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Garrard also had this, but there it acted on the motor axle, while the Thorens had it acting on the step drive wheel driven by a belt. Still not enough special features? Well, there's still a contactless, patented speed fine adjustment via eddy current brake. The meticulous final checks of every single piece of equipment – 22 alltogether –, which included the balancing of the platters and the motor, would still do credit to any modern high-end company.Īnother difference to the then competitor Garrard was also the common base of drive and tonearm, which were mounted on the torsionally stiff chassis, while the Garrard separated drive and tonearm. All components are amply dimensioned, and no expense was spared to ensure a long life for every TD 124. designing a device with a built-in expiration date, did not yet exist at the time. The concept of planned obsolescence, i.e. Maybe not decisive but still nice to have: By means of easily accessible screws, the 124 can be put into level – the built-in spirit level makes it even easier. A further advantage: constant temperature and lubrication conditions guarantee maximum synchronisation and speed constancy. Therefore the outer plate is back at the set speed just as quickly after an interruption. The two-part design offers yet another advantage: the outer platter can be stopped quickly thanks to a clever clutch mechanism, while the massive inner plate continues to rotate undisturbed. Rubber buffers are used to decouple the complete chassis from the frame. It is elastically suspended from the heavy base plate to additionally keep vibrations away from the cartridge. On the other hand this has the advantage that it hardly tends to vibrate, especially since it is balanced with the highest precision. The motor is rather weak with its power of only ten watts. A pretty good strategy for low bearing noise and maximum reliability. The bearing clearance is between 20 and 40 µM. The cast iron inner plate provides good magnetic shielding and has a high moment of inertia, so that even mains fluctuations of up to 10% won't affect the synchronisation.Ī 14 millimetre thick axle that has hardened and polished, is housed in a sophisticated bearing construction and is manufactured with an accuracy of five micrometres. The latter is damped by six rubber discs distributed on the heavy inner plate and is isolated from the record with a rubber mat. Above a heavy inner plate weighing 4.5 kilograms, rests another plate made of aluminum and weighing only 500 grams. The platter is built from two individual parts, however for a different reason than comparable designs from today. Here, we are going to take a look at some of its most striking features, as for example the heavily ribbed die-cast aluminum chassis with a total weight of ten kilogramms that provided constant conditions – an idea that came from traditional mechanical engineering.