As a proud owner of what I understand was Jean's first Mighty Glass-Reinforced Direct Coupled Giant Lenco, it's past time that I checked in here to express my enthusiasm for this amazing turntable and to thank Jean, and all of you who are involved in the Lenco/idler wheel drive revival.
Here's the bottom line of my initial impression. This turntable - the Black Beauty - with a $150 cartridge is blowing away my former rig that had a $3500 cartridge mounted on a VPI HW-19 MkIV tricked out as close as you can get to the TNT level. I'll need to try other arms and cartridges to get a fuller sense of what this table can do, but there's no doubt that it's huge jump beyond the VPI.
I didn't appreciate until recently that I'm actually a charter member of the idler wheel movement and probably got into it even before Jean did! My first turntable, over 30 years ago, was a Rek-O-Kut. I didn't know an idler wheel drive from a nuclear reactor at that point and was just into music, not equipment. I kept that Rek-O-Kut for nearly 20 years until I came across the audio establishment's magazines and realized that there's this whole world of shiny, modern, expensive, must-be-better equipment out there, and that all of the modern turntables use belt drives. So I finally ditched the Rek-O-Kut and got a VPI HW-19 Junior. My gleaming new turntable looked great, but there was one problem: It didn't sound as good as the old Rek-O-Kut! So I upgraded it all the way to the Mk IV+ level and put on an SME V arm and a Koetsu cartridge. That did beat the Rek-O-Kut.
I must confess, at that point, for a time, I actually did believe in the superiority of belt drives. But, thanks to my friend Dave Pogue, Jean, and tuning in on Da' Thread, I
rediscovered the virtues of idler wheel technology. Misled by the audio establishment, I wandered off the True Path for a while, but it was just a temporary diversion. I'm back!
I suspect many of us have taken this trek from idler wheel to belt drive back to idler wheel. It's a lot like the trek from vinyl to CDs back to vinyl. Whatever the latest fad or audio dogma, there's just no substitute for running the experiment, hearing for yourself, trusting your own judgment. Onward Lenco Renegades! |
I shouldn't let the year 2006 end without adding to the Great Tradition of Accumulating Evidence of how idler wheel drives crush belt drives. I'm the proud owner of one of Jean's latest creations, a beautiful piano black Direct Coupled Glass Reinforced Giant Lenco. I've tried this Black Beauty with a couple of different arms and cartridges and it's taken me a while to mount the SME V/Koetsu Rosewood Signature combo that I used to have on my previous table, a VPI HW-19 Mk IV tricked up as close as possible to the TNT level. Now I can make the direct comparison.
And the winner is...no surpise... THE LENCO!! It's not a close call. The most dramatic and obvious difference is a HUGE increase in bass power and refinement. That bass improvement is just the most easily noticeable aspect of an overall increase in dynamics. I had no idea my sweet little Koetsu was actually a thundering monster at heart! The more I've listened to different material, the more I'm appreciating that the Lenco is bringing an all-around improvement in clarity and detail. I'm hearing the distinct sound of different instruments in places where their sounds used to blur together. Words in songs that I couldn't quite make out before are now easy to hear. Transients are faster. All the Koetsu's best qualities of lushness combined with detail are heightened, and a level of PRaT has appeared that was nowhere in sight before.
Maybe even more dramatic than what the Lenco does for the Koetsu is what it does for the humble Denon DL-103. Jean isn't kidding about the Kundalini Effect - the Denon on the SME V produces a level of PRaT that induces higher levels of consciousness!
Now to invite my skeptical audio store buddies over for a demo that will rock their worldview. Happy New Year to Lenco Renegades all! |
How can the Lenco sound so good? I want to be able to explain this to sophisticated audio friends as I demonstrate my new Lenco That Jean Built. Some people will more readily believe their ears if there's a clear, plausible explanation for what they're hearing!
As far as I know there are only two things that determine a turntable's sonic quality, speed stability and the absence of any extraneous vibration where the stylus meets the record grooves.
It makes sense to me that the Lenco's 1800 RPM motor will have a momentum that minimizes motor speed imperfections as opposed to a motor turning much more slowly, and that an idler wheel provides a firmer connection to the platter than a belt drive.
I suspect belt drive turntables got the jump on idler wheel drive machines because they often had less vibration, especially after they began to be designed with the motor separated and isolated from the body of the table itself. It's taken the kind of experimenting being reported here to demonstrate that massive plinths, direct coupling, motor tuning and other techniques can reduce vibration in idler drive systems down to a level comparable with good belt drive systems. At which point the idler drive's inherently superior speed stability makes it the superior alternative.
Have I basically got it right? Are there other factors that explain how wonderful my Black Beauty sounds?
Bob |
Jean, what about my comment that vibration is the other killer of turntable sound quality, aside from variations in the speed of rotation? I used to be able to FEEL the motor vibration in my old Rek-O-Kut (and I confess I never did a thing to tune or even lubricate the motor). I think its plausible that belt drive turntables came to dominate partly because they introduced less vibration where the stylus meets the grooves, especially after they began to be designed with the motor separated and isolated from the body of the table itself. It seems to me that this explains why the vibration-killing techniques you've been developing - massive multi-layer plinths, direct coupling, glass-reinforcing, motor tuning, etc. - are what have allowed the inherently superior speed stability of idler wheel drive systems to come through and Crush the Belt Drives. (I realize that saying belt drive systems may have been superior in any way is asking for it! But one of the many things I've liked about this thread is that it's non-ideological. The enthusiasm for discovering how good Lencos and other idler wheel drive machines can sound has been based on HOW GOOD THEY SOUND, not on an ideological belief in their inherent superiority in every respect.)
Bob
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That's fascinating! You're asserting that when the new LP-12 was becoming all-the-rage, the then current production Lencos (at least the GL 78) actually had better rumble figures, as well as superior speed stability! If so, there goes my speculation that belt drives became dominant because they actually had something to offer - less vibration, to compensate for their poorer speed stability.
If that's true, then I can only think of two explanations. One is that the tonearms that came on the Lenco, Garrard, etc. weren't nearly as good as the newer designs people were putting on the LP-12, and this disadvantaged the belt drive machines by comparison.
The other is that turntable companies knew that belt drive turntables were inferior, but favored them for the sake of making higher profits, and deliberately misled consumers with advertising proclaiming the superiority of belt drives. And audio reviewers were taken in by the blitz of hype and/or subtly bought off with ad revenue and free samples. I hope this wasn't the case.
But if it was, it wouldn't be the first or only time companies have acted like that. I have a friend who was once a designer for GM. He was getting assignments in the 1970s to do things like take door handles that bolted on and redesign them with plastic plugs that push/snap into place (easier to assemble) and eventually break (so GM could make money on selling parts at outrageous markups). At the same time, Japanese automakers were going all-out for quality. The U.S. car company "cheapening" strategy raised profits for many years, but eventually caught up with them. My friend quit GM, by the way, and turned to making high-end bicycles.
If I had read Da Thread from earlier on, I would have known your views on this, Jean. But now that I see what they are, I suspect your ultimate objective is to force those degrading-for-profit companies to eat their belt drives as they're confronted with a surging demand for ilder wheel drive turntables. Bob |
Thanks for the full reply and the history. For those of us who have come into this thread more recently, and now don't have access to the early years of the conversation, this is really interesting background.
You and some of the other early pioneers of the idler wheel revival obviously had to put up with more in the way of dogmatic rejection and personal attack than I realized. But as I said in what was probably my first post here months ago, "Reality bats last." That means you get the last laugh. Bob
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My own limited experience parallels what you're saying, Jean. When I "upgraded" (I thought) from a beat up old Rek-O-Kut to a VPI HW-19 Jr., I was disturbed to find the VPI wasn't as good in just the areas you emphasize - PRaT, SLAM, bass, and gestalt. I had to spend a couple of $k more upgrading the table, arm and cartridge to turn the VPI into the better sounding machine, and even then the Rek-O-Kut beat the VPI in sheer dynamism. And then just recently I've had the experience of transfered my Koetsu Rosewood Signature from a VPI Mk.IV to the Giant Lenco. It was like going from John Denver to Pavorati! I've heard (maybe here in the thread)that Koetsus were made for idler wheel drives in the sense that Sugano listened with and "tuned" his cartridges using a Garrard turntable. Now I believe it.
You're getting into some heavy reflections in your analysis of how things went so wrong: the duty to validate Fundamental Assumptions, the need for a deep reexamination of how our Western consumer society works, the nature of progress. Those are reflections I completely agree with that apply far beyond the realm of audio. For example, the most basic assumption of most economists today is that economic progress means increasing GNP. GNP (slightly oversimplified!) is essentially the rate of flow from resource extraction through product production to the garbage dump. This is completely wrong. The object isn't to maximize the rate of flow, it's to maximize stock quality - the quality of goods and services and the quality of life. To the extent that that can be done with REDUCED flow rates by making quality things that last longer, using energy and materials more efficiently, etc., the better. And any society that narrowly maximizes on short-term profit to the exclusion of non-economic values like honesty, integrity, and fairness is blundering down a self-destructive path. So the idler wheel story is a case example of the bigger story that we need to see. But, Oh My, this is getting far too far afield from building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot!
Bob |
This history class is great! Thanks Jean and Colin.
I feel toward this conversation something like I felt when I discovered jazz. I just played rock 'n roll back in the 1970s, with no awareness at all of jazz. It was wonderful to get into jazz later and begin to discover all I'd missed. Similarly, I just played music back in the 1970s (on some decent audio gear I blundered into), with no awareness even of the existence of high-end audio. It's fascinating to hear these tales-of-the-times and begin to discover the developments and controversies I missed while I was just innocently listening to music. |
Since helping Jean connect with Srajan, I've been spending so much time listening to records on the Lenco that I'm not keeping up with Da Thread! But I want to put in my 2-bits on a week-old topic - how low-output moving coil cartridges work on the Lenco. In a word: Marvelously. When Jean mounted a Dennon DL-103 on my SME-V arm, he discovered the "Kundalini Effect" - a great name for the psychological response to a sound that is so extraordinarily dynamic that it's thrilling. Mounting my Koetsu Rosewood Signature on the Lenco/SME-V produces the "Ecstacy Effect" - the subtlety and romantic bloom nortmally associated with Koetsus but also a sense of power and pace that's not what people people associate with Koetsu. I figure if the Lenco works this well at these two extremes - big bold Dennon and sweet suble Koetsu - it must work well with any lower output MC. |
So, Jean, the ticket to Greece has been bought! I'm betting you're going to work out this visit to Srajan Ebaen, become fast creative-rebel friends, and make idler wheel history. |
Wow, Jean, the trip to Cyprus is coming right up! Is everything working out? Do you expect to be able to get online and report back in near-real time on your adventures with Srajan or will we all have to wait until your global wanderings land you back in North America? |
Jean, I suspect that you're racing right now to finish various projects for people before you sail off for your Mediterranean travels and adventure with Srajan. Before you leave, I want to express appreciation for your sense of adventure, all the trouble you're taking to pull this review off, and your dedication to the idler wheel revival. Bon voyage!
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
- Mark Twain |
It sounds like what's needed is to run the experiment. Is that possible? Can a Verus motor be substituted for a Lenco motor, or can you imagine a way to A/B a Teres and a fully modded Lenco? |
Just a quick note on the use of Stillpoints with the Lenco. I've kept the bolt feet on, but they sit on a layered base of maple and acrylic with large size Stillpoints under the base just below where the bolt feet rest on top. Adding the Stillpoints definitely improves detail retrieval, and does it in a way that sounds smooth and full. Putting Aurios under the base also improves detail retrieval, and makes for a brighter sound. Brass cones sound more like the Aurios. Which is best is depends on whether you want to go 'richer' or 'brighter,' but it's an improvement either way. |
"Perfect Sound Forever" does make the point! Of course CDs do have advantages of size and weight, click-the-remote convenience, lack of wear, programmability, etc. that helped them take over the mass market. But "perfect sound"? NOT!
Still, I'm not yet convinced that the LP-12 was an inferior machine promoted as superior. It would be fun to set up a listening comparison between a stock Lenco, with its not-so-good arm and sprung suspension, and a Linn LP 12 with one of the better arms used on it at that time. If the Linn belt drive really was better in some ways, it's really important to acknowledge that. It would take nothing away from the GLORY of the modern Giant Direct Coupled Lenco!
From what I've read of him, it's hard to believe that Linn's founder Ivor Tiefenbrun would have ever pursued a cheapen-it and convince-them-it's-better strategy. Here are some quotes from an interview in Stereophile with him a decade ago. Actually, he sounds a lot like...you, Jean... a true lover of music, an unconventional thinker willing to buck the herd, calling on people to listen to the evidence of their ears, taking his new turntable around to audio dealers and challenging them to compare it to their best.
* * * *
When I grew up, we had a hi-fi system in our home. My dad was a hi-fi enthusiast. When I got married it was natural to put a hi-fi very near the top of my list of things I needed.
I rented a two-ring gas cooker for a fiver just to do until we bought one, and bought a clothesrack to hang my clothes on. We moved into a completely empty house without a stick of furniture. I went out and bought a hi-fi system that cost the price of a good small car. My wife was utterly appalled. She said, "We don't have any chairs to sit on." I said, "We don't need any chairs. We've got all we need—we've got music." You can do lots of things to music: you can dance, make love, relax—you have a bed, you have a floor. If we had to start again, we'd do the same thing.
* * * *
People felt I was some kind of charlatan. The funny thing is that most marginal, or even nonexistent, improvements were welcomed, and yet here was a very large one that was easily demonstrable. But people actually didn't even want to listen. When they did, of course, they were flabbergasted.
It seemed obvious to me that the quality of the input signal was crucial in the performance of the total system, and that getting information off the record was substantially the task of the turntable; it was a platform for both the record and the arm and cartridge combination.... People said to me that turntables can't alter the sound because all they do is go 'round and 'round. I would say, "Well, my speakers just go in and out...."
* * * *
I took it to shops, knocked on the door, and asked if they wanted to listen to it. Most people told me it made no difference and so they didn't listen. Some said they would. Most heard a difference. Some thought it important, some didn't. And some said, "That's real exciting—how can we sell a thing like this?" And I said, "The same way I'm selling it to you. Play it for the people and let them hear for themselves what it does, and let them decide if it's worth it to them. Let them decide whether we deliver the performance."
* * * *
...there were times when a supplier would change something, which meant that we couldn't make the product unless we compromised performance. And a few times, because we refused to do that, we jeopardized the whole company.
There was one point where we didn't make anything for two and a half months because we couldn't solve a problem with motors. Eventually, I managed to persuade the supplier—I think I bought a couple thousand motors a year from them at that time—that they should change their motors to accommodate us....sometimes it nearly killed us. But being Scotsmen, we "die in perfect squares." We never take a step backward. |
