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.
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.
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
- https://www.thorens.com/assets/downloads/TD%20124%20DD/en/td124-history-presence-english.pdf
- https://hifi-wiki.com/index.php/Thorens_TD_124
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorens
- https://www.thorens.com/en/products/thorens-td-124-dd.html
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.