Why would a rigid, gimbal arm have a problems with a sprung suspension table? (FWIW I have a modified RB250 on a sprung suspension Merrill table and it works fine). Unipivots sure, air-bearing arms, sure. But as gimbal arm with bearings in two planes, the Regas are just as well suited to a sprung suspension table as the Linn arms which have the same sort of pivot set up.
Technics. You'll never need to buy another deck in your lifetime. I don't think I can go back to belt driven
It may be the armboard/design but it appears other arms sound better. Of course it will work though there are better matches is what I am saying. It seems the RB300 gels on Michell decks which are suspended but a different design and have a rigid metal armboard. It was pointed out by Randoms that it didn't sound that great and a Linn arm was a better match on the LP12.
No, not usually recommended, and the corner brace has to be notched. The Rega arm works a treat on suspended turntables, a good example being Doug Hewitt's, Manticore Mantra was often fitted with the "Moth" arm (Rega RB250, cheaper version of the RB300). The Mantra was a very good turntable, which outperformed the Rega Planar 3.
Yes, I offer no explanation, simply explaining my experience, and it was my choice to go against the dealer's advice. The RB300 "worked" on the LP12, but when I did listen I preferred the Linn arm. Like the Manticore turntables, I agree that the RB300 gave good results on Michell decks.
Technics 1200 GAE(G) vs Linn LP-12 Own both, love both. Different strengths, yes. Lots of variations of the LP-12 but all are good. Great comments as always by Agitator but in the end you pays your money and takes your pick. Trust me, you'll be happy either way. Differently happy perhaps, but Haaaaaaaaaaappppppyyyyyy!
Not to change the subject but, let's mix it up just a tad. How will the G stack up against a fully refurbished TD124? In the same ballpark price wise Professional Thorens TD124 Garrard 301 401 Restoration and Repair Parts
Sondek here. I would not be happy with a Technics - but it's not a performance thing. I don't think I have ever heard one in a good to great system so cannot really say. I simply wanted to be part of the Linn family, influenced totally by the '80s UK mags I bought in Australia. I upgraded my Thorens TD160 to a Linn and it was an upgrade, no doubt about that. Metaxas Class A amp, Yamaha NS1000s, Garrott P77, Russell Woolcock preamp. The slightly used Linn slotted in perfectly.
Have you by chance heard a Lingo 4 compared with the Lingo 2? I have a 2 and been fantasizing about a Radikal but can't afford it.
I haven't, but have spoken to a couple of dealers and friends whose opinion I trust and more often than not, agree with. On this forum, I don't know if @Newton John would like to add his opinion. If I was to assemble a LP12 from the parts I have, a Lingo 4 would certainly be one of the first items I would audition for a potential uprade. When the original Lingo was released, I used to demonstrate a LP12 with Valhalla, Ekos and Troika, the then top spec LP12, against a LP12 with Lingo, Akito and K9. If anyone was ever in doubt about the significance of turntable and power supply, then this showed it, with 9 out of 10 having a clear preference for the significantly cheaper Lingo'd LP12. The one who didn't, bought a Troika for his existing Ekos, he wanted and needed a cartridge to replace the very heavily used Karma. He bought a Lingo a month later! The Radikal is incredible, but an expense no consideration solution. My personal view, is that makes it a lot of money, not expensive or a rip off. Linn invest more time, people power and money in looking into ways of improving sound quality, than most other companies, sometimes over a decade for an item to come to the market, sometimes the original idea doesn't reach the market. This financial investment is unseen to most, but the benefit is trickle down performance: what they learnt in the development of the Radikal, undoubtedly aided the design of the Lingo 4. Have a listen and see what you think!
Well convince me the Radikal motor and PS does anything essentially different than the Michell Orbe controller and DC motor. The whole Orbe deck is not a lot more than the Radikal and how do they justify an extra 2.1K for the Klimax casework? I know the Orbe TT design is superior to the basic Lp12 bits. Linn probably put a lot of effort into improving something as far as possible which plays to people wedded to the look of the TT or it being the best TT out there (which it never was by any stretch) rather than designing a new high end deck from ground up (which would have cost a lot more and possibly justify the asking price). I am not anti Linn apart from some aspects of marketing and the high pricing. Once owned an Axis which IMO outperformed a Valhalla LP12 with same Basic Plus arm. You actually got a Lingo supply in the price which was £300 incl arm in 1988. Linn pricing is eyebrow raising today. I don't doubt you can get great results if you are prepared to spend a lot. If you have an old deck there are some much cheaper third party upgrades I am told outperform Linn's own product (The Sole comes to mind). Still would say 1200G better for OP due to his location and lack of faffing around to optimise performance.
I wouldn't attempt to convince you, or anyone else. If I had the products in front of me, I could do an unbiased demonstration, optimising everything to the best of my ability, and give any interested parties a chance to decide for themselves. Does the Radikal do anything essentially different? Obviously not, BUT, Linn designed it to be better. In the context of top end, highly revealing, active, time aligned, room corrected systems, that "better" could be significant. How do I justify the 2.1K for the Klimax casework? I don't have to, I am no longer a Linn dealer, and cannot afford one myself. Linn offer it in the Akurate casework, so anyone can hear if the casework gives a sonic improvement. Having recently seen a roughly finished jig at work, machined from solid aluminium, which cost £1,400, the cost of the Klimax casework, which looks incredible, with an immaculate finish, suddenly makes more sense. No-one is forced to buy top of the range, statement products. Michell, have produced excellent turntables more many years: I have sold several. At the time I preferred the LP12, so I spent my money on the Linn. In many ways, I think it would have been significantly easier, quicker and cheaper for Linn to build a top end turntable from scratch. Linn always try and support existing products and customers. As you know from the Axis, it is very easy to manufacture an excellent turntable by fixing an arm to a cheap board, isolated from the plinth and motor by three lumps of sorbothane!! The Linn Axis was a great turntable, and like the Manticore Mantra, clearly outperformed a Rega Planar 3 / Technics SL1200 MK2, without costing top end money. I sold my brother a Linn Axis with the Basik Plus replacement arm, Akito, and he still uses it. The caps have been replaced on the otherwise excellent motor PCB! Incidentally, when deciding to stock Michell, the Mantra and Axis turntables, all the sales staff compared the Mantra to Axis using the same K9 stylus in a blind dem. Four marginally preferred the Manta, I preferred the Axis by a large margin. Follow the tune!! I have compared and demonstrated the Axis with Basik Plus and K9 to LP12, Valhalla, Basik Plus, same K9 stylus, and later, Axis, Akito, K9 to LP12, Valhalla, Akito same K9 stylus on dozens of occasions, and nobody prefered the Axis. Many were happy with the style, performance and operational ease of the Axis, some the classic styling, better sound, and potential for future upgrades of the LP12. (As a retailer I once had to set up an Axis to ship off to a Hi-Fi magazine for review. Linn simply took one off the line and left it to me to set up. A K9 was correctly aligned, the arm set parallel on an average thickness LP, both 33 and 45 set up for no movement on my unusually flat and correctly centred strobe disc. A listen ensured it performed exactly as it should do - much better than a Rega Planar 3, with same cartridge. The magazine review came out, and eventually the turntable returned. The "review" was mediocre at best, suggesting that it was no better, or worse than the Rega, and that they had fitted their preferred cartridge. On inspecting the turntable, the previous excellent arm bearings had been badly damaged, their cartridge misaligned with the arm not parallel. This alone rendered it performing substantially under an undamaged Rega Planar 2. The best was yet to come. The inner platter sleeve had been forced into the bearing housing, leaving a small part in the bottom of the mirror finished and finely toleranced bearing housing. No one I know had either come across this either previously or since. The "expert" audio reviewer, otherwise known as a journalist had trashed a practically brand new turntable and arm! In the context of this, the review makes absolutely no sense - as supplied it outperformed a Rega Planar 3 as returned it was substantially worse than a Dual 505-2.) To put things in perspective, I believe Technics sold around 3,000,000 SL1200's before it was discontinued, and the Linn LP12, one of the most popular high end turntables, and in constant manufacturer for 45 years, around 100,000. I don't know how many turntables Rega have produced since the original Planet, coincidentally also introduced in 1973, but the reason there are so many third party parts available for both Rega and Linn is that there are more potential sales. Some very well regarded turntables have sold dozens, or hundreds rather than the still paltry 100,000. Since 90,000 had been sold by 1993, when the Cirkus was introduced, I think this shows how small the specialist Hi-Fi market actually is. The Sole is a good product, which filled a gap from standard sub-chassis to Keel, but even John, the Sole's manufacturer doesn't believe it replaces the Keel. It is interesting that the Sole is now the same price as the Kore: I haven't a clue of the relative merits, or indeed how many have been sold - in Technics numbers, very few. By having three levels of subchassis performance, Linn certainly confuse matters, and not having compared the various combinations of power supply and subchassis, I couldn't honestly offer an opinion. I do think that it would be possible to assemble a second hand Linn, with Lingo and Ittok / Ekos, for less money than the 1200G, that would certainly offer excellent sound. As I mentioned in a previous post, I haven't heard a 1200G, but understand it to be an upgrade in every area over the 1200 MK2, and sonically much better. Without comparing it to any other turntable in a optimised top end system, I couldn't say which is the best choice - with a detachable headshell, the Technics is clearly compromising ultimate performance. This doesn't mean that it isn't good enough for most people, but to say that it is the only turntable that anyone would ever need is clearly wrong. I totally accept that it may be the only turntable that the majority would ever need, and it certainly can be an install and play product. Personally I've never understood the attraction of a detachable headshell, and five different cartridges - it suggests unhappiness and compromise with all, and it is several more connections to degrade sound over time. Sadly I've also come across a couple of SL1200 MK2, with notchy bearings, but more LP12s with stripped armboard and misaligned arm collars, obviously these are not undamaged, and not performing anywhere near their optimum. I am totally out of the loop with turntable development over the last ten years, any comment is based solely on my preferences through demonstration - many moons ago!
I really like the SL1200, actually thought of getting a new one but than I acquired an LP12 and now I’m a Linn fanboy newbie. Lol
Until I got my first (only) turntable with a removable headshell at the beginning of this year, I also had the suspicion that extra connections might affect the sound. Maybe it does but I guess the number of solder points inside a phono stage (for instance), makes this pretty irrelevant. It certainly sounds fabulous so I don't worry about that. By the way I am now able to swap, use & enjoy a whole range of cartridges I had laying around - they all sound slightly different, none are 'bad' & variety is good (...does eating & enjoying a whole range of different food types rather than just sticking to my favourite suggest "unhappiness and compromise"? I don't think so!)
I have been fortunate to hear the comparison of Lingo 4 with previous version - once at Linn factory and once at Peter Tyson in Newcastle. In my opinion and that of most people there the Lingo 4 was a big upgrade. They also did demos of the new Urika and I thought there was a bigger difference between the two Lingos than there was between the Urikas. By Linn's usual standards, the Lingo 4 must be one of the most cost effective upgrades they offer for the LP12.
You also get a new motor with the Lingo 4, and Lingo 2s are very much in demand and selling for good money. You can see how positive Newton John's opinion is above.
Businesses don't usually need to justify their pricing - that's a matter for their judgement of what the market is willing to pay taking into account their costs. These costs are necessarily high because the Klimax case is cut out of a solid block of aluminium using some pretty fancy machinery. I believe that this previously outsourced process has recently been brought into to the Linn factory after a hefty investment. It's up to the customer to decide whether the extra cost over a cheaper case is worthwhile. I guess that could be a question of a perception of improved sound quality or matching the look of other Klimax gear. I haven't heard an A/B comparision so I can't comment on sound quality difference but have seen comments online by people claiming that the Klimax Radikal is better.
Fancy casing is just a way to upscale prices. Loads of Hi-end gear that has used casing to disguise a pretty basic design. I don't know why Linn would buy their own machinery when specialist manufacturers can do this cheaper. Does not require a machine specific to that product but a capable tool with a bit of CNC programming. The Keel was actually made by SME and may still be, their core business once being aerospace, a direction they are returning to. Case in itself won't necessarily improve sound but if true might suggest some extra isolation material is used internally or for the feet. Just been discussing this on the CD player thread and I have one such CD transport model. Outperformed by an apparent lightweight. I suppose Linn had to find a way of boosting profits with LP12 production since 1993 being 1/10th of previous. Perhaps pricing does put customers of however as other brands are making more TTs than ever.
I actually went down this path. I auditioned a TD124, Garrard 301 and the SL1200G. I chose the Technics. It captures the best aspects of the rim drives, but it is quiet and maintance-free, among other things. I love the look of those classics though.
Castle Engineering have been producing precision parts for both Linn and the aerospace industry for years! A sound investment at Linn Products - Machinery Market News
Owned the Linn Sondek LP 12 and the Technics SL-1200 Mk II, preferred the SL-1200 Mk II for my needs. And the SL-1200 GR goes beyond that. In today's world for most, the only turntable most people ever need, and practical and reliable, good sounding, and just works.
Not at all - I have a 1200G with a stereo cart, and - because of the ease of the detachable headshell - will be getting a mono cart and a cart for 78 rpm records.
Actually one of the most recommended arms for the LP12 is the unipivot Naim Aro which I have on my LP12. Scott
