Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II


“For those who want the moon but can't afford it or those who can afford it but like to have fun and work with their hands, I'm willing to give out a recipe for a true high-end 'table which is easy to do, and fun to make as sky's the limit on design/creativity! The cost of materials, including 'table, is roughly $200 (depending, more or less), and add to that a Rega tonearm. The results are astonishing. I'll even tell/show you how to make chipboard look like marble and fool and impress all your friends. If there's interest I'll get on with this project, if not, I'll just continue making them in my basement. The next one I make will have a Corian top and have a zebra stripe pattern! Fun! Any takers?”

The Lead in “Da Thread” as posted by Johnnantais - 2-01-04

Let the saga continue. Sail on, oh ships of Lenco!
mario_b
I'd like to wax poetic at this point on the merits of the Klipsch Cornwalls which are HUGE by modern standards (almost cartoons of speakers with those huge 15" woofers and super-wide baffles), and so as low on the WAF scale as it is possible to be. But, if any of you can get these beauties past the spousal alert system, these are so far THE most actually [tonally] neutral and balanced speakers I have ever heard: we're talking studio neutral but with HUGE dynamic reserves, detail and bass and speed. And to boot they SCREAM with low-powered tube amps. AND, to boot, they also sound great with powerful solid state amps, which goes against everything one hears about horn-loaded speakers!

I've run them with the 12-watt Leak Stereo 20, which, at least with a rebuild using the latest state of the art components (and paper-in-oil capacitors at critical areas) is incredibly fast and detailed with beautiful bass, and sounds like a Krell with the Cornwalls. And I've used them with a Perreaux 100-watt pre-power (SP2/1150B) with which they sound excellent, with no hint of aggression, brightness, hardness or "horniness".

The Cornwalls, with their big 15" woofers, reflex-loaded to boot, go DEEP in the bass, which is DEEP, tight and beautiful, and so which goes a LONG way to showing just how potent the Lenco bass is when compared to other machines. The Cornwalls are also VERY revealing, easily showing shortcomings (and improvements) of various electronics, tonearms, cartridges, also in terms of PRaT and gestalt. Bad electronics need not apply. I'm hoping to get my hands on an ARC SP-8 as preamp and a Classic 60 as driver amp to set them up, with of course a Lenco, with likely the SME IV/Clearaudio Concerto as source (the workshop floors are very bouncy, so unipivots are just to trickey/unstable). Now THIS should be a truly stellar vintage system (though the ARC stuff isn't SO vintage, I want the best I can put together from experience: ARC SP-8 + Classic 60 equals SUCH PRaT and gestalt that we have the Kundalini Effect!!), for that extra power, as the Cornwalls can suck it up and dish it out! Those visiting Eastern Ontario are invited to drop by, try some of the local award-winning beer (in Germany no less!!), Beau's beer (with painted-on tractor on glass bottles, and on ceramic bottles with rubber caps, cool). Perhaps you'll see the local beauties riding by on their horses :-).

Also, this weekend I expect to hear the Reinderspeter Lenco via the Perreaux/Cornwall system, so some very important stuff coming up VERY soon. Can't wait to fire it up!!

Have fun all, hope to see some of you for a Beau's beer and Lenco Madness!
Sounds pretty cool. I love my vintage living room system, and on a smaller scale, I also really like my Advent table radio in the work shop - it's amazing how they were able to get early SS to sound like tubes. But at the same time, early SS instrument amps sounded like crap. (I had a Standel once, with a 15" JBL.)

Lenco news: Whew! I have finally finished another Lenco. Not new - but a rebuild of Lenco #1 with the L59. I added another layer of MDF, a new finish and wait for it... a Trans-fi Terminator tonearm. Just did a rough set up yesterday for the first listen. My expansion tank is leaking (not sealed yet) and I didnt feel like doing all the leveling necessary for a linear tracker, so I could only listen to half a side but what I heard was very encouraging :) Pics to come.

Mike
Hi from Montréal,

I let myself be convinced that the Lenco project should be fun, so I found a realy good condition L-75 with a stuning sound producing Shure M91ED that I installed temporarely on my Denon DP37F and I cant take it off, I was just wundering if the rega 250 or 300 arm was still the weapon of choice for this project...

Thanks
Al
Hey Al, et al,

Read the review of the Trans-fi Terminator on Enjoy the Music. The reviewer makes the point that it costs about the same as a souped up Rega but is in a higher league, sound-wise.

My newish system seems to be coming together all at once and with the Terminator, I got the most transparent sound out of this system so far. Also, the stuff about enhanced bass is no joke.

Mike
Thanks Mike,

I read the article, wow it sounds like a good choice, I also read the manual and even a clutz like me could set this up. I have to say that the arm on my Denon was very very easy to set up and I dont hear any of the issues or problem's that the reviewer mention's, but we are talking about a Lenco here....

Thanks again
Al