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In Reply to: RE: My Thorens TD-125 Woes Are Over posted by AudioSoul on May 31, 2017 at 13:31:11
Phew that's a lot of money for 1970s stuff. I paid 350 euro a couple of years back for a working Td125 with an SME 3009 S2 arm. I don't know if I would do it again.
I have just been working on a TD160 from the attic. It was a gimme from a couple of years back. It had a wobble, bent motor shaft. With a few drops of oil the motor is running OK though. I mounted an Ortofon Super OM 10 cartridge. It kept jumping up and down quite nervously. Maybe the wobbly motor?
Anyway even with these issues the TD160 plays fine with a good record, and hooked up to a good phono preamp. Prices for old Thorens TT have gone through the roof IMHO.
A few vintage brands i can recommend based on 17 years of buying, fixing and selling are:
Philips (212,312,800/900 series) and Aristona clones.
Akai AP100/206/306.
Pioneer Pl-12(d)/Pl-112.
These TT can still be had for around 50 euro on the used market. 100 euro extra for a decent new cartridge. Fix them up and set them up properly. Hook them up to a good phono preamp. Then the next problem arises. Where to get good old stock records?
"The torture never stops"Greetings Freek.
Follow Ups:
Hi Freek. It is good to see you posting over here again.
In the past few years average prices paid on working TD125 models have gone up. Especially over Ebay. On the street, just about anything is possible but even when we search our local Craigslist in NA we find that most sellers are hip to current values for vintage Thorens turntables. (note to self: Must dig deeper. Repeat. Must dig deeper.)
I was fortunate to buy a TD126-III in 2011 for $75.00. But this turntable came from the daughter of the deceased owner that did not care to invest any of her time in sorting out values and markets. She just assigned that task to me. And I've decided to keep it since the TD126-III stands up very well even in today's world of turntables.
Many things are possible. But Ebay is a mixed bag of good and bad, low prices and high prices, and anything in-between that can be thought of. A fully restored and minty looking TD125-II with a desirable tonearm and good condition dustcover will demand a surprising figure for us old timers that already had a fixed idea of the value--an out of date value. Times are changing.
-Steve
I am amused by your lament. By comparison to vintage turntables, the collector car market is a steaming jungle of inequity. Thirty years ago, I used to play around with old Porsches. For a few decades, I owned at least two at any given time. Nice Speedsters that used to trade around for $20K to $25K (for the very best of them in near Concours condition) now routinely come to market with price tags in excess of $300,000. Needless to say, I am priced out of the competition; I can only shake my head in wonderment to see an old 356 coupe in average condition selling for $80K and up. And of course, all of these current sellers describe their car as being in "mint" condition. This interests me, since one could rarely find a mint condition car back in 1980, i.e., the seller is either lying or ignorant of the true history of his vehicle. The alternative hypothesis is that there is some higher power who can heal rust and make metal new again. C'est la vie.
One thing I've noticed with regard to TD124 motor units; The condition of the chassis shipped to me in recent years, has declined. It is as if the market is scraping the bottom of the barrel for sellable units.
Since I photo-document each TD124 restoration that I undertake, this can be seen within the more recent projects I've done.
True enough, it would take a higher power to heal rust. The mkII td124 units, instead of using zinc plating on the steel parts, used chrome. And the chrome, if not stored indoors where the atmosphere is ammenable to humans, does allow rust. Something to watch out for in a mkII.
-Steve
Buying a used turntable can be a very mixed bag. Sometimes it's all innocent and the seller simply has no clue what he/she is dealing with or how to package and ship a turntable, which is a very delicate mechanism. Fail to remove the platter and lock the table down and the platter can bang around damaging the motor shaft, etc.
I once got one shipped to me with an SME 3009 Mk II tonearm and the headshell and counterweight ends were bent at right angles to the arm. Fortunately I got an insurance payment from e-Bay, which was enough to cover a replacement headshell and a new coupling from SME for the arm-to-counterweight segment. It worked out okay. Best to stick with a table you can see prior to purchase, but it's not always possible.
That's a nice table and arm you have--they are solidly built and sound great!
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