Most of these aren't worth more than $50. Servicing them is a lot more. I've restored a few and found that they do sound nice and smooth but are definitely not high fidelity. If you need tubes, buy used or very inexpensive ones. If it has rca inputs for phono, any high output TT will work. You can't hurt anything. If your turntable sounds very quiet and weak, it just means your cartridge is too low of output.
Some folks who are "good" have taken the amps out of these, restored them and used them with nice systems. However, if you look at the tubes and transformers in these, you will see that they really were never meant to be high end.
As Rich said above, most were furniture first...yes, a friend of mine had a console with all mac tube gear and thorens tt-not the norm.
Some folks who are "good" have taken the amps out of these, restored them and used them with nice systems. However, if you look at the tubes and transformers in these, you will see that they really were never meant to be high end.
As Rich said above, most were furniture first...yes, a friend of mine had a console with all mac tube gear and thorens tt-not the norm.