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Thorens TD160

M

Mike Sims

New Member
I recently bought a TD160 mk1 with a view to renovating and restoring it.

It has a hum. The previous owner at some stage added RCA jacks to the back. The wiring is obviously a mess and I would like to go back to something similar to how the turntable left the factory.

However, I would like to sort the hum out first at least to see if the wiring in the Arm itself is good. The arm is a TP16.

Has anyone seen wiring like this and does anyone have advice?

Mike
 

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I understand that the original gray cable is not connected anywhere. If so, why the yellow wire is connected? I think you should cut that one. Looks like it makes a ground loop with one of the rca sockets.
Are the wires coming out of the tonearm miniature coaxials ?
 
From the lug where the two wires (tonearm ground and chassis ground) are connected , solder another ground wire that will go to the amplifier or phono preamp ground terminal. CUT the yellow wire that goes to the minus of the rca socket.
Also I 'd make some fresh solderings of the two signal wires coming out of the tonearm to the rca sockets.
Better still, the ground wire coming out of the tonearm, should go directly to the ground terminal of the phono pre or amp. In this case, make sure that the sub chassis of the thorens is grounded in the AC plug.
 
Last edited:
probably hums because the grounding scheme is screwed up. Stock they ground through one of the cables. You can run it with a stand-alone ground but its often not done correctly.

I'll just link you here, which has a pic and a good explanation of how it should be wired.


Thorens TD-160 Heavy Buzz


for whatever it may be worth, mine still sports the original early 1970s cables. Only change I've made was I cut the crusty RCA plugs off and installed a pair of new ones. It doesn't hum.
 
LP-THORN said:
I understand that the original gray cable is not connected anywhere. If so, why the yellow wire is connected? I think you should cut that one. Looks like it makes a ground loop with one of the rca sockets.
Are the wires coming out of the tonearm miniature coaxials ?
Click to expand...
I am not sure if the arm was rewired. I agree the yellow does not appear to do anything. I am planning to take it back to original layout because I want to drop it into a new plinth. So I will source a new RCA and install that. Thanks for the help. Much appreciated.
 
LP-THORN said:
From the lug where the two wires (tonearm ground and chassis ground) are connected , solder another ground wire that will go to the amplifier or phono preamp ground terminal. CUT the yellow wire that goes to the minus of the rca socket.
Also I 'd make some fresh solderings of the two signal wires coming out of the tonearm to the rca sockets.
Better still, the ground wire coming out of the tonearm, should go directly to the ground terminal of the phono pre or amp. In this case, make sure that the sub chassis of the thorens is grounded in the AC plug.
Click to expand...
Thank you.
 
gadget73 said:
probably hums because the grounding scheme is screwed up. Stock they ground through one of the cables. You can run it with a stand-alone ground but its often not done correctly.

I'll just link you here, which has a pic and a good explanation of how it should be wired.


Thorens TD-160 Heavy Buzz


for whatever it may be worth, mine still sports the original early 1970s cables. Only change I've made was I cut the crusty RCA plugs off and installed a pair of new ones. It doesn't hum.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the diagram which is really useful. I am going to get help with the soldering as I have never done that before. Also the previous owner seems to have made a mess of the ones he did. Thank you for the feedback.
 
When I rewired mine I ran separate earth from the chassis to a terminal on the rear, and if you don't mind me saying, what did he make the holes for the RCA plugs with, Maybe a screwdriver? The wiring on my one was getting brittle so it was all replaced and I fitted a 3 pin power socket as well that is earthed.
 
probably just blown through from a standard drill bit. If you don't put something as a backer board with MDF and you push too hard it does this.
 
I added RCA’s to the plinth of my TD166MKII. To prevent the particle board from further flaking away and even weakening after I made the holes, I coated the areas heavily with plain old carpenters glue.
 
losthorizon said:
When I rewired mine I ran separate earth from the chassis to a terminal on the rear, and if you don't mind me saying, what did he make the holes for the RCA plugs with, Maybe a screwdriver? The wiring on my one was getting brittle so it was all replaced and I fitted a 3 pin power socket as well that is earthed.
Click to expand...
Hi. Yes I think he used something non-specialist to make the holes!
 
Coolhandjjl said:
I added RCA’s to the plinth of my TD166MKII. To prevent the particle board from further flaking away and even weakening after I made the holes, I coated the areas heavily with plain old carpenters glue.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I have taken mine back to standard. The new plinth arrives this week so hopefully its a case of just dropping the unit into the new plinth.

Regards
 
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