DaveyF, how did you determine that the T-Kable is the weak link for the Ekos SE and why do you think it’s a requirement for that tonearm? It would be interesting to see a picture of your WT tonearm mounted on your LP12.
Using a Well Tempered arm on an LP12 makes no sense to me. The arm uses liquid as its bearing and the arm board is prone to movement because of the suspension. Why would anyone mix movement and liquid on a suspended table that bounces up and down?
I would say that the table shouldn't bounce up and down when playing a record to the extent it would affect the silicone damping fluid. I used a damped unipivot on a 'bouncy' TT with satisfactory results many years ago. Like to know how this arm is a good fit on the Keel. The WTA might be an interesting option on the SL 1000R. It does make the LP12 even more fiddley to set up.
Why do you think the suspension on an LP12 is moving up and down all the time? In fact, the suspension doesn't move one bit as one can see that the platter rotates evenly with the top plate and there are no deviations. Remember, it is important with any turntable to get it level and on a stable surface. I suspect if you got a chance to hear a WTA 'Black' arm on a LP12 you wouldn't continue to think it makes no sense @Classicrock The WTA 'Black' arm is indeed very difficult to set up correctly ( on any table I would have to believe). The arm requires a very careful set-up and it is not anything that I do myself. The subchassis was drilled out specifically for my arm, and once again, a great 'fettler' is required for this. ( Luckily, i have one of the best in country local to me!) The custom 'Black' arm is not exactly like your video, that arm has the dual piece head shell arrangement ( inferior), while mine has a one piece arm/head shell wired with the same Van Den Hull tonearm cable as used in the SMEV. The arm itself is also a anodized black ( which is why it was called 'Black' by William Firebaugh_) arm and happens to work amazingly on the table due to its very light weight. @John76 I know that the T-Kable is as described because the difference between it and the Nordost Tyr was easily heard once replaced. This was done back when I used to own an Ekos 2. Apparently there are folks who have replaced the T-Kable with Nordost on their Ekos-SE's, (which would make great sense, if it can be made to work with the suspension??) although i have NOT heard this set-up. Posting a photo on this forum is a laborious and PITA process ( anyone else agree?). My system can be seen here: Sonus Faber Guarneri system - Virtual Systems
The comments below are obviously only my opinion based on my experiences and knowledge, so may not be universal, so why do some forum members, especially UK dislike Linn? This is only a bit of fun to answer and question that. Yeah, it was only two generations ago, so not long enough to have been forgotten and definitely for some, forgiven! Any heavy handedness by Linn / the press, expecially Haymarket publications and dealers was not evident in the dealers that I worked in and knew from around 1983 onwards. This doesn't mean that it didn't occur previously and that all dealers were not high pressure. Huge pressure!! I do remember playing games of pool with a couple of Linn reps with the shop owner about 1985. If we lost we had to take an extra pair of Linn Index speakers, which hadn't enjoyed good reviews! I seem to recall The Flat Response had a joke about Linn Krap speakers..... The Linn / dealer split in early 1993 had a lot of fake news reported in the UK Hi-Fi press. A Linn dealer who was cut off after multiple customer complaints to the manufacturer and repeatedly selling unopened turntables is hardly going to be singing Linn's praises!! Linn introduced their own amplifier in 1986, so that alone split Linn / Naim dealers and the press. From the late eighties Linn hardly ever advertised in UK Hi-Fi magazines - removing a revenue stream would hardly have endeared them to the press. So, what did Ivor / Linn do for us, or do differently from normal convention? This is an interview with Ivor from 1994. Most of what he says would seen by many as plain old common sense. A Wee Dram of Scotch: Linn Products' Ivor Tiefenbrun Whatever your views about their products, what he says is very interesting, gives a hint of why some dealers remained, some didn't. The comments about one man build vs flow have always made total sense to me. Linn have done this since the legendary Agnes Munro first assembled a Linn Sondek LP12 from component parts, doing it better and quicker than the previously used assembly line. Yes, Linn stopped making the Basik and Axis (which I believe would have taken a major re-design to comply with stricter H&S regulations), but in no way did they almost withdraw from the turntable market and in several interviews Ivor stated that he wanted Linn to be the last manufacturer of turntables. Yes, turntables and vinyl have had a massive resurgence, but in the nineties Linn introduced the top plate with extra stud in 1992, Cirkus bearing in 1993 Ekos 2, Arkiv, Arkiv B Linn Arkiv B phono cartridge and the Linn Linto phono pre-amp. Why would Linn introduce new products and upgrades if they didn't think turntables had a future? Linn had been looking at digital for a very long time and were actually the first UK manufacturer to apply for a licence to manufacturer CD players. They did a lot of research and spent a large amount of money on R&D, this, review goes into more detail Linn Karik/Numerik CD player How many companies build a professional studio digital converter (Peter Gabriel bought the professional Numerik for his studio) to get a better understanding and try and improve on the Sony unit? One of the guys I worked with used to be an engineer for@ a well known Hi-Fi manufacturer. He said that their first CD player literally replaced the front panel, losing two buttons from the well known donor player. When I asked if they had upgraded any components, the reply was no. Despite the extra cost, the reviews gave it an extra star!! The Ikemi also featured a Linn designed transport. SoundStage! Equipment Review - Linn Ikemi CD Player (11/1999) The Linn CD12 was the reference CD for a number of magazines in various countries and even some(!) non-Linnies respected the build and sound quality. A friend owned the last spec CD12 and a very well set up (and sounding) full range, fully active system. The original Linn Klimax DS was better than the CD. Obviously The DS range is very well known, but Linn already had gained plenty of experience with the Kivor range overture-audio.com | The Linn Knekt Kivor System For many years turntables accounted for around 10% of Linn's business, so Linn only surviving on expensive upgrades for the LP12 (which despite being one of the biggest selling turntables from an independent company has only sold around 100,000, very many of these not having never been upgraded and some for 30 years, is simply not true. As I mentioned (somewhere!) I don't believe that they will recoup the development cost of the Karousel bearing back, but not having heard one, if all the extremely positive feedback is anything to go by, the LP12 has received a big sonic upgrade. My nearest dealer has the Technics SL-1200GR and SL-1000R together with Linn, Michell, Pro-ject and SME on demonstration. @tryitfirst, one of the co-owners was considering buying a SL-1200G to fit a different arm, other owners and staff have different preferences, but apparently even before the Karousel, LP12s still sold. Many people have commented that the latest Majik spec LP12 (Karousel fitted as standard) outperforms a far higher spec LP12 with Cirkus. Especially at this wretched time with Covid, as I haven't (sadly!) run a turntable for well over a decade, I am not going to go out of my way to listen to a LP12 with Karousel. Yes Linn moved away from CD players in 2009, the superiority of the Klimax DS over the CD12 and Philips discontinuing the laser probably making the decision relatively easy. Cheaper streaming components that do the Job better? I haven't listened to everything that's on the market, but obviously Linn offers updates to it's DS range and some people believe that more expensive products don't better them: Linn Klimax DS network music player Even people with all Naim systems have been known to appreciate the sonic qualities of Linn DS technology! I don't think that "They actually went very digital and multiroom until they almost went bust in 2005." were the factors being the massive cash flow problem of 2006, when sadly people did lose their jobs. Linn / Castle, all Tiefenbrun owned restructured, Castle moving to Linn's headquarters at Eaglesham and, two years later the head count was back up, the multi-million pound annual investment in R&D reinstated with profitably restored. Of course technology moves fast, hence Linn overhauls its Majik DSM entry-level network streamer | What Hi-Fi? I haven't worked as a Linn dealer since 1995, not bought any Linn Hi-Fi for over a decade and have no connection with Linn, except for previously selling and owning their products, which I still use. All of the above is simply to offer an alternative opinion to the very strong anti-Linn feelings that are regularly posted on this (and other!!) forums. It's a free world and people can buy what they like and hopefully obtain a lot of pleasure playing back recorded music. Have Linn invested millions in R&D to develop expensive krap? Going back to Ivor demonstrating the LP12, sitting on top of Linn Isobarik speakers which have upwards facing drive units to demonstrate the effectiveness of the suspension, all you have to do is listen for yourself in a comparative demonstration to hear if Linn make worthy products. Yes Linn openly make continuous improvements, which no-one forces anyone to either listen to, yet alone buy. This has occurred with the LP12 with the Karousel bearing since @Airbus lit the blue touch paper again. To me the obvious comparison is a Technics 1200G against the almost identically priced (latest spec!) Linn Sondek LP12 Majik which may actually answer the thread starters question!! In all seriousness, happy listening whatever your poison.
I don't obsessively follow Linn, but I'm not sure how any of the above contradicts my opinion that they abandoned, at least partially, vinyl for CD and then streaming, if you look at the LP12 upgrades then there aren't anywhere near as many post Cirkus, or as I'd point out the period when CDs became the dominant format, as the decade before, I don't think much of the millions in R & D was going on getting better sounds from vinyl. Perhaps someone knows the breakdown of serial numbers, but I would guess that Linn's sales of LP12s in the last twenty five years, especially in the UK, are pretty minimal, although in fairness I doubt that Michell, Avid, Roksan, Vertere, SME etc., have huge sales of their top decks in the UK either, perhaps the one manufacturer who may buck that trend is Rega, but the reality is that unlike the early eighties vinyl isn't the dominant format and is a less important aspect of a hobby that itself has greatly declined. I think that from a business point of view Linn's embrace of CD and then streaming made sense and even felt a sense of pride that a British company could design and build what was arguably a world beating CD player, but as an outsider I did get the impression that they'd almost abandoned the LP12, or at least greatly neglected it whilst those other companies kept record decks front and centre and did keep innovating and improving at a greater rate. Why do I still have a certain attitude towards Linn as a company, rather than towards it's products, well firstly those magazines I read in the eighties which constantly told me how the LP12 was the best deck in the world whilst ignoring most of the world's decks and when my ears clearly told me something different, then there was the Linn room at the Bristol Show, other than one or two individuals who will remain nameless it's the closest to a cult I've ever encountered in this hobby, verging on a programming session, finally there was the smugness of some Linn owners who likely hadn't even demoed the Linn let alone compared it against anything else to play their small selection of approved audiophile titles. I have to say that the local shops were actually pretty even handed and I spent many happy hours in Park Street listening to assorted Linns and Roksans, sometimes with identical carts and possibly even an identical arm on occasion, I never hated the LP12 as a record player it's just that once I got to hear Pink Triangles and later Roksans and other decks I saw through the myth that it was the best deck and I guess I still resent the way it was marketed and presented as such without any real pushback from the specialist press.
Part of the problem is that some people think saying the Sondek isn't the greatest turntable of all time is a kind of sacrilege, and then they get emotional and vicious. I use Linn speakers and phono stage. I like them. They don't have to be the best. I have given up using a Sondek because I enjoy other decks more. Saying things like that can be taken as hate speech or at least get you sneered at and patronised. It's brand religion, a more or less effective marketing strategy, but I grew out of it.
Yeah, I mentioned this way back near the beginning of this now extremely long thread. Didn't seem to get any notice. jeff
Given the similarity in price, this makes a lot more sense, IMO. I would still go for the Linn, particularly since it now includes the new Karousel bearing and will have the new Linn Krane arm fitted as standard. ( albeit at a slight price increase over the outgoing Jelco sourced model). @tryitfirst My arm does not use the golf ball.
Don't see how Linn will hold the MSRP on a Majik with a new Karousel bearing included. It would be fun to do a shootout with the 1200G thou. jeff
That would be fun. My experience was that the biggest upgrade to my SL1200 was removing the power supply and putting it in a separate box (total cost - about a tenner). I think that was a bigger upgrade than a fancy bearing or tonearm. I wonder if the new 1200s are better in this regard. Notice that the SL1000R has the power supply in a separate box, as does the Sondek...
I love the ingenuity of the Well Tempered arm bearing design, but the puck raises some questions: - where is the axis of pitch rotation (for navigating warps)? - during louder passages, does the arm slowly move in the time axis? - is it possible to over damp an arm, producing a too polite response? With the golf ball, the axis of pitch rotation is the centre of the ball, and silicone oil viscosity presents only modest resistance to the ball spinning in situ. But with the puck, a lot of fluid has to be displaced to ride a warp. In the pitch axis I expect it acts like a very high mass arm. Don't play warped records is the natural response, but no record is really flat, and downforce at the cartridge must be affected by the puck's resistance in the pitch axis. The goo is very good at resisting sudden movements, but a sustained pull, however gentle, causes the arm to move. Any loud passage has to draw energy into the cartridge to produce a signal, so over the space of a few seconds, this arm will glide back and forth in the time axis. The effect would be speed instability over a one, ten and sixty second scale as the arm goes with the flow. Dynamic bursts will produce a latent slowing, followed by a picking up of the pace as things grow quieter, not entirely unlike what happens when belt tension increases and decreases, swaying the sub-chassis on a Sondek. The combined effect of Sondek suspension energy storage and Well Tempered goo-based hysteresis may be cumulative.
Lots of theories from the arm chair, LOL. None of which are accurate IME. I'm no mech engineer, but I can assure you that one of the best mech engineers that I know looked at this arm and was highly impressed! William Firebaugh knows what he is doing! The 'puck' as you call it does NOT ride low in the fluid, maybe that should be considered. I know you have never really looked at this design in depth, or perhaps you did and didn't fully comprehend it, either way, it works amazingly on this table despite your theories. Question, what is increasing and decreasing the belt tension enough to sway the sub-chassis in the LP12 in your opinion??
Any Linn will find it difficult to compete on price given the basic deck without power supply and lid (oh and base) sells for £1770 in the UK ( I assume this has the new bearing). The new arm is not even listed on the Linn website yet. I would predict that unless you add a Lingo 4 it has little chance in competing on pitch stability with the 1200G.
We are talking about the Majik LP12. The new version will be sporting the new Linn Krane arm (as the Jelco is no longer available). The price will be increasing slightly due to the difference in the arm cost. The price was kept the same while the Jelco arm was available, even though the Karousel was included. Pitch stability has never been a major issue that i am aware of with any Linn LP12... regardless of the power supply. I wouldn't predict anything about the 1200G vs. the Linn LP12 Majik unless you have heard both for yourself.
I think everything you say is very fair, though at Hi-Fi shows that I attended it wasn't just Linn who had a cult following and smug owners. You only have to read some other forums to know that attitude is alive and well with some manufacturers and disciples to this day. To be honest, before I heard a LP12 for the first time, those ringing endorsements actually made me negative towards it..... I think that many people would be very surprised at the relatively small number of sales of specialist Hi-Fi products, especially turntables, some being dozens rather than hundreds and extremely few reaching thousands yet alone tens of thousand. Even though I spent my money on a LP12, I took every opportunity to hear alternatives and introduced myself to other local Hi-Fi dealers, listen to and learn about their products. I thought the Pink Triangle was a very interesting product and the battery supply an excellent idea, though even a couple of PT dealers had "concerns" about the build quality and reliability issues. If you look at most of those LP12 upgrades pre-Cirkus, excepting the Lingo which was my favourite upgrade, it is mostly fasteners, strengthening the plinth, removing a potential distortion from the subchassis and tighter tolerances on the bearing housing / inner platter and springs. The Lingo and Cirkus were far more significant. I think that it was 1979 that I started reading Hi-Fi mags and they certainly recommended Linn and Rega monthly, but there were alternatives STD 305 and the Logic DM101 from the top of my head. The underlying message was listen for yourself, though a number of reviewers seemed to be LP12 users. I'm sure that later the Pink Triangle received good reviews and the Roksan Xerxes most certainly did.
When the two Pink Triangle owners I knew both told me to not buy one due to reliability issues I took their advice, they did sound wonderful when they worked though and if I came across one at the right price it's definitely something I'd pick up even if four decades late. Somewhere on line is an interview with someone at Michell who mentions their total sales up to that point, they are shockingly low, but probably only outperformed by Rega and Linn from the UK, I guess that sales of Townsends and similar lower profile makes are tiny.
Rega sales now must dwarf any other UK manufacturer and be one of the biggest specialists in the world. At one time Linn sales were quite serious for an expensive product. Michell are indeed very small, now operating out of an industrial unit. Linn and Rega have quite large factories. As for PT, AK (now Funk Firm) still has issues with producing a reliable and decently finished product I am told.
Well I used a sondek for 20 years. Loved it. But its not perfect. Very well made. Very well supported. Technics? The current top of the range looks The business. Speed stability and build quality Top notch. For the money concerned you Should audition both as they are Completely different in terms of sound Quality.
Back in the mid to late eighties, I seem to recall a monthly allocation, a mix of Planar 2 and Planar 3 of over 30 per month. I'm sure the bigger dealers would have taken more and cannot think of a UK specialist manufacturer who would anywhere near approach those numbers, though the Systemdek IIX possibly (deservedly) sold a fair few for a far shorter period of time. When I ordered my first proper turntable a Rega Planar 3, there was a waiting list and I was originally quoted three months!
1) I own, use, and have experimented with Well Tempered Amadeus, Linn Sondek/Ekos2 and Technics SL-1210MK5. 2) I studied engineering and have a degree in physics. 3) If what I say isn't accurate, it would be better to explain why rather than blithely dismissing it. 4) Firebaugh is extremely clever but he would be the first to tell you that his designs are not perfect. 5) The Well Tempered arm is excellent, as I have said, but that does not mean that its limitations are not open to analysis and discussion. It has been considered. The point I was making is that when the arm rides over a warp, the front of the puck must pull a highly viscous fluid (100,000 cSt) upwards, and the rear of the puck must push down an equivalent amount of the highly viscous fluid. The fluid is thicker than treacle. I have a bottle in front of me and if I turn it upside down it takes five minutes to settle. This means that the effective mass of the arm in the pitch axis, necessary for riding warps, is very high and will significantly deflect cartridge suspension when riding a warp, putting the cartridge outside its optimum performance equilibrium. Due to its rotational symmetry the golf ball versino of the arm does not suffer from this limitation which is probably why all current WT arms use the golf ball. Instead of criticising my "armchair" analysis with some sort of dogmatic appeal to authority, please be specific about why you think this analysis is wrong. The golf ball is a very major improvement to the arm design, even for unwarped records, and I would be tempted to upgrade. I certainly have looked in depth at this design. I have a patent application in process for an arm bearing and I considered this arm along with many others when developing an alternative. I agree that it works amazingly well, and should do on any deck, but the observation that I made about the arm swinging forwards during high energy passages and backwards during cadence is accurate, even if the scale and significance of this movement is open to dispute. The musical signal, which, although small, is periodic, and therefore capable of generating resonant and cumulative effects. A long time ago I suggested that this design fault could be solved with a small but inelastic ligature tethering the sub-chassis to the plinth. Doing such produces an audible effect on a Sondek. I note that Thorens have actually implemented this idea in one of their latest suspended sub-chassis designs, the TD 1601: If Linn were to introduce a solution to this speed/energy problem it would be hailed as the greatest thing to happen to a Sondek ever. But you can try it now with two bits of tape and some thread. Since I am called an armchair theorist, why don't you try tensioning your armboard towards the near right corner of the plinth with a thread securely fastened with two longish bits of tape. The ideal thread angle is probably towards the motor or front edge of the sub-platter. You can also hear a similar speed-stabilising effect by dropping a screw into the gap between top-plate and arm-board near the front of the deck. Ideally the screw will be a millimetre or two wider than the gap, so that it is wedged there between the top-plate and arm-board. Either method of removing the major component of horizontal elasticity has a remarkable effect on pitch and timing. This is not rocket science.
@tryitfirst IF you think that the musical signal is capable of increasing and decreasing the belt tension enough to sway the sub chassis, then I think nothing more needs to be said. A while back, there were several 'upgrades' designed by the Funk Firm that were designed to off-set the torque of the LP12 motor...I heard these. None of them would go anywhere near my LP12, YMMV. As to your 'theories' about the WTA 'Black' arm, since you have not heard one on the LP12...they are all simply theories, not congruent with my findings at all....and I own this exact combo. Like you said this is 'not rocket science'-- so go and hear the LP12/ WTA Black arm combo and then come back with your 'updated' thoughts. Until then, maybe admit that everything else is simply 'armchair' theories.
