Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Helmut Thiele began his training in 1972 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, switching to Industrial Design at FH Krefeld. His final semester projects included designing and building a complete motorcycle, and something more manageable – a turntable and a unipivot tonearm built with the engineering assistance of a local company, Acapella Audio Arts. The result was a fully functioning turntable [pictured below] that included an arm that is the great-grandaddy of the uni-pivot ‘Point’ tonearm that Thiele has more recently designed for Germany’s Genuin Audio.

In return for Acapella’s assistance, Thiele developed the production moulds for the midrange and bass horns of its loudspeaker series, before being commissioned to design a valve preamp and power amp for Michaelson & Austin in the UK. Forerunners of Musical Fidelity, these were released as the TVP-X and M-100 models, respectively, and came about through a friendship with Peter Mühlmeyer of ATR Audiotrade, who distributed M&A in Germany. Today, ATR is Thiele’s German distributor. Other products followed, including loudspeakers and racks, while Thiele secured his place as a go-to industrial designer for brands including Thorens, Magnat and Heco for many years. His ‘zero tracking error’ TA01 tonearm was first prototyped in 2009 and the turntable followed in 2019, both products entering production in 2021.