colterphoto1 Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 I received my Thorens TD125MKII back from our Scott in Ohio. He volunteered to look at it after I'd purchased from 6foot8 and had nothing but trouble with it. There was a scratchiness when touching the tonearm and the speed warbled all over the place. Pianos sounded like Fisher-Price. I'd put a new belt and lubed it to no avail. Meanwhile I was accused of disassembling and destroying it by it's previous owner. I'll let Scott tell you what he found from the technical side, but suffice to say, she's sounding pretty good tonight. I'll give a few more listens and post some more. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Glad to hear it all worked out. Just like most things in life, except when it doesn't OH MY GOD, HOW DID THAT HUGE SEMI-TRACTOR TRAILER GET INTO MY LANE!!!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted October 6, 2006 Author Share Posted October 6, 2006 remember Thebes- driving and wearing chicken suits don't mix Got Genesis ABACAB on right now. This one has tons of drum machines, so the rhythm is dead on. The Thorens supplies tight bass, lush highs- just splendid tonality and the speed is bang on! Those fiddly little piano riffs would have been all over the place before. Scott is a genius! Did I mention that he was kind enough to supply me with a spare AT cartridge he had? Said the B&O the unit was supplied with was not a good match. Back to the testing room... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mungkiman Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 congrats! just remember that thorens don't stack as well as kilpsch... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Cain Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 I received my Thorens TD124MKII back from our Scott in Ohio. He volunteered to look at it after I'd purchased from 6foot8 and had nothing but trouble with it. There was a scratchiness when touching the tonearm and the speed warbled all over the place. Pianos sounded like Fisher-Price. I'd put a new belt and lubed it to no avail. Meanwhile I was accused of disassembling and destroying it by it's previous owner. I'll let Scott tell you what he found from the technical side, but suffice to say, she's sounding pretty good tonight. I'll give a few more listens and post some more. Michael Glad it seems to be working out for you. I am still angry at myself for selling two matched TD124's to a buddy, back in the Seventies. I was "upgrading" to the then new variable-speed quartz drives (they even had a wooden base) and didn't see the need to keep the 124's. Oh, well. I now have three SL1200's and a pair of SL1500 MKII's. Yes, they are superior to the TD124's (IMHO) but I still wish I had them to create a vitage DJ rig... along with my old Bozak, LSI splits and Dyna MKIII's. Plus you can't play 78's on the 1200's or 1500's.... Never sell anything. If it's good it will come back "in style." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted October 6, 2006 Author Share Posted October 6, 2006 Dont' worry I'm keeping my 1700's/Stantons. SO you're an LSI man too? We need to create an LSI club. I started a list around here somewere Now playing- J Geils Band- Flamethrower- this thing ROCKS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Lindsey Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 I now have three SL1200's and a pair of SL1500 MKII's. Yes, they are superior to the TD124's (IMHO) but I still wish I had them to create a vitage DJ rig... I find this very hard to believe, but it's your opinion... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Lindsey Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Hey Michael, So glad you got it back and it's now running as it should be. Please update us once you've had some time to get familiar with it. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnyholiday Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 good to have a T T Tech around {get your minds out of the gutter gentlemen, more saltpeter} ,will wait full report, yea^5! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott0527 Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 I'm no golden ear but Michael's Thorens sounded like crap. Took me about 6 minutes to come to this conclusion. I spent about two weeks off an on going through it. Made a list and took some pictures. Below are most of the things I found, copied from an email I sent to Michael. Probably the worst offender was #1 and #2. I posted a copy of the 125MKII Service manual from which I did my testing. (note these instructions are for 125MKII, the 125 first version has a different circuit board and slightly different values) 1. One of two screws that holds circuit board to chassis was completely loose. Both screws serve as ground points of some sort so this could have been contributing to some of the erratic behavior I noticed. 2. Voltage checks at 33 rpm were around 3.5 V AC instead of 5 V AC per Steps 1 and 2 in the service manual. 3. After voltages were set correctly, went on to set speed correctly. With the red adjustment knob centered, turned variable resistors to get proper speed via the strobe display per step 3 in the service manual. 4. On the 3 spring suspension, the spring on the platter side was bottoming out. Too loose. Leveled and adjusted all 3 springs by turning the white cups underneath. 5. The belt you bought measured just under 20" which is some circles is considered correct. The orignal Thorens belts measured 19.6" when new. However, many people on audio asylum vinyl (and I agree) noticed this seems too tight and tends to pull the skinny motor shaft towards the platter a bit. Perhaps the Thorens belts were a softer rubber that stretched more easily. I had a couple of new replacement belts here that measured about 21" so I placed one of these on your table and it worked just fine without being so tight as the one you had. I think it's a better match. 6. I really cleaned out the spindle bearing well. Lots of denatured alcohol and paper towel, q-tips and compressed air. It's really clean in there now. Also cleaned off the belt pulley and the inner platter surface that the belt rides on. Doing this always makes me feel better. About 15-20 drops of TT bearing oil on the spindle and in the bearing well. I have some stuff from JA Michell. For all I know it's 3 n 1 household oil but it doesn't cost much and lasts a long time so I use it. 7. Of the 4 sockets on the tonearm that accept the 4 pins of the headshell, one of the ground pins might have been dirty. I checked resistance between this socket and at the interconnects terminal and was getting about 40 ohms whereas the others were all reading zero. Cleaned this with Deoxit. 8. Checked tone arm out, all seems to be in good order. With properly balanced tone arm, the tracking force scale was pretty close. Still, I would use the Shure tracking force gauge as these are always more accurate than using the built in tone arm gauges. The antiskate uses some kind of magnet and although it seems a little loosey goosey, it was working properly. 9. I do not like that Bang & Olufson cartridge. For whatever reason, it's a lousy match with this arm/turntable. Maybe it's worn out or simply a bad match. Just sounds grainy to me. I had an extra new AT 8008 cartridge that Im putting on that I think sounds pretty good. Its a pretty good cartridge. I picked up a couple of these on the cheap a few years ago. 10. I had an extra Thorens platter mat and 45 adapter that I included. I noticed whatever the piece of hard, stiff rubber mat that was on there was warped. And it was so stiff that not even a record would flatten it out. I'd throw it away if I were you. I like the Thorens mats, they have always worked well for mine. I also put some lower profile feet on the bottom. I think this turntable looks nice the lower it sits. Thorens just had some thick pieces of felt on there originally. The old feet are in the box if you prefer those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott0527 Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Photo of the board. Easy to see the 9 holes from which you reach through with a small screw driver to turn the variable resitors per the manual. Simple stuff really, I'm no genius, I've just had a few of these 125's around before. I'll post a few more interesting pictures tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.records Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Michael, glad to hear you got your Thorens singing properly. Those old tables are certainly not plug and play and take time to get them cleaned up and adjusted properly. But once they are gone thru and everything dialed in, it should be a keeper for a very long time. Congrats!! I have never owned a 124, but hope to some day. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted October 6, 2006 Share Posted October 6, 2006 Good work, Scott! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted October 7, 2006 Moderators Share Posted October 7, 2006 Michael, Glad to hear it is playing like you were first expecting it to. Travis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Glad it worked out for you Mike............Give that Audio Technica a chance, they are nice smooth cartridge.........You won't be sorry Scott used that......That's what always worked best for me......when I had turntables.......Enjoy......J. Giels do you have Full House Live? That baby will wake you up...............Rock On Colter............ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capo72 Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Glad to hear it's back up and running well. I'm glad to know that we were not hearing things. We were in a hurry that day that I heard it at your house, and I felt bad that I was of no help. After we left I thought of about 5 things we could have tried if i'd had time to hang out. I was going to post in that thread, but you had alot of good advice from others much more experienced than I. Plus the thread was getting pretty heated so I decided to stay quiet. Glad to hear it is all well now. Welcome to Thorens bliss. I just got a SME 3009 tone arm for my td-124. It needs a little work, (like most things I own) but it was a good deal. Now I need to find a decent high compliance cart for it. Good luck, and rock on brother [8] Jeremy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Lindsey Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 I just got a SME 3009 tone arm for my td-124. It needs a little work, (like most things I own) but it was a good deal. Now I need to find a decent high compliance cart for it. Good luck, and rock on brother [8] Jeremy You would only need a high compliance cart if you bought the Series II Improved or the Series III arm, otherwise the Original and Series II arms require something around the 8 - 12 compliance.... a DL-103 works perfect for those arms. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lwhaples Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Good to hear you are able to spin some vinly on the Thorens.Still waiting to hear what you think,compared to your other TT. Great job Scott! Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capo72 Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Mike L, My 3009 is an improved with a fixed headshell. I think the effective mass is around 6.5g. It's a pretty light arm so I think i'm going to need around a 20 compliance cart (i'm thinking about the Grado Gold). I would rather have the early version so I could go with a LOMC like the Denon, but I only paid $50 for it so I couldn't pass it up. It's missing the plug, so the leads need to be resoldered. I think i'm going to convert it to RCA plugs. It's missing a couple pieces, like the tone arm rest, and the long screws for the screening can, but I think I can make it work. At the price I paid I could probably quadruple my investment if necessary. Jeremy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott0527 Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 A little more on what "crap" sounded like. The first minute, the table didn't sound all that bad. At least it seemed to keep time ok and I wasn't getting any of the scratchiness in touching the tonarm that Michael was getting. But all of a sudden the table would slip into bad zone and lose control. Not to the eye but to the ear. The mirror on the speed strobe had fallen off in shipment so I couldn't check the speed. But I imagine it was just off and on small variations in speed that was causing this. The longer it played, the more the "bad zones" tended to occur. To get the mirror back on requires quite a bit of disassembly. It glues onto a metal bracket and the glue had finally had enough I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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