The brushed aluminum top plate/plinth is of Alucobond™-a sandwich of aluminum plates in between which is an aerospace honeycombed material that is said to produce a super-stiff composite.Ī newly developed silicone ring-damped 12 volt synchronous motor fed by an outboard 16V linear power supply featuring a large toroidal transformer is encased in a non-resonant housing that’s mounted to the base. Unlike the original TD 160, which featured a sub-chassis hung from its top plate, the TD 1600’s MDF sub-chassis sits atop three foam-damped coil springs attached to a massive, highly damped base supported by three height-adjustable feet.
The fully manual 1600 has an MSRP of $2999. Other than the TD 1601’s auto-cueing and end of record lift features, the TD 16 are identical. Only the TP 92 arm, which will look familiar to many of you, is a “holdover” from the previous era. The new 1600/1601 ‘tables are a “from the ground up” original design created in Germany and precisely executed by the Taiwan-based factory. Other than the equally superlative “fit’n’finish”, everything else about the new TD-1600/1601’s design and mechanical performance is the opposite of the TD402’s. The sample of that budget direct drive model turned out to be a “for photography” edition, which Thorens claims explained the loose arm bearings and other issues noted in the review, though much of its “guts” and the tonearm used were familiar looking “off the shelf” components manufactured at the highly accomplished Taiwan-based contract manufacturer Thorens, among other turntable companies, currently uses.
You can read more about the company’s history in the TD402 review published here in the fall of 2019. Producing a moderately priced, cosmetically suave turntable that lived up to the rich heritage and impeccable reputation of Thorens’ TD 160 was a formidable task for Thorens GMbH, reorganized last year under new CEO Gunter Kürten-an audio industry veteran and former CEO of ELAC.
The previous incarnation of the Thorens brand, founded by Heinz Rohrer, had in the mid- 2010’s launched the TD 900 series also featuring the classic sprung chassis, but prices ranged upwards of almost $10,000 and the looks were “industrial”.
The original AR XA turntable designed by Edgar Villchur and introduced way back in 1961 for $58 was, to the best of my knowledge, the first to place the platter assembly and tone arm on the same sub-chassis isolated by a three point spring mount from the rest of the turntable (and from the outside world). Back in 1972 the original Thorens introduced the TD 160, a triple spring-suspended sub-chassis design that quickly became a long-in-production classic and the blueprint from which many other turntables, er, sprung-Linn for instance.