| Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
March 22, 2006 - 10:20pm
#1
Thorens TD160 turntable
| Loudspeakers Amplification Digital Sources | |
Analog Sources Accessories Featured | |
Music Columns Retired Columns | |
Show Reports | |
Features Latest News Community | |
Resources Subscriptions |
© 2024 StereophileAVTech Media Americas Inc., USA
All rights reserved
When you play a record do you hear anything?
Recheck the cartridge wiring. I would do a continuity check from the cart pins to the output cables. Cart wiring is usually Red-right hot, white-left hot, green-right ground, and blue-left ground. Usually on the cart body you will see markings LG or RG indicating the grounding pins. You may need a small AA battery flashlight to help you see the pinout labels.
If your Thorens has the removable headshell the lead pins from the cart to inside the head shell might be bad. You can buy replacement short leads from AudioQuest dealers for about $20 which can be sturdier than the stock wires. You will figure it out, Just be patient.
I just bought a used Dual 502 off eBay, but the seller was in the neighboring town to not only save freight, but to also preclude him from not packing it well enough and I receive a "turtable kit" to reassemble.
Once I cleaned it up totally I only had one channel and hum. Dual's clunky headshell arrangment leaves alot to be desired. I installed new cables and worked on the contact pins from the headshell insert all is well. The fact that it is belt drive and not idler wheel/rim drive is a plus.
It is an older belt drive unit that is spinning beautiful music as I write this. All for $28! I will work on buffing out scratches in the dust cover this weekend and have more fun. It is not the quality of my Rega P3, but probably equal to my older Project One/DR220. One man's junk is another man's treasure.
Write back if that does not solve your problem. You have yourself a very nice table that should give you years of enjoyment.
Re-checked cart leads to shell, continuity from cart pins to output cables; disconnect and reconnect output cables and cart shell. Gosh! When powered on, no hum and there's signal from brushing the stylus. Played records and, all of a sudden, problems solved. Guessed there must be loose contacts somewhere. Strange that I did these steps a few times already, but didn't work. Anyway, hope this ends the nightmare and thanks you guys for the response and advice.
By the way, I'm also having the same bad experience of getting a Dual from e-bay. It's a CS528, belt-driven auto turntable. When arrived, the automatic mechanism is not working and the cueing system is sluggish too. While the cueing problem seems a simple one, I'm still trying to figure out how to repair the auto device. I foresee that I may have to abort and sell it to someone who knows how to fix or wants it for parts.