Thorens TD-550 Turntable ($11,900) Review on 6moons

6moons has reviewed the Thorens TD-550 turntable with Ortofon AS-309S tonearm ($11,900) and EMT TSD15SFL cartridge ($1,800). Reviewer Ken Micallef was enamored with the unit’s Maccassar wood and chrome finish (photo), as well as its sound. Ken felt its strength fell into the categories of microdynamics, bass response, naturalness, and flow. He concluded:

The Thorens TD550 is a stellar piece of LP playback machinery. Though its lack of setup diagrams was frustrating, its sound was typically glorious. Transparent to the source, highly resolving with powerful bass notes (when on the recording), the TD550 table was also very illustrative of the entire musical picture the respective LPs presented. Every LP was a different experience, with its local color, effects, hall or studio ambience and tonality its own.

This last sentence reminds me of an evaluation technique I read about a while back. I can’t remember who the original author was, but his idea was a simple one. Instead of using the same, familiar music to audition audio systems, he suggested using as varied and unfamiliar a set as possible. The more different the records sounded, the better the system was. Makes a lot of sense to me, although I still don’t use it…

Anyway, read the entire review, then let me know if you have a link to the evaluation method described above.

Tagged as: high-end, turntable