Thorens TD-160
Well, I must admit that I nearly dumped my Thorens TD-160 for a Denon DP 47F. I don’t know what came over me, maybe it was the fact that I owned a Denon DP-37F twenty years ago and I was on a nostalgic trip. The DP-37 is a good turntable and is still working fine (I know that because a friend of mine owns the DP-37 now).
The DP-47 is a convincing piece of equipment – it looks good, sounds good and comes along with a lot of comfortable and fully automated features that the TD-160 doesn’t have.
After a month of listening there was something missing. I enjoyed the comfort the Denon has to offer and it sounded nearly as good as my TD-160. I listened to Miles Davis’ “Well you needn’t” and there is this bass which is played with a bow, when I’m not mistaken here and it was somehow missing with the DP-47F.
After switching back to the TD-160 I must say that the differences are really difficult to detect. But if you know your records and how they should sound you will get closer to the result. I had both turntables running with the Sumiko Pearl which tends to sound a little darker than an DL-110 for instance.
The TD-160 in combination with the Sumiko Pearl comes along with a little more ‘live’ feeling especially when you listen to jazz. The bass is a bit more thumping and everthing sounds a bit more rough and not too polished.
Once properly set up the Thorens needs a little maintenance probably once a year and because there are no electronic parts like chips it’s rather easy to sorten things out. If the Denon stops working there is possibly no support available. Another thing that disturbed me about the Denon was the excessive amount of plastic trying to blend the customer on the first look to be aluminium or whatever.
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