By My earliest memories of a turntable were when I was about 10 years old. My parents had this large, all-in-one console located in the den. If I remember correctly, six albums could be loaded onto a rather tall center spindle, an arm would then swing over on top of all six records and drop down to stabilize everything. When the play button was activated, the bottom record on the stack would drop down on the platter, the tonearm would lift up, move over the LP, lower itself, and the record would then play. At the end of the record, the tonearm would pick back up, move out of the way, the next LP would drop and the process repeated itself. You could have about two hours of music, depending on the actual length of each LP.
Somehow, audiophile turntables morphed into a fully manual operational style where, basically, sonics won out over convenience. The practice of playing an analog LP became completely manual. Running from the chair to the turntable and back about every 20 minutes became the accepted practice. Well, okay, Paul, we are audiophiles and sonics are preeminently important. What would be especially nice, I have always thought, is if a turntable could exhibit excellent sonics, had some level of convenience beyond fully manual, yet was not five figures or more expensive. I present to you the Thorens TD 404 DD turntable, which meets these challenges and more.
What Makes the Thorens TD 404 DD Audiophile Turntable Special?
- I could almost start and stop this review with the tonearm auto-lift at the end of the LP.Yes, the Thorens TD 404 DD will lift the tonearm at the end of the record. It simply picks up the tonearm when the record ends and the turntable will then turn off. What a fantastic feature! This means all those audiophiles who have fallen asleep while playing an LP, which I have done many times, will no longer wake up to the frightful sound of the stylus scraping against the paper label.
- The motor is a high-torque, direct-drive design, which is intended to be used with heavier platters. This motor maximizes the moment of inertia, which increases speed stability. In fact, the speed stability is claimed to be equal to or less than 0.04 percent. It is absolutely silent, and I never heard it running throughout my review time.
- Turning on the turntable is very simple. Place the LP on the platter, press either the 33 or 45 button on the left, place the tonearm over the record, and press the lift button on the right. The tonearm will then lower itself onto the LP. The lift button will also raise the tonearm anywhere along the record. To turn the motor off, press the zero button on the left; the tonearm will rise off the LP and the motor will stop. I found this entire operation profoundly easy to use and it worked to perfection. And of course, there is the added benefit of the tonearm picking itself up if playback is unattended and the tonearm reaches the end of the lead-out groove. In fact, for the very first LP I played, I did not touch the tonearm when the record reached the end. And, just like it was designed to do, the tonearm lifted up and the turntable turned off. Really nice.
- The base is a sandwich construction of MDF, which is heavily dampened to reduce vibration. A five-millimeter aluminum top plate offers rigidity and resonance control. The very attractive base may be ordered in one of two walnut finishes or a piano gloss black finish.
- There are three height-adjustable spring-loaded feet. These feet did an excellent job of controlling inbound vibrations. In fact, I had no problem whatsoever with footfalls caused by me walking around the audio room. This is a problem I have had in the past with a couple of other turntables in the same basic price category.
- The tonearm is the Thorens TP160, the same knife-edge bearing tonearm used on the Thorens TD 124 DD, a somewhat legendary turntable among Thorens fans. The removable headshell is bayonet-style. Multiple headshells with different cartridges are therefore easily interchangeable. There is a very small set screw in the headshell, which may be loosened to change the azimuth adjustment.
- A strobe control is included, accessed by a push button on the front right of the unit. The strobe works for both the 33.3 and 45 RPM platter speeds. Pushing the zero button on the right to the up position unlocks the strobe control. The button may then be rotated to dial in the platter speed. Once correctly set, the button is then depressed to lock in the speed control.
- Rear-mounted tonearm connections are gold-plated RCAs, as well as left and right balanced XLR connections. There are also connections for an optional separately-purchased power supply and an on/off button for activation. An on/off button for the turntable’s operation and a 24-volt barrel pin connector for the low-voltage AC transformer complete the rear-mounted connections. Thorens also conveniently included several AC adaptors in the event something other than an IEC 15A AC male plug for US-based customers is required.
- A dust cover is conveniently included. However, I left mine in the box. I really don’t want to use a dust cover, and I also did not want to potentially damage my review sample.
Why Should You Care About the Thorens TD 404 DD?
There are any number of legendary turntables. There are more than one or two that provide many years, some more than 50 years, of continuous operation. There are an adequate number of turntables with direct drive motors. There are also a wide range of turntables in the $6,000 to $7,000 price range. Satisfying all four of these conditions is a pretty neat trick, and one this turntable pulls off to perfection. Thorens has been in business building something since the late 1800s, so they are a very well-established company. They have a well-deserved history of quality and performance. Factor in a moderately reasonable price, and the entire package is actually somewhat unique in high-performance audio. Combined with exemplary sonics and striking good looks, the Thorens TD 404 DD is a turntable almost any audiophile will be able to enjoy for many years – especially when you fall asleep listening to an LP!
Some Things You Might Not Like About the Thorens TD 404 DD
- I found the setup of the tonearm somewhat fussy. For instance, in order to raise or lower the tonearm height, better known as VTA, it was necessary to loosen two set screws located near the bottom of the center tonearm shaft. One was inconveniently located beside the platter on the bottom of the tonearm’s tower base, making it difficult to access. Accessing these screws was done with a small Allen wrench – one I dropped and wound up crawling around on the floor with a flashlight to find. It was, of course, completely my fault for dropping the Allen wrench in the first place. Once the two set screws were sufficiently loose, a separate tool was then inserted into a series of holes around the bottom of the center shaft of the tonearm base. Once inserted, the tool was rotated and the tonearm could be raised or lowered. I would prefer a simple dial calibration to effect VTA, which would eliminate the need for tools, but I realize this option may be too costly for a turntable at this price point. In my experience, the more tools required to accomplish a rather simple task, the more problems there are in the effort.
- I would really prefer four feet. For the record, I had absolutely no problems whatsoever with the three-feet configuration on the Thorens TD 404 DD. However, four feet seems like a more stable approach.
Listening with the Thorens TD 404 DD Turntable
With my reference turntable, the European Audio Team (E.A.T.) Fortissimo (read review here)delivering such amazing sonics, I was curious how the Thorens TD 404 DD would compare. Admittedly, the E.A.T Fortissimo is much more expensive at about $20,000, and almost $30,000 when you include my Ortofon MC Verismo cartridge. Yet, as is so often the case, the sonic comparison was better than I would have guessed. Thorens prominently mentions the bass response of the TD 404 DD. I can attest that this is exactly correct. Maybe due in part to the six-pack line array of no less than six REL S550 subs (read the review), the bass was clean, powerful, and something I found important and very believable. When bass response sounds like it is almost live, I am summarily impressed. I actually found, over the course of many LPs, very little in the way of sonics I did not enjoy. And, for that matter, reduced sonics are generally attributed to the recording quality, not exclusively a design flaw of the turntable. Now, was the Thorens TD 404 DD on the same plateau as my reference E.A.T. Fortissimo? No, it was not. Nor should it be. What really matters is how the turntable sounds relative to its cost. And in that particular metric, I thought it sounded excellent.
I must admit, Beautifully Broken, the October 2024 Grammy Award-winning album by Jelly Roll, was not from an artist or a genre in which I would typically be interested. I was immediately drawn to the first track, “Winning Streak.” My wife surprised me with this LP, along with three others one day, and suggested I use them for turntable reviews. Musically, it is an amalgam of country and rock. The recording quality is better than average but certainly not world-class. It is, however, very listenable. And, I thought, it was an appropriate test for the Thorens TD 404 DD turntable. As I discovered with most of the LPs I played, the bass response was excellent. The drums had a certain unexpected quality of impact and slam, especially on the snares and the toms. Mids were adequately portrayed, and the guitar work had just enough of “distorted sound,” so common in rock and roll, to sound like rock and roll. This is essentially a country track but, I would argue, it could legitimately be considered rock as much as anything. The recording had no obvious flaws, and I found no issues whatsoever with the quality of playback. Where this track really shines is in its message. Faintly in the background, at about the 30-second mark, the line “hello, my name is Jason” can be heard. It is only when you realize his real name is Jason DeFord that the real meaning of this track is revealed. Jelly Roll is talking about himself. This track is about hitting rock bottom and turning one’s life around. Combine a deeply personal message with a well-crafted recording and superb playback, and it is no wonder I enjoyed this song.
After the incredible success of their first release, Led Zeppelin released Led Zeppelin II in 1969. In 2014, Jimmy Page remastered the original release, from the master tapes, no less, and the result was nothing short of remarkable. On the track “Whole Lotta Love,” the forceful guitar sound so common in heavy metal rock and roll begins with an immediate intensity. Very soon thereafter, John Bonham’s unmistakable drum track was the fierce, power-driven sound for which he was known. Collectively and individually, these instruments sounded both powerful and articulate on the Thorens TD 404 DD. Here again, Thorens was correct in their claim of excellent bass. At about the 1:30 mark, Bonham starts hitting the cymbals, and the sound almost exploded on my system. In the backfill, there was an entire chorus of percussion and other instruments creating sounds that moved back and forth across my audio room. Transients were popping up and going away all around the soundstage so quickly, it made following them difficult. All in all, it was sonically very impressive. This continued until about the three-minute mark when Page lets go with yet another high octane guitar riff. And all along the way Robert Plant is, well, being Robert Plant. In the end, the 2014 remaster is a significant step up and listening to it on the Thorens TD 404 DD was a testament to how good a job Page did with it.
Will the Thorens TD 404 DD Turntable Hold Its Value?
At the time of writing this review, US Audio Mart had a total of 346 listings for turntables. Technics, a very popular brand, had a total of 37 turntables for sale. Thorens had a total of nine. One metric for any product holding its value is owner retention. With such a small number of Thorens turntables for sale, the value proposition and resale value seem very good. With fewer listings showing up for sale as a used product, those pre-owned products that are for sale will typically carry a slightly higher resale value than a widely available product. It seems therefore reasonable to expect a resale value of 50 percent of retail price or more, at least as an opening asking price. Conversely, an owner of a Thorens TD 404 DD may not want to sell, so resale value may not really matter.
What is the Competition for the Thorens TD 4304 DD Turntable?
Without question, the $6,599.99 Technics SL-1200GME Master Edition turntable comes first to mind. This turntable is a part of a family of Technics turntables, which range in cost from $1,399.99 all the way to $24,699.99. All these turntables are direct drive, and the 1200 series of product has unquestionably been the most popular. The 1200 series has also been in production for over 50 years, with only one or two production stoppages. Both Technics and Thorens share some very similar features. Both are direct drive, both have a multi-layer, heavily damped chassis and both have an innovative tonearm design. Technics boasts a twin-rotor, delta-sigma coreless motor for speed stabilization. While it does have the very popular pitch control found on nearly all SL-1200 model turntables, it does not have an auto-stop capability. It is a fully manual turntable.
While not nearly as expensive, the Audio-Technica AT-LP8X Semi-Automatic turntable is also a direct drive model with an auto lift function at the end of the record. It carries a retail cost of $1,299 and even comes with a pre-mounted Audio-Technica AT-VM95EBK moving magnet cartridge, plus a dustcover. Similar to the Thorens TD 404 DD, the Audio-Technica features pushbutton controls to start, stop, lower and raise the tonearm. While it will play 78 RPM records, whereas the Thorens TD 404 DD will not, the Audio-Technica AT-LP8X does not have any provision for the fine adjustment of the platter speed.
For those who may remember, Dual has been building turntables for many years. They were especially popular in the 1970s but lost some of their notoriety when CDs became both available and very popular. However, they still build turntables and the Dual CS618Q is a direct drive, with an auto lift at the end of a record and will turn off the motor. The tonearm is a twin gimbal design, making an azimuth adjustment basically unnecessary. An Ortofon cartridge and dust cover are also included. It even has a built-in phonostage, which makes it very attractive for a beginner in the audiophile hobby. Rear-mounted RCA outputs connected to an integrated amplifier, along with a couple of bookshelf speakers, make a very nice, budget-friendly audio system. The Dual CS 618Q retails for $1,599.
Final Thoughts on the Thorens TD 404 DD Turntable
For most of us, the audiophile hobby is one of dedicated precision. Matching components for the best performance requires committed research to find the ideal mix for superior sonics. Speakers need to be positioned exactly right for the optimal delivery of stereo sound. Some audiophiles spend hours, weeks even, in the continuing attempt to find the perfect balance of recording, component and placement to have a remarkably engaging sonic presentation. Somewhere along the way, fully manual everything became somehow the norm. Especially with turntables. I sometimes question my own choices when I look at the total cost of my analog setup, compared to the amount of time I spend listening to LPs. I mean, digital is just much simpler to put into actual practice.
So, a semi-automatic turntable such as the Thorens TD 404 DD is a welcome asset. This turntable allows the listener to pay attention to the music, not how many tracks have played and when it will be necessary to jump up and run to the cue lever. Falling asleep while listening is no longer a concern. When you couple this feature with outstanding sonics, which almost any audiophile would think are exceptional, the Thorens TD 404 DD becomes a very wise choice for those wishing to move beyond digital and enjoy an analog LP. The build quality is outstanding and, when you consider it is a direct drive, semi-automatic turntable with a dust cover at a moderately attractive price, this is a turntable which will be easily welcome in any audiophile system. It is simply a well-thought-out product made by a company that has been building things for well over 100 years. I enjoyed my time with the Thorens TD 404 DD and I can recommend an interested user demo a unit to find out more. I feel anyone who does will be quite impressed. I know I was.
