Simple upgrades for Mark Cowan's Thorens TD309

For Thorens lovers, TD309 is a real beauty!

It is a well-designed 3-point (Tri-Balance) sprung belt-drive turntable with aluminium sub-platter, underslung counterweight and glass platter. It also comes with electronic speed control for easy switching from 33.3 rpm to 45 rpm or vice versa.

The owner of this beautiful award-winning Thorens deck shown below is Mark Cowan, a British citizen, residing in Kuala Lumpur.

Pictures : courtesy of Mark

" Is there any tweak for this superb turntable to improve its sonic performance? " it's not unusual for us (tweakers) to ask a question like this. May be more strange if we don't!

Mark has upgraded the 12 mm glass platter with a 24 mm acrylic platter (from me), a standard practice for those who find glass platter sounds a bit too bright. By further adding a Thorens rubber/cork mat to the acrylic platter, the effect is even better and many who have tried this combo would gladly agreed.

24mm Acrylic platter

20mm Acrylic isolation platform

Have a closer look, don't you think the Thorens TD309 looks pretty on the acrylic isolation platform besides using it primarily for isolating the deck from ground-borne vibrations? Sometimes in tweaking, we face the dilemma of "look" or "performance"; at times we may have to sacrifice one for the other. But in this case, you are lucky; it's both look and performance, perfect match!

In addition, Mark uses my brass record clamp with bull's-eye level to hold the record in place as well as to level the acrylic isolation platform with brass points and brass footers.

Oh yes, the upgraded deck deserves a good cartridge too and Mark has wasted no time to replace the stock entry level Audio Technica MM cart with a Rega Exact unit. You can imagine how wonderful it sounds now!

Thanks Mark, enjoy more analogue music!