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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.

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