2. analog
  3. 174962-117

Thorens TD 146

I found very little info on the 146. Much more on the 145/147. The tonearm looks a bit different than the 145 arm. I assume this a good performer for the money, going for $300-$600, depending on condition. My guess is it doesn’t reach lofty heights until the tonearm swapped out to a Jelco, SME, ..... I have an opportunity for a very clean one locally.

fjn04
minkwelder
256 posts
 

The tonearm on the TD-146 is actually listed in the manual as a TP-11 MkIII instead of MkII as I stated earlier and the effective mass is listed as 7.5g.

dekay's avatar
dekay
5,637 posts
 

OK, now research the arm on the Linn you are considering as well as the model of the Linn deck.

Are the "older" Linn decks better than the older Thorens?

Not, IMO.

 

DeKay

fjn04 OP
1,561 posts
 

Maybe the Thorens are up there with the Linn. It just appeared to me that the Ittok was a more substantial arm. Isn't the TP-11 on the 146 a plastic arm? Thanks (-:

minkwelder
256 posts
 

After doing a little more research on the TD-146, I discovered that there were actually six different versions of that turntable. Mine was the first version and it apparently had the TP-11 MkII. Some versions of the table had the MkIII arm which was 2mm longer. Both had an effective mass of 7.5g.

Back in the day, I thought that the black wand was carbon fiber, but a sales brochure for the TD-166 MkII with TP-11 MkIII arm states that it is a coating that utilizes "split-wave" technology to eliminate resonances.

So, I'm assuming that it is a coating over whatever alloy they used for the tonearm and not plastic

Check out the analog dept dot com. That's where I saw the sales brochure and tonearm data.

dekay's avatar
dekay
5,637 posts
 

Sorry, not familiar with the later versions of the TP11 (heard it on the 146 and have seen them on other models of the period). 

Think that there were different versions of the Ittok as well, but I'm too "read out" to look now and need to save my good eye for a "Billions" marathon following dinner.

I like the older Linn's, just don't feel that they are more desirable than the old Thoren's.

My Thoren's experience (ownership) has mainly been having them mated with early SME 3009/3012 tonearms, but I did like my stock/old TD165 (first version of the TP11) once I got it properly set up and even more after removing the bottom plate.

Don't understand why removing the bottom makes a difference (all my recent TT's/last 20 years/have been located outside the living room in a hall closet), but it does.

Tried adding a heavy plywood bottom plate (reccomended online tweak), but didn't care for it on the 165 and my 125.

DeKay

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