Thorens TD 206 Turntable and TAS 267 Cartridge

When I became obsessed with high-quality audio — in the 1960s, when woolly mammoths roamed the earth — there were two serious choices for playing records. There was the automatic turntable, which could play as many as a half-dozen LPs in sequence. (Back then, the six sides of, say, an opera recorded on three LPs would be numbered like so: disc one, sides 1 and 6; disc two, sides 2 and 5; disc three, sides 3 and 4. Stack the discs on the spindle, sides 1 through 3 in order, bottom to top; when all three discs have been played, flip the entire stack upside-down, load it on the spindle. All six sides will have been played in numerical order.) This new development was a more precise and respectable version of the common record changer, which often damaged the LPs stacked on their spindles. Entering this market were models from the famous British company Garrard, joined by German newcomers (to North America) Dual, Elac Miracord, and Pereptuum Ebner. These first-generation autotables had all the conveniences of a changer but were gentler with one’s vinyl, and were better designed as turntables proper, producing less wow and flutter, and working with cartridges that could track records while exerting less damaging pressure on delicate grooves.