Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Thorens Td 2030 (£1725)
Andy Whittle and Paul Miller  |  Feb 04, 2009
The TD 2030 sits just below the top of Thorens current range of turntables and retails for £1725 including the TP 300 VTA tonearm, but no cartridge. Thorens, thoughtfully, includes a pair of cotton gloves to keep your dabs off the acrylic plinth during setup, so gloves on and off we go. Since the acrylic plinth has no suspension, it’s a simple matter to position the deck on a suitable surface/table, and the plinth can then be levelled by screwing in/out the tip of each of the three feet. The heavy platter is an aluminium affair, weighing in at a substantial 6.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Thorens TD 204 Turntable Package
Review: Adam Smith, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 17, 2023
hfncommendedThoren's range of 'all-in-one' belt-driven turntables – complete with arm, cartridge and integral phono stage – tops out with the TD 204. It's a no-fuss solution for vinyl starters 

After a few years of uncertainty, turntable specialist Thorens has clearly regained its mojo. When Gunter Kürten, the former CEO of fellow German brand ELAC, took over the company in 2018, he felt its existing range was 'too broad, with far too many models and variants'. He also believed the quality of the finished products was not to a level that befitted a manufacturer that had, at the time, been making musical instruments for 137 years, and turntables for 92.

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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Thorens Td 309 (£1250)
Steve Harris & Paul Miller  |  Jun 15, 2010
Looks can be deceiving. At first glance, you might think that the TD 309 was designed just as an eye-catcher, but in reality it is easily the most radical and innovative turntable Thorens has produced since the company was revived around ten years ago by the dynamic Heinz Rohrer. For the TD 309 project, Rohrer called in Fink Audio Consulting of Essen in Germany, best known for its expertise in loudspeaker design. But, as Karl-Heinz Fink says, ‘We are all turntable guys! We like turntables! And if you work on loudspeakers, you deal with vibration at a micro level, dealing with problems that are similar.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Thorens Td 550 Turntable (from £6975)
Steve Harris & Paul Miller  |  Jul 04, 2009
Last year saw the 125th anniversary of the oldest brand in specialist hi-fi. While Thorens actually spent its first few decades producing musical boxes, it has a remarkable audio pedigree. So even if you think the current vogue for 12in tonearms is just a craze fuelled by audiophile one-upmanship, you certainly can’t accuse this venerable German company of bandwagon-jumping with its ‘anniversary’ TP 125 Special Edition. This arm looks perfect on Thorens’ flagship turntable, the TD 550.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Thorens Td2030a (£2475)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Nov 16, 2011
The latest member of the Acrylic series boasts performance to match the looks Part of Thorens’ Acrylic Series, the TD2030A sports a 33mm-thick plinth made up of two 15mm slabs of clear acrylic with a 3mm blue tinted layer sandwiched between. Looking edge-on, the plinth appears clear with just a thin dark line, but from any other angle, it’s filled with gorgeous colour, like the blue of the Aegean under a cloudless sky. The plinth stands on three imposing legs. These end in small pointed feet that screw in or out for levelling adjustment.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Transcriptors Spyder & Audiomods Tonearm (£1250/£895)
Steve Harris and Paul Miller  |  Nov 30, 2011
From the reborn Transcriptors company comes an all-new turntable with a pedigree, a design that still follows in the footsteps of the classic 1960s and 1970s models The original Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference turntable was one of audio history’s great style statements. The story of the design and its creator, the late David Gammon, was told in our May ’11 Audio Milestone feature. Transcriptors was reborn in 2000, thanks to David’s oldest son Michael Gammon. Encouraged by American collector Don Sellers, Michael started an information website for enthusiasts.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Transfiguration Phoenix (£1350)
Paul Miller  |  Mar 04, 2009
Naming a cartridge after a firebird that rises from its own ashes may be a portentous omen, given Transfiguration’s previous success in crafting high-class pickups. So maybe the incendiary title is supposed to serve more as a pointer to a fiery performance? After the revamp of the brand’s lineup, this model doesn’t have a natural predecessor, by price at least, since it’s pitched below the former top Temper model, and above the similarly obsolete Spirit. But at £1350 it sits neatly between the award-winning Orpheus (£2750) [March ’07] and the new entry-level Axia at £890, and closely resembles the Spirit in body shape. Like former Transfigurations, it uses an unusual ‘yokeless’ generator inside with ring magnets surrounding the sets of coils.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Unison Research Giro (£2750)
Steve Harris & Paul Miller  |  Aug 04, 2009
Valves and vinyl go together like the proverbial horse and carriage, so it isn’t too surprising that one of Italy’s best-known tube amplifier manufacturers recently decided to offer its own turntable, arm and cartridge. You could say that Unison Research has carved its own niche because, apart from the tubes, its amplifiers are notable for the use of real wood as a styling element. When British manufacturers say ‘real wood’, they usually mean a thin slice of rosewood or whatever, glued to a thicker piece of chipboard. Not so the Italians, who still seem prepared to hew speaker cabinets out of solid trees, as Unison does its amplifier ornaments.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Van Den Hul The Crimson (£3850)
Richard Holliss  |  Nov 03, 2014
Van den Hul’s latest hand-built pick-up is called The Crimson and comes in a choice of natural light and dark wood finishes as well as a coloured [also wooden bodied] version. There’s a polycarbonate option too. Although nudity is currently the trend for modern MCs, with generators exposed for all the world to see, The Crimson doesn’t quite go all the way and chooses to cover at least a little of its modesty. Still, most internals are visible – and breakable, if you’re ham-fisted.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Vertere DG-1 Dynamic Groove Turntable Package
Review: Adam Smith, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jun 17, 2020
hfnoutstandingSupplied with or without a partnering MM cartridge, this new 'entry-level' deck to the Vertere range comes equipped with a re-imagining of the archetypal flat tonearm

In a world of plug 'n' play convenience, having to manually configure a piece of equipment before it can be used is felt by some to be far too great a barrier to enjoyment. And perhaps in no area of hi-fi is this truer than vinyl replay. I know of many people who have consciously shied away from exploring the ol' black stuff because they believe it to be 'just too much hard work'. So any manufacturer able to help eliminate any of the perceived faff and complexity that comes with putting together and setting up a turntable – not to mention its arm – is onto a winner.

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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Vertere Sabre Cartridge
Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Mar 11, 2022
hfnoutstandingThis Brit-brand's range of audiophile pick-ups grows yet again with a sub-£1000 model slotting between its entry-level MM and flagship MC. Will the Sabre cut through?

In the heated-up marketplace that is 'LP Playback Circa 2022', and as with the ModWright PH 9.0 phono stage, we are also experiencing a surfeit of cartridges, tonearms and decks. With so crowded a playing field as this, Vertere – about as iconoclastic a manufacturer as analogue has seen in recent times – has to make its Sabre cartridge stand out from the rest. The company has chosen to address a usually neglected niche: true high-end moving-magnet designs.

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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Vertere SG-1/SG-1 PTA HB Turntable
Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Sep 12, 2022
hfnoutstandingBased on Vertere's flagship RG-1 Reference Groove turntable, and differing only in the bearing and platter, there's a host of innovation in the brand's SG-1 Super Groove...

Anyone who has followed Vertere's founder Touraj Moghaddam, all the way back to the early days of Roksan, cannot fail to have been impressed with his iconoclasm. A lifetime later, he's still making cutting-edge turntables from left-field. I knew he hadn't mellowed as soon as he dissuaded me from using a clamp or a weight on the LP, before removing the spindle with a flourish. That was my introduction to the SG-1 Super Groove, one model below the flagship RG-1 Reference Groove.

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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Vpi Aries Scout Ii (£1500/£450 Arm)
Steve Harris & Paul Miller  |  Nov 03, 2009
Last year, an amusing VPI newsletter listed three important events of 1978. Coca-Cola reached China, and the Grateful Dead played at the Pyramids, ‘seeking perfect sound and immortality’. Finally, ‘VPI Industries, Inc, started its first year in business. ’ And 30 years on, VPI is still family-owned, building turntables in its small factory in New Jersey.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
VPI Avenger Direct Turntable Package
Review: Adam Smith, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jan 19, 2023
hfnoutstandingHaving rolled out its first direct-drive deck in the HW-40 Anniversary, VPI has grafted its proven motor design into the flexible Avenger platform, complete with arm and MC

We may have a first here as VPI offers its Avenger turntables in belt-drive, rim-drive and direct-drive guises, the latter £36,500 Avenger Direct bringing the range to a total of four models. The genesis of the Avenger Direct was bittersweet, however, because it was inspired by, and has subsequently 'leap-frogged' over, the long-awaited VPI Vanquish flagship. In the meantime, the launch of the £100,000+ Vanquish remains on hold...

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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Vpi Classic 1 (£2695)
John Bamford and Paul Miller  |  Apr 10, 2011
For its appropriately named Classic series of turntables VPI Industries of New Jersey has gone back to basics – and should score a hit with today’s vinyl enthusiasts Is it because retro is cool? Perhaps it’s the appeal of its almost plug ’n’ play simplicity… Whatever the reason (and I suspect it’s a combination of many factors, not least the ability for vinyl enthusiasts all over the world to communicate in internet forums) it’s a fact that lovers of the black stuff seem mostly to love this big, bold and brutish turntable, one that’s undeniably a throwback to the good old days when proper turntables were: well, big, bold and brutish. If you look back to our Nov ’09 issue, where we reviewed VPI Industries’ venerable Aries Scout turntable (updated to MkII status with improved tonearm and 35mm-thick acrylic platter), you will surely agree that it looks sleek and modern – very much a deck of the 21st century, one with its motor separated from the main chassis to minimise breakthrough of deleterious vibrations to platter and tonearm. The latest Classic series of turntables, however, of which this Classic 1 is the entry model, couldn’t be more different. THIRTY YEARS ON Thirty years have passed since founder Harry Weisfeld launched his first record player (the company started in 1978 by making record cleaning machines, and there are now three current versions) and consequently the Classics are being marketed to celebrate this anniversary of turntable production.
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