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RE: Thorens TD 124.......

Posted by user510 on June 7, 2007 at 09:43:59

In Reply to: RE: Thorens TD 124....... posted by limono on June 6, 2007 at 23:34:36:

There has to be a weak link in that Thorens somewhere for a basic Scout to surpass it "in all respects" as you noted in your original post. I suppose the comparisons between tonearms is an obvious area of disparity. The JWM 9 versus a vintage Grace 707. By all accounts the vpi arm is very good with or without anti-skate mechanisms.


I'd expect a correctly operating TD124 to exhibit superior PrAt in an obvious manner. If yours failed to prevail in this area then something is wrong.

The description of your TD preparation is interesting and seems right to me except for one thing where you say...

"Also deck chassis has a lead shot damping covered by thick layer of silicon gasket."


Above photo is from an individual who also thought it a good idea to apply damping materials to the cast chassis. For the record I consider this to be an example of "destructive diy'ing" and I will hurl public insults at anyone who seriously proposes this sort of thing.

I've had a few emails from individuals that also suggest the application of damping materials to the cast chassis but always with a question mark. My take is that the heavy cast chassis is robust enough to not suffer from excessive mechanical resonances. My stethoscope listening suggests to me that the chassis stays silent during operation except for the area in the immediate vicinity of the running motor, and even there the amount of resonance being transmitted is tiny. So I think that the Thorens cast chassis needs no help by means of the application of external damping materials placed against it. Rather, if you want to reduce mechanical resonances, focus on restoring the mechanisms themselves.

I do like your idea of placing a brace between the plinth and the bottom of the bearing thrust plate. This seems like good thinking to me. Shindo, eh!

I've probably missed something. Right the platter bearing. In my current setup I measured .001 inches of free play in my platter bearing out at the rim.

That seems reasonable for a vintage deck.

The outer shell, while providing the nifty clutch operation does strike me as an area of obvious weakness in the TD124. It's just too light and fragile. Personally I've found that I prefer the sound when using an additional platter mat on top of the original Thorens rubber mat. Adjusting the tonearm for VTA, obviously. The additional material layer filters out some record surface noise and contributes to a more silent background which is now excellent. At the moment I'm using one of my cork spotmats. Also, I used some "re-positionable adhesive" between the Thorens rubber mat and the aluminum shell to get a tight interface between rubber mat and the thin aluminum shell. This helped to dampen the shell. It's an old tweak that many TD124 owners have described. The product I used is Krylon "Re-positionable adhesive" in a spray can. I found it at an arts and crafts kind of store with the picture framing stuff.



-Steve

user510's system

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