Thorens TP-16 Tonearm cartridge mounting issue

The TP-16 was revised at least two times that I know of. Each version had a different "headshell" design. I think one version actually had a removable headshell with a bayonet-style mount, and another had the removable armwand and a more traditional-looking headshell but it still required an unusual cartridge mounting technique as there were still no slots at the top. Why Thorens designed them this way, I have no idea.

I believe the last few years of the TD160 used the TP90 tonearm, which has what you're looking for. Perhaps the armwand is interchangeable with your TP16. The problem is, Thorens parts are rare and expensive and so this might be out of your comfort level in terms of experimentation.

The easiest solution in my opinion would be to swap out the arm completely for a Rega or Jelco or something in the $300-$400 range. I've also heard that the Linn Basik Plus and Akito work pretty well on Thorens decks. And, of course, if you came across a trashed parts unit with a TP90 arm, I don't see any reason why you couldn't swap arms.

Thorman, that's a good idea going from the bottom up but the factory holes on the Grado do not go all the way through the body. Grado may, however, drill out a cartridge body for me if I inquired about it.

Ekobesky, I originally considered swapping out the TP-16 in favor of a modern arm but I feel at this point the Thorens arm is nice enough to keep. I have rewired it completely with Cardas tonearm wire, re lubed and re adjusted the bearings, calibrated the arm and it sounds great. The entire TD160 has been refurbished and properly setup and has proved well worth the effort as it is a whole different sounding table at this point. Internally, they unit has been dampened with cork liner, new Thorens belt, cleaned and adjusted springs, addition of gold rca jacks and a removable IEC with Cardas silver solder used throughout. If you guys want to see the finished 160, take a peek on the system page of my account, there is a picture of the table there.

What the other posters have not mentioned is that also if your arm is the TP-16 Mk 1 version at 16.5gms effective mass,you probably have a mismatch using a Grado Silver on that arm.The Grado weighs 5.5 gms and the compliance is high at 20cus.This would result in a tonearm,cartridge resonance of about 7.4Hz which is actually quite low i.e too near the resonance of the table.You would want to be around 11-12Hz optimally.You can get a lot of info with a seach here on this site about addressing this issue.A cartridge with a lower compliance than a Grado would be a way to go.

Stefanl, compliance is something I have only glanced at, the general information I have about the TP-16 MKI is it is a medium mass tonearm and the Grado should work. Is there a site, link or calculation you could recommend for determining proper cartridge/tonearm compliance?