutes :wink:


Like you, I'll be doing a new hardwood plinth for my deck.
It'll be a slimline version of Philip's plinth, made to match the amplifier
Box jointed corners, danish oil etc.

Steve
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#13

Post by colin.hepburn »

[quote="SteveTheShadow"]

Not any more :D Not with the Thorens/Rega/Stanton/Combo
I'm actually starting to relax a bit more when listening to records.
Problem is you have to get up and turn them over after 20 minutes :wink:


Like you, I'll be doing a new hardwood plinth for my deck.
It'll be a slimline version of Philip's plinth, made to match the amplifier
Box jointed corners, danish oil etc.

Yep I almost forgot you had to getup to change the side after 12 year of not having vinyl and I just have been awoken from a nice sleep to the click of the run out grove one time
Ok so will have to try tweaking the rega arm some more
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#14

Post by Andrew »

SteveTheShadow wrote:
"I am ssssszzzitting in the morning
At the diner on the corner"

Or how about Edie Brickell...

"Me...I'm a part of your ssshhhhhircle of friends
And we... notissssth you don't come around"

Steve
When I get, it usually means, time to buy a new cart. Occasionally I can buy some time by setting everything up again.
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#15

Post by colin.hepburn »

Andrew wrote:

When I get, it usually means, time to buy a new cart. Occasionally I can buy some time by setting everything up again.
Hi All
Well the goldring 1042 is bran new about 15/20 hours on it any tips on the setup to stop this sibilants thing happening would be very helpfully too me any advice lads
thanks
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