TD 124

Turntable, Thorens, 1957

A Swiss belt and idler-wheel turntable for studios and home listeners, with a two-part platter that let an operator cue a record on a standing platter; about 90,000 were built.

A-09, isometric, same camera for both

Drawing: A-09
Introduced: 1957
Produced: 1957 to 1967
Made in: Switzerland
Designed by: Not credited by sources
Launch price: 475 DM for the drive unit alone; 648 DM with the BTD-12 S tonearm (original German prices per hifi-wiki)
Size: 394 x 74 x 324 mm
Weight: 10 kg

Thorens launched the TD 124 in 1957 for broadcasters and for home users playing the new stereo LPs. A magnetic brake fine-tunes the speed, and the upper platter support lifts off the heavy grey cast iron base platter so a record can be cued and then released with a lever. It was sold as a drive unit to be mounted in a console, with a wooden board for the customer's choice of tonearm. A TD 124/II with an improved motor suspension and grey paint arrived in 1965.

See it in listening room no. 01, at the Farnsworth House

Front elevation of the Thorens TD 124, 394 mm wide and 74 mm high — Front elevation, dimensions in millimetres. Drawn from published dimensions and descriptions; detail is simplified.

Specification

Item	As published
Drive	Belt and friction wheel; magnetic brake for fine speed adjustment
Speeds	16 2/3, 33 1/3, 45 and 78 rpm
Motor	4-pole reluctance motor, AC, 10 W
Platter	300 mm cast iron and aluminium, 4.5 kg (hifi-wiki)
Speed fluctuation	Plus or minus 0.07%
Rumble	43 dB weighted, 58 dB unweighted

Its successor

Thorens TD 124 DD

Thorens sells its direct descendant today. Pricing is through dealers.

See it at thorens.com

The house

Founded: 1883
Founder: Hermann Thorens
Origin: Sainte-Croix, Vaud, Switzerland
Today: Thorens GmbH is based in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, with Gunter Kürten as CEO since 2018; Wikipedia does not state the owner.

Further sheets

Sources

Notes for the record: Production years: Thorens' history document says built from 1957 to 1967 with remaining stock delivered until 1968; hifi-wiki lists 1957 to 1965. The 90,000 figure is from Thorens' document. Dimensions are hifi-wiki's 394 x 324 x 74 mm, labelled W x H x D on that page, which cannot be right for height; I read them as width 394, depth 324 and height 74, and the axis assignment is an assumption. Weight is hifi-wiki's approximate 10 kg. Platter weight differs: about five kilograms in Thorens' document, 4.5 kg or 3.6 kg (cast iron or zinc) on hifi-wiki. Prices are German list prices from hifi-wiki. No named designer appears in the sources opened; the book Swiss Precision by Joachim Bung is cited by hifi-wiki. Stereophile's review of that book returned 403 and was not opened.