Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Have you compared it to the Rena Air 400, that Vic recommended?

Only by the specs Mumford. By spec, the Dolphin appears to be the exact same pump that Vic uses. The Rena AFAIK, is not adjustable. At $21, what's to worry? At that price, I consider this pump to be disposable if it works for more than a year.

Mike

Hi Jean,
This is my first post here, I'm a bit more active over on Lenco Lovers but I noticed Mario mentioned my name so I thought I'd join in. First off I'd just like to say thanks for inspiring me to rediscover the world of Lenco. A Gl72 was the first "separate" deck I owned way back but I was then seduced by the belt is better dogma of the 70's. An ebay listing by a guy selling a Garrard 401 which stated he was keeping his Lenco got me curious and a google led me to this thread. The rest as they say is history.

Anyway, down to business. I see we are both fans of the RS-A1 arm, a weird but wonderful contraption if ever there was one! I first heard it some years ago at a high end dealer not too many miles from where I live. Having recently bought one but not from that dealer he saw my posts on Lenco Lovers and emailed me with a few tips (they are not all bad) as he uses one himself. Firstly, they frequently use cartridges with threaded holes on the RS. Get the two lined up tight and screw the bolts in. I tried this and it worked fine. I suppose there is a chance that the two threads will be out of sync when you do this so maybe a tiny sliver of something compressible could be use between shell and cartridge if you can't get them up tight.
The other thing he told me I sort of knew, and I dare say you do to. The rotating headshell has nothing to do with an attempt to align the stylus tangentially like a parallel tracking arm but everything to do with decoupling the headshell from the arm. Alignment can look absurd if you watch this arm traverse a record but it works wonderfully!

Changing subjects, like many before me I have built fairly massive plinths using ply/mdf as per your recipe and been very happy with the results so I have no doubt that your even bigger, heavier plinths make for excellent vinyl replay. However, with a desire to make something less bulky and stimulated by various commercial but expensive manufacturers I have been trying out slate as a plinth material. I'm really quite excited with this material and have managed to make a small form 88 which to my ears sounds very fine indeed, so much so that I doubt if I will make another ply/mdf plinth. The plinth is about 44x40x25cm and weighs in at 45lbs or so.
See
Litle Stan
I think it is a worthy alternative to the tried and trusted methods, so I suppose my question is have you thought about giving this material a go?

Regards, Ian

Hi Ian, yes, I am in fact waiting For a piece I can play with! For thiose wondering, I've been cut off from the internet out in the country for weeks now, but am moving back to town where I will once again regularly report on experiences and experiments.

Just a quickie from here at the public library: I tried Reinderspeter's top-plate, and those looking to it to "control" the Mighty Lenco exhuberance, SLAM, bass, and excitement, look elsewhere! The bass is deeper, tighter, more detailed (!!!) and even more powerful! The PRaT is there in spades, elsewhere the race against a glass-reinforced original top-plate is close-run. To remind people, the original Lenco top-plate reinforced with glass-epoxy slugged it out with the SME 30 (famed for its powerful bass) where, in the bass, it was overall more powerful, tghter and more detailed, depending on the recording, to the point it was thought by some (not all) the Lenco was coloured. Well, the stronger steel top-plate makes the bass even more powerful and exciting. Full auditioning and comparisons has not yet been done.

On the Garrard Front, I have to declare the Kokomo bearing mod from Germany a necessity, as it easily doubles the Garrard's sound quality all on its own (when the Garrard is Direct Coupled to a massive plinth). The clarity, speed, air, information-retrieval and bass all improve vastly.

When I'm connected at the new downtown address, I'll be able to report in greater detail and depth on all these exciting developments! Have fin all, and keep the Idler Faith, the Great Idler-Wheel Revival is truly on!!! Vive la Idler Wheel, Vive la Lenco!!! Have fun all!

Dear Jean, I am trying to read not between the lines but right on the lines you wrote. Are you saying that the PTP2 (or whatever) beats the glass-reinforced standard chassis, assuming similarly good Nantais plinths, or not? Oh, I now see that you say full auditioning has not been done. I've been waiting to have your results on this. One would think that a second major advantage of the PTP2 vs the standard chassis (besides its stiffness) is the vastly improved isolation from motor vibration. I've come to think that even when motor noise is inaudible on the speakers, reducing it further below the audible threshold (as I did by installing the replacement motor you kindly supplied) improves the treble and soundstaging very noticeably.