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Prior to the museum visit, the Swiss Thorens distributor below had demonstrated how audio lends itself to unexpected settings. His showroom is part of an active farm which includes cows and ostriches.


The stocked-to-bulging music floor hides behind the uppermost window of the yellow building. The neighbor's cows could care less of course. It takes human - um, intelligence to lust after expensive hifi.

The Straussen Ranch Ponterosa and samples of ostrich eggs.

As ours is a universe of polarity, a slow snail promptly made an appearance next to the fast bird. Or shall we say counterpoint to segue right back into our musical subject?

The above system ran the phenomenal Thorens monos I reviewed, the preamp I aim to review next, the current top Thorens turntable presently with moon man Ken Micallef and an Italian line-source speaker with a long ribbon and eight mid/woofers per side. A catered barbecue downstairs meanwhile addressed more carnivorous instincts.

Frank Blöhbaum, Thorens's contract engineer for the preamp and monoblocks, had sent me the curves for his favored C3g German postal pentode which runs in both his line-level and speaker-level machines. Can you say "linear"?
These statement electronics around a novel, patent-pending circuit challenge not merely the state of the art. They also challenge the people trying to sell them. Nobody expected such machines from 'the' turntable company which had attempted electronics before. It'll take time to convince press and populace alike that the second time is no rerun of memories best forgotten. You already know my take on the TEM 3200 amps. Heinz Rohrer now has promised a review sample of the matching TEP 3800 preamp sometime in October when a traveling loaner returns from England.

Rohrer's man in Germany indicated that the TEP 3800 to him was perhaps even more exciting than the monoblocks. If mirrored by my own findings (and the Germans at Stereoplay have already embraced the Thorens as their new reference machine) the international audiophile community best pay attention to Thorens not merely on the vinyl front. While Triangle Acoustique's attempts at crossing from speakers to electronics failed catastrophically; and Dennis Had's attempts to move Cary from tube electronics to loudspeakers dumped all inventory into the lap of an ill-prepared Bernie Byers who had to outsource for a complete redesign before launching Soliloquy; Blöhbaum's electronics are the real deal. Whether the say-so of some of us in the press is sufficient to make 'em stick is of course another matter. As a former sales & marketing audio guy, I can fully appreciate the ramifications which now face the Thorens sales teams around the world. However, such a conceptual disconnect -- SOTA electronics from a turntable firm -- has not prevented Alvin Lloyd of Grand Prix Audio fame from crossing over into a well-received turntable. From racks 'n' stands to a SOTA direct-drive table surely must be even more of a stretch than Thorens attempts now?


In the end, much depends on Thorens's marketing man Stephen Harris of AudioPlus. My small contribution to the tail end of the Thorens meet was a press member's perspective on dealing with audio manufacturers. My plea was what I imagine any other press representative in the hifi biz would have echoed. Pepper us with press releases so we know what's going on. Keep your websites up to date and preempt any and all reasonable questions about you, your company and your product by having detailed answers to them on your site. I was born with six planets in Aquarius. Whatever the musical Hair believed about the age of Aquarius, there can't be any doubt that we're living in the Age of Communications. Sadly, most manufacturers fail at proper and effective communications. And what business is the press in if not the business of communication and information? If manufacturers want to improve their working relationships with the audio press, they need only provide us on a constant basis with the essentials of our trade: relevant and fresh verbal and pictorial data that's factual and comprehensive. Then we can do our jobs in a timely manner...