Hi, San Marcos. If you are getting excellent results with your Thorens weight, I would suggest maybe not worry about it, just enjoy the music. You can go crazy always wondering if something else might work just a little better.
The Thorens weight is well-engineered to reduce record warpage and to help the record lie flat for superior tracking. In this regard alone, the Thorens weight, being slightly heavier than the Titanium Stabilizer, will do at least as well. At 1.2 pounds, it might be a little heavy for some suspended tables, though.
The design emphasis of Herbie's Titanium Record Stabilizer is the micro-vibrational interface between weight and record. In this regard, titanium versus chrome, titanium wins every time. Chrome imbues a slight glare into the audio palette, minor yet distinct. Titanium is extremely linear sonically and has a unique ability to subdue ultra-high-frequency micro-vibrations that cause some of the edginess in record playback.
When used together with Herbie's Way Excellent II mat, the Stabilizer helps the mat to more efficiently decouple and isolate the record. The Stabilizer also helps keep the record flat, but primarily affects a stabilizing action to the record. Reducing micro-vibration of the vinyl surface allows greater stylus tracking accuracy and a more faithful rendering of the recorded groove.
I would make a confident guess to say that the Titanium Record Stabilizer would give a better overall sonic and musical result with your TD-160, simply because of the integrity of the materials involved. As every system is different in many ways, I wouldn't venture to guess how significant a difference there would be.
Steve Herbelin
Herbie’s Audio Lab
