MARCH 2012 WWW.HIFINEWS.CO.UK

q OUEEN -l wrrirerHEPuLsE

. PLUS18 pages of music reviews, news and features.V|NYL FRONTIERThe latest 1809 releases uK:4.,0,9.1r.: I?..?141,:.9.?:?l .VINYL RE-RELEASE Grateful Dead'sA mericanBeaufyo4qg,O MITESTONE SME's SeriesV arm .OPINION 10 pagesof letters&cutting-edgecommentoREADERS'CLASS|F|EDSHFfibargainsgalore ,l|lllll|LllUll[[[[[L|l fiilt Belt-driven turntable with electronic speed control Made by: Thorens, Switzerland supplied by: UKD Ltd Telephone: Or753 652 669 Web: www.thorens.com; www.ukd,co.uk a

Thorens TD 20351TP92 (fzees)

Now in a choice of glowing colours, with a new shape and Thorens' own tonearm, this latest'Acrylic' player is designed as an eyecatcher, but it deserves a hearing too Review: Steve Harris Lab: Paul Miller

n hi-fi, the newest trends seem to look before the drive comes from a weighty, the Acrylic range models have developed back the furthest: witness the revival of cylindrical free-standing motor unit, placed significantly since then. interest in the idler-driven turntables of in a circular cutout at the rear left. The the 1960s. Thorens, with the longest vee-grooved motor pulley drives the platter ARM DESIGN history of any turntable manufacturer, has through a thin square-section belt - this You can buy the TD2035 with no arm seen it all, been there and done that, and needs care to avoid it twisting in set-up. (when, as traditionalists would expect, it's the belt/idler Thorens f D124 is still the Said to be improved for the new models, called the TD2035BC), at t2595, or order aristocrat of vintage vinyl players. After the seDarate control box that enables it with an SME M-2 or 309, but the primary 1965, though, Thorens followed the belt- two-speed switching also provides an initial option is the Thorens TP92, as here. drive subchassis principle pioneered by the power boost to get the 6kg platter moving Although the TPg2 was created within late Edgar Villchur at Acoustic Research. reasonably quickly, reaching 33.3rpm the cost constraints of the TD309 player Thorens still uses the suspended in around seven seconds. As before, the package, its designers tried hard to give it subchassis, for example in its heavyweight platter is of aluminium, weighted and the best performance the budget allowed. toD model, the TD550. lts most recent and damped by a dense composition filling Its bearings are four miniature (Micro unusual suspended deck, the TD309 [HFN underneath. Also unchanged is the main ball-races sourced from MMB Jun'10], addressed some subchassis issues bearing, the polished radiused bottom end Miniature Bearing Company) in Japan, by using a special control system for the of the shaft resting on a Teflon thrust pad. said to be a type used in measuring springs, and by mounting the motor on the That curved front gives a certain passing instruments, and chosen to give very low subchassis rather than on the main plinth. resemblance to the Acoustic Signature stiction when starting to move slowly. For a But in the earlier 2000s, following Barzetti. There rs a historical link, in that tonearm, this is more important than good the revival of the brand by its dynamic Acoustic Signature's Gunther Frohnhoefer, performance at high speeds. new owner Heinz Rohrer, Thorens had an advocate of the 'mass turntable' Bonded into the bearing block is a also begun producing simpler models approach, was for a time associated with straight aluminium arm tube. The cartridge with no subchassis. These rely instead Thorens desiqn and manufacture. But is mounted on a separate, nicely-machined on the damped mass of a heavy platter to minimise the effects of external disturbances. And the latest in this line of develooment is the Thorens TD2035. lt replaces the long-established TD2030 [HFN Jul '1 1], while the sister model TD2015 replaces the old TD2010.

IMPRO\TED CONTROL In the blue 2030 plinth, the tint was in a thin middle layer between two clear acrylic pieces. Now, in the 33mm-thick TD2035 plinth, a clear middle section is sandwiched by thinner coloured acrylic layers top and bottom, with a slightly matt or frosted finish. As well as the red seen here, you can choose blue, black, yellow or white. Colour options aren't available for the TD201 5, which just has a single-layer clear acrylic plinth, 25mm thick. As before, the deck sits on three solid-looking feet with points, and as

RIGIIT: Basic layout is unchanged from the old 2030, with freestanding motor rear left. Seen here in red, the TD2035 also comes in black blue, yellow orwhite acrylic

22 i www.hifinews.co.uk I MARCH 2012 t'.i*

,f*-s w,%

r lll Jlt

rIlq

l l carrier Diece, attached in turn to the tube Finally, although there's no provision ABOVE: Plinth's threelayer construction, by a single hex bolt. This resembles the for a hinged turntable cover, you do get a with clear centre section, is visible if viewed design used by Clearaudio, except that the useful dustcover for the platter and arm, edgeon, but from other angles it appears filled top of the TP92 carrier is shaped to locate resembling Michell's Unicover. with colour. Tonearm is the Thorens TP92 into the arm tube so that it cannot rotate laterally. A slot for the hex bolt (concealed uj, ErroRTLEss FREEDOM systems seem to be overwhelmed by the by an oval washer) allows adjustment of After fitting a Roksan Corus Silver MM and low-end weight of the bass and make this a few millimetres along the length of the with a low mid-December sun streaming recording sound sluggish, but the Thorens arm. Provided the arm oillar is mounted in in through the window, I put on the certainly wasn't guilty of that. lt gave the correct place this should give enough Faurd Requiem, in this case recorded you Wasserman's beautifully-judged slow adjustment to align any cartridge. This by the King's College Choir and New walk with a full-bodied sound, and never makes setting-up more straightforward, Philharmonia Orchestra IEN/l ASD 2358]. made it sound like a plod. As for the upper as you are only adjusting the overhang, In the ever-enriching Agnus Dei', the registers, the Thorens had a nicely open without trying to change the arm offset Thorens allowed the music to flow out with and free quality, with Warnes'vocal coming angle at the same time. effortless beauty. At the bottom end, the over with an unrestrained, liquid freedom. At the other end, the satin-plated brass bass was powerful and On Backless, Clapton's counterweight is cored with a rubber-type extended, but with an "'Watch 1 978 opus [RSO RSD bush to give some decoupling, and simply open and unforced quality, Out For 50011 lfelt the Thorens screws on to a coarse-threaded rod. This is giving full weight to the Lucy" swayed deck did a commendable placed at the height of the record playing orchestral basses and at job pulling out the surface, rather than aligning with the arm the same time helping wrth sprightly brighter threads from tube. There is no playing-weight calibration to reveal the space and what often seems a but Thorens supplies a natty and accurate- depth in the recording. By conviction' rather dark tapestry. On enough plastic stylus-force gauge. the time I got to the final 'Walk Out In The Rain' it Bias compensation is applied 'ln Paradisum' I was all but transported to gave the bass a truly gripping authority, magnetically, with a small knurled adjuster. the Trinity College Chapel where this lovely but again, with clarity and musical sense. Although the lift/lower mechanism worked 1968 recording was made. By the same token, 'Watch Out For Lucy' flawlessly, I didn't quite like the way the Next I turned to the superbly recorded really rocked and swayed with sprightly arm clipped a little too tightly into the soft double-bass of Rob Wasserman on Duets conviction. In the midrange, the sound and springy plastic arm rest. Perhaps this [CRP 97 1 21], with Jennifer Warnes, on was detailed and open enough to reveal could be made to work more gracefully. 'Ballad Of The Runaway Horse.' Some the subtleties of the bar-room Diano which augments the rhythm as well as the contributions of Eric's then-current girl singer, Marcy Levy. Cosmetics apart, the big difference between the TD2O35 and the old TD203O It seemed like a long time since I'd is the use of Thorens' own TP92 tonearm, replacing the Rega-sourced TP3O0 listened to Rickie Lee Jones [Warner used before. This arm first appeared as part of the TD3O9 player, created with K566281 but, apart from anything else, I the help ofthe Essen-based FinkAudio Consulting design grouP, headed by just had to hear Red Callender's double- speaker guru Karl-Heinz Fink. Simple as it looks, there is a subtlety in the design bass intro to 'Easy Money'. lt wasn't a of the arm tube that reflects Fink's work with loudspeakers, particularly with disappointment, the double-bass soft and BMR (Balanced Mode Radiator) technology. looking at an armtube's resonant furry yet convincing in the feeling of fingers behaviour, he says, you'd ideally choose to mount the cartridge some way along plucking huge and heavy strings. The whole the tube rather than at the end, but of course this is impractical. Instead, a track came up freshly here, as the Thorens vibration-damping ring is added to the tube at a specific point along its length. seemed to allow the music to flow nicely. Thorens cautions users against moving this ring and thereby spoiling its effect. Accompanying instruments, however understated. had realistic timbres. After G,

MARCH 2012 i www.hifinews.co.uk i 23 ,.2 TURNTABI,E TIIORENS TD2035/I?92 ( r 2 e e s )

Comparisons with the earlier TD2030A IHFIV Jul '1 1] are instructive especially as both decks appear to employ the same, or similar, synchronous AC motor, square-section drive belt and damped, 6kg alloy platier. Speed accuracy was pretty good with the TD2030A but low-rate cyclical speed variations (wow) were a little high. With this sample of the TD2035 the situation is reversed: wow is brought under control at just 0.02%, as evidenced by the sharp peak in Craph 2, but the absolute speed .l% is nearly slow, illustrated by the displacement of this same 31 50Hz peak to 3 1 1 8Hz. While this is likely to exhibit some subjective effect, if not a straghtforward reduction in pitch, as motors tend to s/ow with age rather than speed up, any effect may become more obvious over time. Sample variation may be the root cause, but Thorens should check out this batch of motors and/or PSU units, Despite the common bearing configuration, our TD2035 also displayed a higher rumble than the TD2030A, if only by a few dB. In this case, differences in rumble measured through the groove (with and without Thorens'felt mat) and directly via the bearing itself were minimal at between 65-67d8. This is ABOVE: Rear view shows the simple screw arm mounting, which allows height some 5dB shy of the best decks and is largely attributable to a 150H2 component on Craph 1, below] picked-up via the adjustment. Motor is powered via the cable from a separate twcspeed control unit [visible new TPg2 arm and cabling. Owners should level the turntable's platform rather than the plinth itself as the motor sits this, the Thorens TD2035 faithfully Turning to classical music again, separately and, if angled relative to its cut-out, may touch the recreated the cavernous sound Barenboim with the Mozart Piano chassis and increase rumble still further. Readers may view a full Suite report for the Thorens TD2035 by navigating to ww,vll. world of bass, drums and multiple Concerto No.21 [EMl ASD 2465], QC hifinews.co.uk and clicking on the red 'download' button. PM guitars as Rickie Lee pulled into her the result was a warm and quite magnificent 'Last Chance Texaco'. welcoming rendition, with the On Oliver Nelson's The Blues woodwinds full of subtle character. @ And The Abstract Truth pasmine for example. An extended, open bass JAS20l, the Thorens captured quality gave air to the sound. this 1961 jazz classic's sense of By way of contrast, I put on the concentrated impact urgent yet Crateful Dead's Dead Sef - [Arista -4 poised, with no wasted notes. On DARTY i 1], a stadium concert F the opening 'Stolen Moments'you recording from 1980. Here the could only marvel at the intensity Thorens/Benz combination sounded of Freddie Hubbard's commanding informative and engaging, bringing 0 20 rl{ 60 80 t00 120 1,10 160 180 200 trumpet in the first of an arresting sense and clarity to the efforts of the Frequency >> @] series of solos. While the Thorens two drummers, while conveying the revealed such production details as deeoest sounds of Lesh's bass. ABOVE: Unweighted bearing rumble from DC-200H2 the addition of reverb to broaden With Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'Tin (black infill) versus silent LP groove on metal platter Nelson's sax sound in his own solo, Pan Alley'from lexas Flood [Pure (blue infill) and on mat (red infill) re. l kHz at scm/sec it also conveyed the almost magical Pleasure PPAN 38741 Tommy @l o luminosity of the ensembles. Shannon's bass was huge and t@ -10 t weighty but never overpowering, I CII.ANGING CARTRIDGES Chris Layton's cymbals insinuating, -20 I To see how the TD2035 and its as they created that doomy acoustic + -30 ,l TP92 tonearm would fare with for SRV's miraculous guitar sound E4 I an MC, I installed the Benz Micro and gripping vocal. Here it was -50 Clider SL. One of the least exoensive indeed 'pure pleasure'. 0 models in the Benz range, it still -70'l* has an admirable combination of 3000 3100 3t50 3200 3250 3300 << tidy accuracy and engaging musical ffi-iffi Frequency >> E Despite its apparent simplicity, coherence. Moving on to this after the TD2035's heavy-platter, ABOVE: Wow and flutter re. 31 50Hz tone at 5cm / the excellent Corus was like taking rigid-plinth concept is sonically sec (plotted t'l50H2, 5Hz per minor division). Wow is a ride in a luxury car after a mass- successful if placed on a solid very low but our deck was running 1% slow market one. support or floor. This acrylic deck Listening to 'Sultans Of Swing' now shows off the worth of the from Dire Straifs 91 02 [Vertigo TP92 arm, with a fine uncoloured gave Turntable speed error at 33.33rpm 33.01 rpm (-0.98%) 0211 actually the impression mid and excellent bass. lt might of travelling smoother and faster, not be quite as light on its with a subtle feeling of richer feet as a Rega combination, or timbres, from the bass line, where even Thorens'TD309, but it is Rumble (sllent groove, DiN B wtd) there was a better feeling of real foot-tapping and consistently Rumble {through bearing, DIN B wtd) unexaggerated extension to the enjoyable. And it looks great. Hum & Noise fel. to scm/sec) lowest frequencies, to Knopfler's iunwtd, vocal, now with more gravitas, to Sound t)uatity: 80% the lead guitar, now even more bril lia ntly expressive.

MARCH 2012 i www.hifinews.co.uk ; 25 Opera Seconda & Ouinta Loudspeakers Thorens Beautiful curved cabinets TD-2o35 in luxurious real wood and Turntable leather. Finish options include cherry, mahogany, Award-winninq turntable, black high gloss & white available in a v-ariety of high gloss. beautiful colour acrylics. rHoRElEi ffi& Unison Research Simply ltaly Integrated Amplifier Unison Research To mark ltaly's r5oth 55 Integrated Amplifier anniversary Unison "This Unison Research Research have created this Amplifier is a tenific buy. wonderfully stylish valve

We defy anyone not to fal I amplifi er. Simply Stunning. for its charms." - What Hi-Fi ta495.

Lrr{ts*h{ UfiN,$0f\l fi i:ii:3,L,::ia 1i:.ti.:\!.i-1"

Pathos Acoustics Onix lnPol Remix XIA-16o Integrated Amplifier Amplifier roWatts of pure Musical Reference Dual Mono, Pleasure. Lro)) ,,,L<9' orcu ^ 'Atruly brilliant Amplifier. Exceptional pedormer." - what Hi-Fi pedormance, exceptional value. Check out the range. (note: iPodTouch not included)

Cfnlx PAI] OI