Lots of responses covering the TD-124 platters. Does anyone have any concerns about the thin metal outer platter only making contact with the sub platter with 6 or 8 thin rubber discs? The reason I point this out is that the sadly ignored Thorens TD-121 has a single one piece platter. Of course, on the TD-121 you lose the braking mechanism, which, though handy when it worked, was fiddly and rattly. Also missing from the TD-121 was the strobe (and the near unobtainable neon bulb) and the speed change mechanism making the 121 essentially a single-speed ‘table though if you removed the platter you could reset the idler wheel to a different position and speed. Other than those things I mentioned, the TD-121 was identical to the TD-124 including the magnetic speed trim mechanism on the intermediate wheel. I bring all this up because the TD-121 was my first real turntable I bought in the late ‘60’s when I was in junior high school for $20 from a radio station converting to tape cartridges. The turntable came set up for 16 2/3 RPM and was equipped with a 16” Audax tonearm, a hand built over-sized plinth, and a mundane Pickering pickup. Luckily, a local shop called Stereoland had an Empire 980 arm with a Shure M3D already mounted on the requisite Thorens TD-121/124 tonearm board. Yes, they’re identical. I used that rig, with many, many stylus changes well past my college years with a Dynaco PAS-3X/Stereo 70 combo and EPI 100 speakers. That modest system easily blew away any Japanese setup that most of my dorm mates had though they all laughed at me for my Eisenhower-era acquisitions. Even in the 70’s, they only knew vacuum tubes from their Grandpops’ Grundigs and Blaupunkts they brought back from Europe after WWII. Except for a brief fling with a Dual 505, a table I likened to a puppy; cute, lightweight, and disorganized, I used that TD-121 rig until I blew up two credit cards on a big boy Linn LP-12/ Ittok/Troika setup in the late 80’s which I still use to this day. Thanks to a gift of a mint TD-124 equipped with the infamous Keith Monks arm, the unipivot job with the 4 little open vats of mercury (!) for signal transfer and damping. No wonder it was mint. After some years and a call to the city who came out in hazmat suits and a special vacuum, I went about the total restoration and modernization of that TD-124. The motor had to be rebuilt twice, the second time by Schopper AG, along with new motor mounts, base mounting rubbers, belt, an aluminum idler wheel with a choice of black or red O-rings (they do sound different), a beautiful NOS Ortofon plinth, and a Panzerholz tonearm board with a new Ortofon TA-210 arm with 2M Bronze mounted to it. After all that, that 124 was better than before but still noisy. So I moved the tonearm and board to my stock TD-121 and I was taken aback. It wasbetter, much better actually. Now with motor lubricated with STP (it did take a while to come up to speed 😆) the noise of the 121 was lower than the 124 and easy to ignore, like an evening in a quiet suburban area as opposed to the all out hot-rod TD-124 being more like New York City in the middle of a summer night, all air conditioning compressors and traffic noise. My point of this long story is that with all those extra features of the 124: the 2 piece platter, the linkages of the turntable brake, the extra metal parts involved in the speed change mechanism - none of these extra metal parts without any sort of damping involved - all add to intrusive noise without improving the sound, that an equal, but more simple device, the TD-121, is not hampered with. Force and drive yeah, OK, but more modern designs, even ones from the late 80’s, are simply better at letting all the music, especially the gentle little details, get through.
Thank you all of you whom read this through to the end. I hope I didn’t ruin your breakfast! Happy Listening!
