Anyone Remember Joel Thorner: The Great Tt Specialist?

[timspell]

It's been almost two years since the passing of Joel Thorner, who was one of the greatest turntable specialists on the planet. He ran the Turntable Factory, which was known for it's gigantic supply of NOS TT parts and, of course, Joel's ability to restore with precision any TT ever built.

He valued others who appreciated TTs and always took the time to answer technical questions.

Joel really left an impression on me. Do you remember him?

His tribute: http://www.garage-a-records.com/ttrepair.html

[bauzace50]

Hi,
where were we who did not know? Great to hear of his talented services, and sorry to hear of his passing.
bauzace50

[bbarbarosh]

Yes very much so.
Hello My name is Brian Barbarosh and I was the second to the last person that had the pleasure of working with Joel. I worked by his side for two years and although our time together was short he taught me soo much in that time. He also changed my life and outlook on everything. Shortly after his death I tried to carry on his mission and tried to run a smaller version of the turntable factory. Unfortunately I was unable to do so do to the lack of Joel and a lot of unfortunate events in my own life. I ended up returning a lot of unrepaird machines back to unsatisfied customers and closed the doors as for that I apologize greatly. I guess Joel just instilled way to much confidence in me to carry on.
Any way Joel was a great man as well as a self proclaimed genius. He would take extreme amounts of time out of his day just to answer emails and phone calls ,to just give out information so that the vinyl could live on. he was the most interesting man I have ever met and probably ever will. My only regret is that I didn't have a longer time with him. I would loved to have been able to learn more about what made him who he was.
I would love to talk about him with anyone who remembers him I love to talk about the things he did and the people he helped. I also still do repairs on technics and give out any information that could be helpfull to others .i also still carry a ton of old turntable factory NOS parts for dual and garrard.
Also the original turntable factory website was unfortunately taken down I had no ability to stop this however if any one is interested I have access to the server dump which has all the versions of his website and for those of you who don't know his web site was a plethora of information. His business and personal ethics will be missed greatly as well as his talents.
R.I.P Joel Thorner I will never forget what you taught me.
With great love
Brian Barbarosh

[EdAInWestOC]

Yes very much so.
Hello My name is Brian Barbarosh and I was the second to the last person that had the pleasure of working with Joel. I worked by his side for two years and although our time together was short he taught me soo much in that time. He also changed my life and outlook on everything. Shortly after his death I tried to carry on his mission and tried to run a smaller version of the turntable factory. Unfortunately I was unable to do so do to the lack of Joel and a lot of unfortunate events in my own life. I ended up returning a lot of unrepaird machines back to unsatisfied customers and closed the doors as for that I apologize greatly. I guess Joel just instilled way to much confidence in me to carry on.
Any way Joel was a great man as well as a self proclaimed genius. He would take extreme amounts of time out of his day just to answer emails and phone calls ,to just give out information so that the vinyl could live on. he was the most interesting man I have ever met and probably ever will. My only regret is that I didn't have a longer time with him. I would loved to have been able to learn more about what made him who he was.
I would love to talk about him with anyone who remembers him I love to talk about the things he did and the people he helped. I also still do repairs on technics and give out any information that could be helpfull to others .i also still carry a ton of old turntable factory NOS parts for dual and garrard.
Also the original turntable factory website was unfortunately taken down I had no ability to stop this however if any one is interested I have access to the server dump which has all the versions of his website and for those of you who don't know his web site was a plethora of information. His business and personal ethics will be missed greatly as well as his talents.
R.I.P Joel Thorner I will never forget what you taught me.
With great love
Brian Barbarosh

Brian,
If you would like I can provide a place where the old website can reside and be available for those who could benefit from the information.

If you are interested in finding a place for that information to be hosted please send me a PM and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I don't want anything in return other than to have the info available to people who love this goofy hobby.

Ed

[mmarston]

Yes very much so.
Hello My name is Brian Barbarosh and I was the second to the last person that had the pleasure of working with Joel. I worked by his side for two years and although our time together was short he taught me soo much in that time. He also changed my life and outlook on everything. Shortly after his death I tried to carry on his mission and tried to run a smaller version of the turntable factory.... (snip)

R.I.P Joel Thorner I will never forget what you taught me.
With great love
Brian Barbarosh

Wow, I'm glad I stumbled across this. I owe Joel a debt for patiently walking me through some of the issues I ran into trying to get an SL-95B a friend gave me running, replying to my e-mail questions with patience, & respect for a different breed of tech (RF, 2-way radio, wireless modems, etc.) and no expectation of any remuneration. He helped me solve all but the last issue, and I was just about to pay him back by sending him the almost completely restored unit for that last little magic touch, when I heard he had lost his health battles. It was a sad day for me; even though I never met him, I felt I had lost a friend. We did have some kind of connection by then... a shared love of music and hi-fi... A gentle soul and very much missed.

I hope you take Ed up on his kind offer. I've seen a *lot* of his posts on (another forum) and he is a good guy. (I'm "Mike27" over there... moniker from a ham radio roundtable with Mr. Mike, Mikey, Michael, and a couple others having the most popular boys' name of the 1950s...)

Best to all,
Mike

[bbarbarosh]

Sorry it took me so long to respond. This is all I can provide. Do what you will with the information. I would love to see this web page re posted somewhere some day.
I'm sure Joel would as well
http://web.archive.org/web/200707031319 ... index.html
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20060101 ... actory.com

[mmarston]

What a delight to see the Garrard page again.