Great turntable pronounced “torrens” The TD150 was the response to the AR turntable as Thorens’ first foray into belt drive with suspended subchassis. The TD125 was the replacement for the 124 and they ran parallel for a while. I think the 125 appeared in 1968 as the Mk1. The company was owned by EMT at that stage and EMT were impressed enough with the 125 to build a professional small EMT player based on it. It was not reliable enough for professional users, belt drives were not as robust as idler drive new belts were needed and torque is low so, a rare model. Production was in West Germany and the parent company EMT was Swiss. The electronic motor control was a Wein bridge oscillator, the three presets adjusted the phase and voltages for each speed. The neon pulsed at constant mains frequency and the presets could be set with the red wheel dead centre so that each of two pairs of strobe patterns stood still when the motor was at 33&1/3 and 16&1/6 on one strobe ring and 45 on another. There are four strobe rings 50hz rings for Europe and 60Hz for USA and Canada. Speed didn’t drift. Adjustment was there for pitch on the record which was sometimes out on some records. The noise floor is extremely low and, wow and flutter was a respectable 0.035%. It can take most tonearms and is able to handle 12” turntables in its LB form. The suspension could be replaced with elastomer mushrooms and this gave even better speed stability and an uplift in sound quality. The sound potential is very high. Main problems are the motor supply. I am tempted to replace the presets with multi-turn presets as calibrating the power supply voltages is very difficult requiring very slight movements. The electrolytic capacitors and resistors drift out of tolerance and have to be replaced. The cast top plate and armboard are impressive. The top plate can be dampened with cork sheet or dynamat. It can be replinthed too. It’s a great record player still.
Since you are so detail oriented, I wall also be and correct you that the speed that is half of 33-1/3 RPM is 16-2/3 RPM, not 16-1/6 RPM which when doubled would be 32-1/3 RPM. (Stick out tongue emoji)
of course I have one of these, too, bought it in August 1970 with an SME 3012 and a Shure V15 and the B&W adapter for the Quad I used had (and till have)
I owned both a Thorens TD125 and an early Linn LP12. Sonically they were both comparable. I thought Linn had the better platter and arguably a more finely machined main bearing but Thorens had the better motor and subchassis offering better stability. So close in performance were they that deciding one sounded better came down to which one sported the better mat.
The 125 is a great turntable and it served me well for many years. That was until I heard a Linn LP-12! I friend brought the LP-12 over and after moving the tonearm over and careful setup, we listened to the same arm and cartridge on the LP-12! Wow, the LP-12 had a much better soundstage and was more open, with much more detail. I looked closely at the plinth and construction of both turntables but the inspection gave no clues as to why the Linn sounded better. Reading the Linn white papers, it was apparent that they paid much attention to the bearing. They made great points that the bearing is very critical to good sound.
Im still Lovin my TD-160 from ca 1975. And I still uses it. But now I have upgraded it with an Music Fidelity V-90 - PLS Phonoamp. It had a Shure MG75 Spherical nedle updated later to an Shure M75 eliptical nedle a short time after. After a while I naight an Micro Acustic MA-909 that I still use. Now I have one rebuilt Lenco L-75 i baught just because I am nostalgic with an cheep Audio Technica that was mounted on it but Im gonna change tha simple pickup back to my old Shure M75 Eliptical that I had on my old Lenco L-75 around 1969 to 1970! So now I have those two old turntables from my youth and have bought 3 new good turntables and several new very good audiophiles pickup and 5 good Phono preamps in al. One for every turntables. 10 uears ago I transfers mist of my LPs to CD and recreated The sleaves from The LPs to The CDs. I did that because i thought CD was The thing and that way I could preserve my old records by not using them. But there is something magic with listning on LPs in good hear that I dont get with CDs. So several years now I havnt touch a singel of my 1000 CDs for years. And I dont miss it at all. So I can now put 5 LPs on 5 separate turntables and play dem after each other and test wich gear is best for wich LP. Im in Turntable heaven. And I live it and I Will never get back to those Boeing CDs ever!
I have the Thorens TD160BC MkII (no arm lift) with SME 3009 improved, fixed head shell (more rigid so better sound) with a Goldring 2500 cart. It's just simply superb as are all Thorens decks, I also have a Linn Sondek LP12 with Akito Arm and Denon 103R cart. Horses for courses! the Linn also sounds simply superb but you cannot compare one against the other as they are both very different animals, they both give me the same amount of pleasure and I'm NOT looking to upgrade as I am completely happy with both, I've listened to so called better systems (by request!) but honestly cannot hear any improvement and in some cases just the opposite! I'm fortunately not one of these HiFi nuts on a never ending search for the ultimate sound. (whatever the heck that is!?) I'm very happy to have found things that give me immense pleasure listening to the music, isn't that what it's all about? not a constant struggle to find something you may never find!! I might consider buying some phono leads at £16,000 though!!!! Ha Ha Ha GIVE ME A BREAK, the Emperors new Clothes will arrive next week!?!?!? LONG LIVE THORENS and LINN, for me anyway.
I live in the U.K. quite near to SME ( the arm here ) at Steyning, West Sussex. Their building is of the lovely 1930’s utilitarian style and they still supply all manner of new - old parts required for their splendid collection of arms. Years ago l had a 9” 3009 on a Michell Hydraulic Reference turntable which l sold for next to nothing ( not knowing of sites like E-Bay ). l made-up for it though selling later an A4 leaflet/brochure of the first Michell turn table with 3 rests instead of the 6 for £100.
The TD-125 is a good turntable; I've owned several and repaired/set-up a few for others. Two service notes: 1) the platter bearing well is press-fit into the heavily painted plinth and often isn't bonded to ground ---- but you can solder a ground wire to it (drains static buildup away from the record). 2) The capacitors on the Wein Bridge oscillator board that drives the motor fail from age and should be replaced.
The capacitors really do fail on these, yep. Mine were failing in a strange way, +50% over rated capacity, yet the ESR was fine. If I remember correctly it might have that explosive Rifa X2 cap lurking somewhere.
@@puciohenzap891 Hi thank gosh !!, Thorens at the time didn´t use those terrible Rifa exploding X to Y rated caps, I think in early 70´s they didn´t exist or fortunately were not available in Germany.
I recall when the TD 125 Mk II was new. Thorens was at one time a high end music box manufacturer, this in the 19th century. I found these turntables excellent, but now their prices are out of the affordability of most people. I recommend, then the German built Dual, as an affordable alternative, the cs 607, the 721, the cs 608 (direct drive 3 speed turntable), even the 708 q, the 728 q.
Linn learned from Thorens and AR. Thorens's simple and clean design is the key factor that make so many their turntables still playing well after a number of decades.
Linn learned from Ariston, who learned from AR and Thorens. The LP12 was the successor to the Ariston RD11, which was manufactured by Castle Engineering (a Teifenbrun company). But basically, all suspended decks go back to the XA
@@NateEll , I did setups on both Linn and Ariston turntables back in the 80s. Both good units, the Linn being best, but the Ariston suspension worked well and the deck sounded better if you subbed a Nirvana spring and grommet kit for the stock originals.
@@NateEll , I worked for a dealer who sold Linn, Naim, Ariston, Rega and Systemdek. There was the LP-12-like RD11 and RD11S models (S for Superior, though I don't recall what the difference was), and the RD-80, and another model that was designed to look like an Oracle!
I have a TD-125 with a Rabco SL-8E tone arm. I have had it since the early 1970s. I had a local Plastics company build a dust cover for it. It is made from acrylic plastic and can be used during the playing of the record. I designed and provided a drawing with all of the dimensions labeled. I love this turntable.
The V15 is an great vintage cartridge. What type stylus are you running? I suggest you consider at Jico SAS stylus. Its expensive, but will reward you with improved detail, soundstage etc. See www.lpgear.com/product/e007446.html
@@RobertChampion1 I agree, can´t afford Jico SAS but found Jico HE (Hyper Elliptical) for V15 III and V15 VMR , really good replacement stylus, lasts forever if you take care off them.I wish i could buy a Jico SAS, but they´re really expensive nowadays. Cheers
I know having the dust cover up introduces vibrations but if you put the dust cover down, is there a problem? I like to use the dust cover to keep my records clean while playing them.
Excellent video! Over the past winter I restored a TD125 Mk1 with an SME3009 S2. I replaced all the electrolytic capacitors on the speed control board and rewired the tonearm with CARDAS 4 x 34awg CLEAR Twisted Tonearm Wire. I mounted an Ortofon Quintet Black, which I had upgraded with a Nude Ogura 3/30 micron Vital Line Contact stylus on a boron cantlever. It sounds STUNNING!!!!!
Definitely a quality turntable - esp. with that great SME 3009. I still have my first turntable - Thorens TD 124 1st model - which came to me as the 2nd owner - in 1974. Came with a strange wooden tonearm Audio Dynamics tonearm. I like this turntable due to the fact I have over 5,000 1895-1930s 78 rpms. I wonder whether the TD 125 can be converted to replace the 16 rpm speed with 78 rpm speed? Another question - will this turntable accept the SM# 2012R tonearm? Enjoyed the video.
Another good alternative to the Linn is the earlier Ariston Audio RD-11 a virtual clone of the early Linns and which spawned Linn's LP-12. Also, Ariston's subsequent TTs such as the Ariston RD-90 Superieur which some folks thought even better than Linn's LP-12. But yes the Thorens TD-125 came even earlier and the original AR XA turntable was the very first 3 point suspension turntable. All of these tables are very Linn like in their performance characteristics. The late 70s and early 80s spawned many very good 3 point suspension TTs all attempting to sound like Linn's LP-12 which many folks thought of as... "the standard by which other TTs are judged".
I was shocked when I heard Glen Rock, N.J. I used to live there in the 60's thru 1972. I still lived in the area and always came back to have my coffee at The Sweet Shop. The last time I saw the town, it was so different from when I lived there. I went to school there and would have graduated in' 64, but went into the millitary. My father bough our tv at the appliance store next to the corner bar. I had a Thorens TD 125 in the early 70's and installed an SME arm on it. I am very sorry I sold it as it was a great table!
The fact that you compare it to an LP12 says it all. The LP12 is a very average turntable, nobody would have purchased them if not for the audio magazines and dealers.
Much like vintage sports cars that have great nostalgic memories, both this Thorens and the Linn LP 12 can be grouped into the now over-priced and outdated realm of things to avoid.
I am not sure if it was ever sold in America, But In 1982 I bought An Ariston RD80 Turntable...Which had a Linn Basik LVV Tone arm.....It was regarded as a Poor Man's Linn Sondek...However It is still going strong, Serviced on a regular basis and has never let me down...I f one ever comes your way i would splash the cash on it.
Would you agree, that the dust cover is a feedback loop creator, as it’s own signal coming from the speakers re enters the the turntable signal…creating a feedback loop
Another well made video! While watching it, I checked your website, only to find no 125s currently available, and no indication of the likely price of one, should it become available... “Less than a Linn” leaves a lot of room to the imagination! 😉
I just recently re-built (mechanically and electronically) my "ancient" TD-125 MkII. Has a SME 3009 S2 improved arm and a Shure v15-type V cart. I believe its the same configuration your demonstrating. I replaced most of the caps, upgraded the chips and two of the power transistors. Still need to replace those "antique" pots. I've had the table & arm since 1973. The cart was purchased sometime in the 80's when the type-V was introduced. I also have a spare "sme" headshell with an LP-gear OEM cart that I like better than the Shure. The biggest issue with this (older) table seems to be proper "lubrication" and belt maintenance. My "Thornes" label looks different than yours though. Mine came with a totally removable dust cover.
I’ve had several of these, in the 1990s you used to be able to buy them for $300 with the SME 3009 arm on them. They didn’t do well if you had bouncy floors and I sold them when I got a Garrard 301 in a heavy plinth (another table that was once stupidly cheap once...sigh.). I do know the construction quality was far above the Linn LP12 that came after this table had been on the market for several years.
I worked for a Thorens dealer for several years and have owned several models, but I never saw a Thorens arm that impressed me. They're kinda flimsy and the bearings a bit sloppy (like many Dual arms, ugh), the arm wand disconnect had mechanical play in it and the connections would oxidize and become intermittent, and they tended to hum in one channel due to poor ground design (signal ground wire was also used to earth ground the tonearm). The worst Thorens I owned was a TD115 or TD116; not only did the arm suck but the DC motor and pitch control circuit tended to drift and the speed would fluctuate as the unit warmed up ---- I had to modify the pitch control circuit to get the turntable into playable condition.
@@goodun2974 My dad had a 125 mk2 with the original arm. No speed problems that I remember....I don't think it had a removeable arm wand, just the headshell that came off.... But it sounded great to me, but that was a long time ago. Thanks for the detailed explanation.
@@EddieJazzFan I have never seen in original arm on the TD25. Most of those I saw or worked on came equipped with an SME arm hich I was never particularly fond of. The Mission 774 was a good match, Linn and Rega arms worked well on them also. Unlike some of the other Thorens turntables the TD125 generally either worked or it didn't. They didn't usually have speed problems until one or more of the capacitors died at which point the turntable simply stopped spinning. Whether or not you got hum from a Thorens tone arm would depend a lot on the cartridge you were using and the associated electronics. Generally speaking it is bad wiring practice to use the signal ground from the cartridge to also Earth ground the metal parts of the turntable. And yet lots of turntables and tone arms and did exactly that! Worst case scenario was with with a low output cartridge, especially a moving coil cartridge. Note that some phono cartridges came with a little metal tab that was pressure fit to a seam in the body of the phono cartridge and slipped over one of the cartridges signal ground pins, which you could leave in place if it was needed to make a ground connection to the head shell or you could remove it if you had hum on 1 channel..
One of the TD-125's I owned was equipped with a funny-looking, stick-like Mission 774 tonearm that worked very well. I never bothered using the silicone damping option, as the arm was very rigid and didn't seem to need it. Same style oval base as the SME, with similar height adjust for setting VTA, but easier to adjust and less fiddly to use. Not only could you slide the arm on its base at an angle, like the SME, but you could make the tonearm wand longer or shorter relative to the bearings in order to set your stylus overhang, and that same adjustment allowed you to twist the arm so that the cartridge was perfectly parallel to the record. One minor caveat, the 774 arm wand/headshell wasn't bonded to a separate earth ground wire, it used the green signal- negative lead to ground the headshell, as many tonearms of the day did (Why?! Why?!), and which of course could introduce hum in one channel. Since the armwand was completely removable, it wasn't difficult to add a 5th wire through the armwand, strictly for earth ground. If I remember correctly, the head shell was glued to the arm wand and so they weren't automatically bonded together for the purpose of grounding and shielding, and I think the bearings of the tone arm were also electrically isolating, IIRC. It's amazing how many otherwise high-quality tone arms would do the same thing, and this includes earlier versions of the Rega RB200/RB300 tone arm where the signal ground wire is also used to earth ground the arm or arm wand/headshell (I don't know if they fixed this in more modern production tonearms).
Thanks for the video . Mine is still running and has been since 1975. ( I would like to replace the dust cover though. Which I do like but it was damaged when a window blind fell on it. So if you know where I can get one. Let me know )
My thorens still has its original Shure cartridge and an SME tonearm with the non-detachable head. I notice that the dust cover on yours has the same problem that mine does where the insulation for the wiring chemically mated with the dust cover during what I'm sure was decades in storage when I rescued the unit it was actually stuck to the dust cover. It had one of those radio shack/ sure cartridges that do NOT sound like a genuine sure, but the original shure unit from the late sixties was still floating around under the dust cover, He probably took it into radio shack for service, and instead of cleaning the original cartridge out with some contact cleaner to get rid of the static, they just put a modern, worse sounding radio shack equivalent cartridge on it. But yes it's an amazing turntable, even now my professional turntable at work is a rek o kut trovatore. I'm a professional archivist and so I need vertical groove and faster than 78 speeds and things like that and the capability for large transcription records, but the sound quality from that unit which is many times more expensive is no better than what the thorens produces
Mine is tucked away in a cupboard .. its moved about with me for 46 years .. probably the only possession I’ve had that long. It needs love and I can’t afford to do it properly right now ;(
If you're interested in selling or trading it towards other pieces from our collections, please visit our website "Sell/Trade Your Gear" page. Thanks for watching and maybe just keep it for another few decades and it will be worth even more! haha.
That right there is my Holy Grail. I had the chance to buy one about 4 years ago, and I balked at it because it had the non-removable headshell. I'm still kicking myself. The TD 150s had the same arm board. I consider myself blessed to have a mint TD 165 that I've tweaked via Dave D. @ Vinyl Nirvana
Always an issue with ARs was sloppy engineering esp the main bearing and weak tonearm. This improved with the reissue, but they used low / mid range parts. The design was so good though it could give fine results. The TD125 shares it's motor system with later Thorens models like the 160, apart from the crappy electronics. It has the bearing and platter shared with many models. It was always disappointing. Built like a tank though elsewhere. I used the original AR for a while and tried the 125 many times. I would guess there is little in it, with maybe the 125 edging it.
I bought my TD125 in the mid seventies because it was clearly superior to the Linn. Hardly surprising since the Linn was a poorly engineered copy of the TD150, indeed it was simply a rebadged Ariston RD11.
Thorens still exists. Not a "was." 90,000 TD124s were manufactured, not hundreds of thousands. The TD125 is more cheaply made in every area: main chassis, main bearing, platter and motor. Just saying.....
Spinning the TD125MKII since 1993, with a Jelco 750 Arm and lately an AT33 Sa. Nothing sings like a (Shibata) Diamond. Blow out the dust, change the belt, three drops of oil in the bearing and its good for another 5 years. Will never sell it.
HI what cart do you have with Shibata stylus ? I have a Shure V15 VMR with Jico Hyper elliptical stylus and Nagaoka MP500 contact line cart with SME 3009 like the one in the vid.
How about an AR XA? No control board, and the switching between 33 and 45 is via the belt itself, but if it's well restored it can sound amazing. (And it's *considerably* less expensive than a TD-125 or an LP12...)
@@NateEll That is absolutely not true. I have the XA’s arm may have its set backs I.e. no VTA adjustment etc but it’s a great performer in its stock form which is elevated to a much higher level when the technics arm wand, silver rewire and sapphire bearing mods are done. I have owned the 125 with the SME 3009 and still own my fully modded XA and will never part with it, it’s that good.
I was the chief field tech and installer for Richard Long and Associates in the 70 & 80 and that was our main turntable for our installations ( Studio 54, Paradise Garage, Zanzibar and many others ) it was a work horse. We outfitted them with Infinity Black Widow tone arms with Stanton 6800 SE cartrage, because of the resident frequency of all the other tone arms on the market at the time this was the only combo that was virtually devoid from any feedback in our high dB disco applications, even Better than the Technics 1200 and the 1200 mk2. Wish I had a nickel for every one I serviced.
I agree with the comments,the 125 is well appreciated by the people who know the turntable story!. I miss the professionnal version the EMT 928 many years ago.. The 125 motor regulation is better than 126 version in term of time reaction ...so the market price is reasonable vs the LP 12...today.
The 150 has interchangeable parts with LP12 - it literally had a tape measure taken to it. Anyhow a silly title. There are dozens of better turntables than the LP12. The 124 is in a different league to the 125 seriously. No contest. Yes, I've used all three and many more..
@@billdang3953 Defo the Mk3. This has engineering extremes Linn never saw. The best I heard was Goldmund reference with Air Tangent and Kiseki Lapis...Seriously it was magical.
This turntable is light years away being a serious turntable and in no way an alternative to a LP12. And no I am not a Linnboy. An alternative would be: Ariston RD11/110/80, Roksan Xerxes, STD, Voyd, Systemdeck, AR, hundreds but of course no Thorens. There was a a good reason why they went bankrupt, because they are rubbish!
Great museum piece. I have an old radiogram with a sprung turntable with auto cue from the 50s. However these turntables are more for enthusiast collectors. Sound is nice but nothing special.
