amorite0428 wrote: Is it tru that these swiss/german gramophones are of lower quality than Pathé or other big brands ?
It can be true, but rarely.
In many instances a bad one is not because it has a Swiss motor etc, but it's because the cabinet maker/ gramophone manufacturer have put a badly designed horn in the cabinet, or ignored tracking issues and put the tonearm in a position that will cause record wear, or similar issues.
Yes, companies like Thorens did produce some cheap & crude motors, tonearms & reproducers, but the majority are every bit as good as what major companies were using, with the exception of Orthophonic machines produced by Victor/HMV.
Many of the well known & respectable major companies, like Aeolian & Sonora, in fact used Thorens & Paillard motors, tonearms & reproducers that were exactly the same as what lesser known off brand machines were supplied with, but for some strange reason some collectors are under the false impression that because Sonora was an American brand it's superior & worthy of a place in their collection, but will consider Brand X with the same Paillard components, better horn design & a cabinet of equal or better quality to be worthless junk because they've never heard of the brand name or it's of foreign manufacture.
Many American Pathé machines used Heinemann "motors of quality", which are in fact of inferior quality that it's Swiss counterpart, particularly those made by Paillard.
When looking at a potential off brand purchase, I think it's more important to consider things like pot metal and tracking issues rather than writing it off as junk because it used Swiss made components.
In many instances, having a motor made by Thorens or Paillard is a good thing, because these companies produced just as many motors over the years as Victor did, so parts are very easy to find.
Many main springs were of a common size used by some clock manufacturers, so these can be also be readily replaced with brand new springs.