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Repair Thorens 126 Mark III

C

CrystalBell

New Member
Hello all,

I'm new so please forgive if I'm posting in the wrong place. My father has recently passed away and I decided to hold on to his old records and record player. He was a fanatic about audio and spent years curating the perfect listening room and took good care of his systems.

He hadn't spent much time at home the past 10 years and it's just been sitting there (with the dust cover on) for a while. I took it to a repair shop in Houston to get an estimate, here is what they told me it needed:

  • Motorised circuit rebuilt
  • Arm lifter mechanism part needs replaced
  • platter needs to be raised up
  • general clean up and lubrication
I had to come back up to New York so I drove the turntable with me, and now I'm not sure where to take it. This turntable is also very sentimental to me so trying to find a the right place.

Any tips on a repair tech or shop in the NY area?

Thanks in advance,

Crystal
 
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Welcome to AK,

NY area, is that NYC area or Buffalo NY area.

Soundsmith and Audio Classics are two, Peekskill and Vestal, respectively that are well known. Probably cost a bit more than some others but I don't read anything bad about them. Soundsmith also rebuilds cartridges, something helpful for those expensive ones that don't have replaceable styli.

And of course, vinylnirvana, almost forgot about Dave and his reputation with Thorens tables.
 
Is it broken at present? Not sure why the motorised circuit has to be rebuilt, given that your father cared for it well.

Why not just give it a clean and lubrication and see how you get on with it? E.g. you don't need the arm lifter mechanism, and raising the platter might not be difficult to do yourself either.

Just a suggestion: not an objection to getting it professionally serviced.
 
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Unfortunately I am coming up to all dead ends. Soundsmith can't work on it, Audio Classics and Vinyl Nirvana have all declined to help.

Is this just a lost cause? Should I give up? Maybe I should look other areas like PA or MD?

=(
 
Have you tried just plugging the turntable in, to see if it works? If you can, do this and report your findings. Don't give up. There are members here who can help.
 
Dandy said:
Have you tried just plugging the turntable in, to see if it works? If you can, do this and report your findings. Don't give up. There are members here who can help.
Click to expand...

I'm in agreement with this^^. If it is already defective,there's not much risk at this point.

Your dad had excellent taste in turntables! In it's day,this table was about as good as it got,and even now it will easily trash many other modern (and very expensive) tables.

The difficulty lies in the complexity of the circuitry used,and the inherent difficulty of working on the Thorens TD-125 & TD-126 family.Most techs just don't want to put in the amount of time and effort required on one of these.For them,it's mainly a matter of economics. They just can't charge for the amount of time they would spend.

The owners and service manuals are readily available,and there are many skilled techs here and on https://www.vinylengine.com/ who will be more than happy to help tackle any issues you find.And they have a dedicated Thorens forum.

Too bad you're not in my neck of the woods,I feel like I've rebuilt almost every TD-125 and TD-126 that the factory shipped to Canada:confused:
 
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