EVERY turntable deserves a second chance in life. There was a time in my life when none of the vintage turntables armed with those crude looking tonearms appealed to me when I set out to get a turntable – I was totally captivated by the quasi-modern avant-garde turntables I often read about in glossy publications.
How I turned out to be today is a total opposite to what I was during my formative years. For this, I have Dr TL Wong (of Euphonic Research fame) to thank, as he carted a Garrard 401 complete with a SME 3009 S2 tonearm to my house one day and said, “You would never know what you are missing nor would you know what real grunt is if you are going to stick to your Rega P3”.
The compromised we made was to install the excellent RB300 tonearm onto the plinth and I have never looked back since.
The modernist-looking Garrard 401 was picked off eBay for pittance as almost everyone else was like the previous me, gunning for the contemporary catalogue at the turn of the millennium. The Garrard was painstakingly restored with an ample pool of parts sourced online. The crown jewel was the much sought-after custom bearing made by Martin Bastin in his backyard workshop in the UK. A vibration dispersion plinth made from marine plywood completed the job.
Listening to the Garrard 401 was a revelation. There is so much latent energy to support the musical foundation. This was my first idler drive experience. Initially, I found myself checking the speed from time to time with a strobe light as I thought it was running fast. That dissipated fairly quickly as I realised that the pace and timing were spectacular and the Garrard delivered the liveliness that was simply lacking in my previous installations. A Schroeder Model 2 tonearm was installed later in its life in an attempt to squeeze more out of the set-up.
A few good lads amongst my reviewer peers are in the same fold, keeping restored vintage turntables alive and well. The most common turntables amongst us are Thorens, Garrard and Lenco. It’s not surprising that they are all idler drive turntables. My guess is that it’s due to the mechanical robustness and simplicity, sonic grunt and maybe a bit of ego added for flavour.
Fast forward 20 years, and I find myself embarking on a similar journey all over again when a Thorens TD-124 landed at my doorstep for adoption. It was initially given to my friend Peter, but was in bits and pieces. Fellow reviewer and TD-124 enthusiast Lim Juan popped over almost immediately to help me with the initial assessment… seized knobs, quirky tonearm, crumbling plinth, squeaky bearing and other unimaginable mentions. It was junk to most but to the both of us, it was the quintessential turntable to be had and cherished.
Restoration conversation with the late BS Lee commenced soon after. The TD-124 was given a delicate spa treatment to strip off the accumulated grime and was once again sparkling without having the need to have it repainted. A bit of patina is always welcomed. Controls and levers were lubricated and are actuating as they should thereafter. The SME 3012 series II was rewired and totally rebuilt completely using original SME parts.
Parts were widely available as there is a plethora of options ranging from new old stock to specialist remanufacture. For the tonearm, I stuck to original parts from SME UK whilet for most other components, I went for remanufacture parts sold by Audiosilente.
Once the base mechanical gremlins were sorted, I needed a plinth and the options were between getting one from the Republic of Moldova or commission one locally. Given the Covid-19 lockdown, the path towards local expertise was clear. After all, SPH (Captain Sien) is known for building plinths for an assortment of turntables. After much deliberation on the choice of materials and design, I decided to use plywood instead of a combination of exotic materials as I wanted a lively sounding turntable (turned out to be the right decision).
Design-wise, it needed to be gargantuan to accommodate the arc of the 12-inch SME 3012 series II tonearm. I have never liked the TD-124 arm-board design as it leaves a gap between the board and plinth which makes it very difficult to clean. I opted for a custom brass arm-base mounted directly on the plinth. Apart from making it easy to keep tidy, this effectively decouples the tonearm from the TD-124. A custom acrylic board was cut to measure in place of an arm-board.
The entire installation was completed by SPH to perfection. Numerous suggestions made were adopted. Although I have purchased the Audiosilente parts for rejuvenating the squeaky bearing, I fitted a new SPH grease bearing into the TD-124. It was a complete ready unit that seemed to continue spinning forever after powering down.
The result was not only visually stunning but believe you me, audibly magnificent the moment I dropped the needle home for the first time. The pitch and timing have a commanding grip of the music when matched with a new Ortofon SPU Royal G MkII mounted to commemorate the occasion.
It has an extremely resolving resolution with so much detail materialising. I have never heard Ray Brown standing there grunting so pronouncedly in Mondscheinsonate (Moonlight Serenade album – Ray Brown & Laurindo Almeida). If you heard the weighty rumble of Brown’s double bass, you would have been forgiven thinking that the Guarneri Homage has 15-inch woofers. It was all smiles after having gone through a pile of records.
Its airy signature comes from largely from the plinth, with all things being equal, and I am really glad that I didn’t go for a much denser material which may have resulted in a much harder sound. I did learn a thing or two having previously owned a turntable with a factory African granite plinth. If I had the chance, I would have amalgamated a copper plate in between the layers of plywood but have gone down the easy path with a Micro Seiki Cu-180 copper mat instead.
Now that I have travelled down the less travelled path twice in the last 20 years, I have finally understood what C.P. Cavafy meant in his endearing poem Ithaka. For those of you thinking of going the path of restoring vintage turntables, it will be a marvellous endearing journey that is rich in experiences and discoveries. The wisdom that you gain will carry you through to make your analogue experience thoroughly engaging with countless hours of listening joy. Be brave and embrace it, every vintage turntable deserves a second chance.
I have had a Linn Axis deck with a Linn Akito arm and Audio Technica moving coil cartridge for years now, but before that, I inherited an Acoustic Research Legend with the vastly underrated Rega RB 300 tonearm. That was a brilliant deck, which has now been restored and is owned by my daughter. It will never leave the family!
Totally agree with you that the RB300 is under rated. I really enjoyed the RB300 with my former Garrard 401. One lucky girl your daughter is 🙂
This is a nice review but missing some real-life details. If you are building an idler and going to use it only for mono recordings then fine but if you are buying an idler to use for modern recordings and everyday use then don’t do it. Too many reviews eschew how great these tables and they are but getting them running requires patience, knowledge, and lots of $$ that in the end are better spent on a modern fuss-free turntable.
I used to own an idler turntable; a Thorens TD-124. It was beautifully built and had a big sound that was quite addictive, but it was very capricious in how it functioned from week to week. One week it was dead quiet the other week a mechanical gremlin would have me tearing it apart trying to figure out where that tick, tick sound was coming from. While the bearing was well made and of high precision it was never designed for low noise and that in the end was why I got rid of it; the TD-124 was never designed for vertical vibration because mono cartridges were not sensitive to it. I realized that too late after I got it and judging by how many TD-124’s I see on the second-hand market I realize that perhaps I am not alone. To have improved the table to modern standards would have cost quite a handsome amount, especially if I was going to order parts from Schopper and it was never going to be as quiet as my SME 10. I have never owned a Garrard, I would assume it’s pure idler design vs. the TD-124’s hybrid design might lend it to becoming quieter for a less-cash outlay than the Thorens requires, but I don’t know as I have not heard it.
I hate using automobile analogies but this one is quite telling. People who buy these vintage players remind me of people who are coughing up money to buy a Ferrar 308 GTS, the one that was in the original Magnum PI. It’s beautiful to look at, makes a blood-curdling roar, and impresses the neighbors. But, it is tough to drive, and worse requires belt changes, valve adjustments that cost a fortune every 10,000 miles or less, and that only a seasoned Ferrari mechanic can perform. Most people do not know what they are getting into when they get one for cheap. Same with these tables. If you are capable of working on a TD-124 and have the patience to make it work right then go ahead, it can be made to sound reasonably well. But I got tired of having to peek under the hood and fix the bi-weekly gremlins that afflicted it. In the end, I want to listen to music. I think reviewers should make that clear to readers who might be influenced by glowing reviews that these old turntables are not as plug and play as a Technics 1200G or an SME 10.
Hi Nick, there is definitely a lot of truth in that. Will make that happen in the next article as this was about giving vintage turntables a second chance. Best wishes, See Meng
Nick, I can’t speak for the Thorens 124 – I’ve only owned two TD150s, which are belt drives – but I’ve owned several Lencos (L70, L75 and Goldring G99) and currently have two Garrard 401s. They do take some fettling but the results are fabulous and machines of this caliber (design, engineering, and parts) would cost thousands and thousands to manufacture today. For the most part they continue to work brilliantly and will probably long outlast the plug-and-play decks you describe (of which I’ve also owned a few, both belt drives and high end DDs).
I think the idler slam is real and unique – no belt or DD I’ve heard equals it. Many audio legends such as Art Dudley, Arthur Salvatore and Jean Nantais agree. Further, the old idlers are essentially mechanically simple (well, Lenco and then Garrard and finally the Thorens, admittedly less so). To the extent that I could strip the motor on one of my Garrard 401s and eliminate some annoying noise based purely on online advice. Now it runs dead silent and speed stability has Keay’s been excellent.
Yes, to really get one of these machines up to speed takes some time, money and effort but they are fundamentally superbly engineered and the potential to make them better and better is almost infinite. The consensus seems to be that with a well designed plinth, super bearing, reconditioned motor and a few other mods they potentially take the listener into realms that you’d have to spends tens of thousands on for modern gear to match.
Sorry I wouldn’t be so fast in issuing this kind of caution. I think the idlers offer both excellent value and something unique SQ-wise – plus if you fettle one properly you really learn about vinyl playback on a very foundational, mechanical level which p&p will never provide you with.
I have to agree with Polix9. A unserviced idler drive without a proper plinth do ramble a fair bit. Yes, it takes time and much effort to bring them up to a high level of performance but one need not spend a fortune doing it if one goes the diy route. Companies like Schopper do charge a lot for their products. But there are alternatives for less money. The bearing the reviewer is using is 1/4 the price compared the the Schopper product!