My first decent turntable (25 years ago) was a TD160 with a Hadcock and Dynavector moving coil cartridge. It sounded great then and in its day the Thorens didn't receive the praise and recognition that it merited, largely due to the over-hyped Linn LP12.
Do a Google search on "thorens tweaks" and you will find that the TD160 has massive upside potential. It's also worthy of a better arm and moving coil cartridge.
The best investment you can make in analog replay is the time you put in to learning how to set up the cart/arm/deck yourself. (There are very few dealers who really know how to set up a deck to sound good - too often they just set them up with manufacturers' mid-range settings - i.e overhang, VTA, VTF.
It's a cheap entry point, you can play with the set up without much risk of trashing expensive components and you can have a lot of fun buying and trying different (used) cartridges whether on ebay or here.
Just because the VPI is new and promoted by the manufacturer and dealers, it doesn't necessarily follow that you will enjoy your vinyl on it anymore than on the TD160.
Do a Google search on "thorens tweaks" and you will find that the TD160 has massive upside potential. It's also worthy of a better arm and moving coil cartridge.
The best investment you can make in analog replay is the time you put in to learning how to set up the cart/arm/deck yourself. (There are very few dealers who really know how to set up a deck to sound good - too often they just set them up with manufacturers' mid-range settings - i.e overhang, VTA, VTF.
It's a cheap entry point, you can play with the set up without much risk of trashing expensive components and you can have a lot of fun buying and trying different (used) cartridges whether on ebay or here.
Just because the VPI is new and promoted by the manufacturer and dealers, it doesn't necessarily follow that you will enjoy your vinyl on it anymore than on the TD160.