Best Way to Use Turntable with System Cabinet

Cabinets and racks degrade the peformance of all types of turntables. They generally are not light and rigid enough for suspended TT's, and not heavy or rigid enough for mass-loaded TT's. Neither fish nor fowl. A lightweight rigid stand like the Sound Organization stand, with nothing else on it, is fine for a Linn, Oracle, etc. And a good heavy concrete base or somthing like that, is good for non-suspended TT's like the Teres, and others. It has to do with the vibration characteristics that travel up the stand and into the TT. Suspended TT's have springs in them which are tuned to low frequencies, like 2Hz. This stops all frequencies above 2Hz from entering the TT subchassis from below. Footsteps and such will affect it though. Non-suspended TT's have a mass loading characteristic which uses sheer mass to keep vibrations minimized. The more mass, the better.

Yes, Peter, the TT optimally should have its own stand, that is correctly designed for that type of TT. However, I often encounter situations such as yours where the person cannot accomodate the optimal arrangement. The answer here, is that you will make a trade-off. Either you will trade-off some of your decorating, or you will trade-off some of your sound. The most clever arrangement I've seen, was where a guy made a place that would fit his TT, inside the lower portion of his cabinet, and drilled holes through the bottom of the cabinet, so that the legs of the correct TT stand could go through the bottom of the cabinet, and contact the floor and no part of the cabinet. This allowed proper floor-coupling and rigid lightweight stand for the TT, and allowed him to enclose the unit for appearance purposes.

Peter, the very best stand that you could buy for your Linn LP12, is the Sound Organisation TT stand, that used to cost about $125. Don't know what it costs now. It is a very plain stand made from square section steel tubing, that has almost a cube shape. It is about 18" tall. This stand was made for the Linn LP12, and it is the best Linn TT stand ever made. I have personally done A/B listening tests with this stand, and without, and there was about a 10% increase in sound quality with the S.O. stand, than on an any other stand tried. Tall equipment racks full of gear, and credenzas were the worst. Also, even though there is a set of bottom rungs on the S.O. stand that could be used as a lower shelf, nothing should be put on it. If you could get a S.O. stand, and incorporate that inside your cabinetry, in the way I previously described, it would give best sound, and fit into your decor.

PS- Always have the dustcover completely removed from the LP12 when playing. It has better sound without the dustcover on it. If you have the TT enclosed in the cabinet, then just put the dustcover in a box, and leave it off forever.