Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Sounds like the Plains of Abraham redux. The master tapes don't lie. But whether more like Odysseus vs. Cyclops, Ali vs. Frazier, or Jimmy Superfly Snuka vs. Don Cage, all such pitched battles in Lenco-land are addictive to seekers of the analog Grail.

Thanks for the words of sanity Rick!

A DIY Lenco is without a doubt very good value for money and a very satisfying path to follow.

But it will never be able to do what an SME 30 can do. That's pure logic. Just look at the insanely elevated level of craftsmanship and fit'n'finish!

The only way to compare the 2 tables is to use the same arm and cartridge on both (into the same phono pre).

Oops, simultaneous postings! Hi all, just to clear up what may appear to be incorrect conclusions, with all due respect (and more!: who else would sign up for this out there? Any takers??) to the incredibly generous and helpful Rick: what I reported on was Round One, no misprepresentations, and what - for fault of a better term - was Round Two (I don't really count Round Two as Round Two as this involved me, Rick and the fellow who acted as go-between to hear what 47K did to the contest in poreparation for the real Round Two, so this involved no independent witnesses). Since I did not attend the real Round Two and did not report on it or its conclusions, then I could not misrepresent it. During the not-actual Round Two, Rick did say the bass on the SME had improved (after changing the cartridge loading to 47K) and more closely approached the Lenco's bass in terms of reach and power, which implies the Lenco was the standard here and not the SME. I am guilty here of perhaps jumping the gun on this conclusion only in reporting on Rick, which evidently changed again in the actual Round Two, so sorry about that Rick.

I do look forward to doing and hearing the tape vs turntables comparison, which I will report on: I believe, all due respect to Rick, that had I been there, and some others from Round One, conclusions would have differed, as I (and they) hear some things Rick does not hear (i.e. such as the matter of 3D "presence" which Rick perceives as forwardness, which may be on the tape and communicated via the Lenco but not the SME, and the matter of PRaT/timing, and so on). Definitely no contest on the highs, but there are reasons for this. To expand on the matter of timing, while I agree with Rick on the matter of the bass being better via the SME on some recordings, and the matter of high frequencies (which I could clearly hear and so I knew something was up, as Lencos have never been criticized by others in the matter of high-frequency extension, including some who own either the same Sound labs or even the same Atma-Sphere/Sound Lab system as Rick); I DID hear, on every single recording (and this was agreed on by at least four of us in Round One), a very wide gap between the Lenco and the SME in terms of PRaT (Pace, Rhythm and Timing) and gestalt. By "gestalt" I mean essentially timing, it means all the musicians are following precisely the same rhythm at the same precise time, so that they are evidently in chorus/symphony on this point: one organic whole. So, on this score, unrecognized and perhaps simply dismissed by Rick and the others in Round Two, did the SME preserve its superiority to the Lenco vis-a-vis the Master Tape? Does Master Tape even have this "artefact", and do the electronics inside the tape machine convey it if it's there? There are no absolute standards in an always imperfect world. I'll find out and report on it honestly in Round Three and it precursor (the not-actual Round Three/set-up ;-).

So, in Round One, Rick's first and immediate reaction, after only one or two minutes was to exclaim "Man this is a good turntable!" (not precisely the right words I believe, but an honest reporting of the facts). So this can sink in, this is in context of Rick's living daily with his SME 30/Graham Phantom. There were five of us there, four of us preferred the Lenco (Rick preferring the SME), and I actually sided with Rick against the others on the matter of bass (which was pretty well uniformly preferred by the others on the Lenco, including what had been a professional musician/drummer, while I agreed with Rick that the SME favoured certain LPs while the Lenco favoured others) and the matter of highs (which again the others preferred on the Lenco I believe). We were forced to go back and forth again and again on certain recordings, which shows just how close the contest really was in audiophile terms (i.e. information and not music). All was as I reported in Round One, with the midrange via the Lenco having more presence, impact, snap and even better separation of instruments (of course Rick can disagree here), and that the highs via the Lenco were indeed rolled off as compared with the SME (pretty well only me and Rick agreed on this, as the others found the smmooooth Lenco highs still there and quite good/pleasing). The end result of that Round One was that all agreed, including Rick, that the Lenco was World-Class, that the SME was also World-Class, and that it was a close-run race, so no misrepresentation. This evidently changed in the real Round Two.

If one reads Rick's posting, our dichotomy as to "neutrality" (which I consider actually a colouration) vs musical truth is even more starkly highlighted, and progresses/expands as time goes on, as every single superiority the Lenco has over the SME is dismissed as an aberration. So, the Lenco's evidently debatable "superiority" in terms of the SLAM I always write about, transients, presence (a three-dimensionality I hear but which Rick describes as "forward"), and bass weight and power get described as : "The Lenco has a pronounced bass boost that is a little fast and heavy, a warmer, livelier midrange that may cause snare drums and percussion instruments to leap out in stark contrast to the background music, and a pronounced rolled off top end that tends to take some of the life out of the music and reduces the subtle room interactions that are present on the recording. This provides slam, impact, and a snap to every recording you might want to throw at it but it is not an honest reproducer. These issues may also be arm, cartridge or set-up related. It’s not an exact science here." Two opposing judgments of precisely the same sonic artefacts/experiences.

Musically-speaking, all present in Round One agreed the Lenco was superior, and even Rick found it pleasing, but we evidently have different definitions of "musicality/musical". I define this in what I consider the usual/normal way, as in the phrases "music to my ear" (which means the "pleasing colourations" Rick is talking about) and "music to sooth the savage breast" which again points to beauty and not information. The Oxford Dictionary defines it thus: "Having the nature or characteristics of music; tuneful, melodious, harmonious; pleasing in sound, euphonious." This closely parallel's Rick's own description of the Lenco: "What the Lenco is is a very good vintage turntable that has very pleasing musical colorations that deviate significantly from the very neutral and musical presentation of the SME 30/2." Rick more closely ties "musical" to information and accuracy, such as pleasing definition of high-frequency detail and "neutrality," I believe. So a semantic disagreement as well, this hobby is a mine field! But, perhaps with the matter of the Lenco/?/Clearaudio's highs attended to and so a more balanced comparison achieved, this will change the descriptions.

So more and more the differences between the two, in strict audiophile terms (musicality aside), veer towards the matter of high-frequencies, already explained/described in my last post. Rick is going out of his way to help here with a proper Shootout: I actually relied on Rick's aural memory in our quick experiment to see if the Clearaudio's highs improved on the JMW (he said it did and it seemed so to me as well, and furthermore the bass changed too, seemed tighter to me, so expect new developments here too), and Rick actually held the Lenco top-plate for me while I examined and tried, unsuccessfully (because it simply didn't fit, first time in my experience so I never assumed/considered this as a possibility), to repair the faulty slide mechanism.

To end, we are both reporting honestly on the same series of events, but are in disagreement as to what it all means. Furthermore, there is the problem with the idler mechanism, which means the Lenco was not performing even near to spec (and yet this STILL forced resorting to Master Tape in Round Two, in order to decide, I leave it to the readers to recognize the implications of just how good the Lenco is in strict audiophile terms, i./e. detail, imaging, information and so on), leaving musical issues aside. And furthermore and added to that is the matter of the Clearaudio I took a chance on as it was the only one I could score (and I'm happy about that as it is my favourite cartrdige ever!), an unknown quantity, untested (I should never have sold the superb and neutral Ortofon Jubilee). The accompanying graph shows it drops off precipitously at a frequency of 14K instead of the 20K the factory says it should measure at (which makes one wonder why Clearaudio even released it), and me and Rick discovered that the Clearaudio favoured the JMW (which, to hand it to Rick, he predicted). Actually, this drop-off is a good thing in the context of the horn-loaded Electro-Voice system I am building. Anyway, Rick is very constructive, he suggested the Clearaudio would improve on the JMW and wanted this (so he does really want to know the truth of the matter of Lenco vs current Contender), and actually suggested on-the-spot remedies to the matter of the idler mechanism while I held it, and is looking forward to Round Three, where hopefully the matter of the high frequencies will really be ameliorated, and with correct speed with no wobbly-mechanism-induced speed variations we will hear the Lenco for real.

So, stay tuned to Round Three all, I'm sure the audiophile comunity is as divided overall as me and Rick are as to what constitutes "musicality" and what "neutrality" means and what we are aiming for in the construction/assembly of our sound systems!! Have fun all, and don't forget to thank Rick's endless generosity of time and effort, and the search for musical truth (and the different meanings attached to THAT ;-))!!

I say again, it would be interesting to try to make the comparison more "scientific" by using at least the same cartridge on the two turntables, granting that swapping tonearms is just too much of a pain in the arse to ask of Rick. (I know I wouldn't want to do it, were I the owner of the SME30.) Or, you could possibly swap cartridges and listen to see whether the differences you hear and ascribe to the respective turntables are indeed due to properties of the turntables or the cartrdidges. Having said all that, the differences you and Rick describe do pretty well fit with reviews of the SME30 (neutral, analytical, maybe a bit dry compared to some others) and the Lenco of my direct experience and as described by others, too.

Hi Lew, everyone seems to agree with you, including me! We'll see how curious Rick gets in the end, already this is a fabulous experience on all sorts of fronts, from straightforward audiophile experiments through philosophy to exposing the different ways people perceive and experience sound!! I couldn't give a damn about "neutrality" (beyond retreiving as much of the information as I can from the grooves with all its natural energy and timing intact, and actually proper tonal balance too which DOES contribute to the musical experience) as I focus on enjoyment/my definition of musicality which I consider paramount (I want that "frisson"); while Rick's Holy Grail is precisely the reverse in his main system, with a focus on revealing what is actually on the pressing and nothing else (we disagree on what is actually in the groove, as I believe these "colourations" are supposed to be there...once the high frequencies are attended to). Not that he doesn't intensely appreciate the "magic" of the Lenco as I witnessed, and so, as I understand it, is now toying with the idea of a specialized UN-neutral vintage system for this very reason, he just doesn't want it in his Reference System.

There's another area here too, as this high-frequency rolloff in Rick's system is quite pronounced, he reports measuring only 10K. Though the Concerto does roll off at 14K (and so highlights this loss), I also have a hard time believing this leads to the loss of air and high-frequency minutiae which I do indeed retrieve in my own two systems, but which disappears on Rick's. Where'd the missing 4K go? I have heard Lencos in almost-countless ribbon and electrostatic systems, in high-end dynamic driver systems, NOT vintage, all of which are said to extend well beyond 20K, and never a high-frequency rolloff reported or heard (in fact improvement), as those who have heard Lencos before or currently know VERY well. Lencos and Garrards in the same plinths have replaced all sorts of current high-end belt-drives, from the "usual" Linn LP12s and others at this size/price-point, also NOT considered rolled off in the high frequencies, through several VPI TNTs and, Platine Verdiers and various Nottinghams up through the top Dais (I think top), the top Der Plattenspeiler - also considered one of the most neutral belt-drives ever made - and throw in a SME 10. Are we to assume these are set up in frequency-limited systems which don't reveal the Lenco's limitations? No, since Lencos are set up in identical systems to Rick's, even with some improvements/upgrades. So, is this due to the Cardas cable I was forced to rely on as well? A cable burn-in issue? There's some mystery here, I'll need to do some research. I may in fact make balanced cables from scratch this weekend using my fave ultra-thin solid core, which is not rolled off, at least in comparison with Cardas, and burn it in in advance.

Evidently Rick's system is ultra-high resolution, enough so to make cable issues ultra-obvious. I went in, evidently overconfident, and didn't think any obvious bottleneck like crappy cables (but I did spend real money on the best I could get, hence the Cardas) would impede the Lenco's inexorable advance ;-). But, as written before the SME is a VERY serious Contender, as one would expect from a real engineering company's Statement on record player design, and one cannot be cavalier on ANY issue (and I Thank God I took it seriously enough to buy the Concerto, otherwise it really would have been a slaughter).

On the Lenco Front, I took care of the faulty slider mechanism (replaced it with another) and now it is solid, and the resulting sound is incredible (it was before, but now with CONTROL) via my Electro-Voice system: ultra precise and fast, with incredibly focused dynamics (meaning it is concentrated and controlled in bursts of intense energy). The highs are there, air in abundance, and high-frequency minutia obvious and precise, using my usual Petra/Music Boy interconnects (the VPI JMW has RCA's on the back). It's possible that the wobbly wheel smeared and exaggerated certain effects leading to Rick's current judgment, and of course switching to the fab VPI tonearm makes significant changes too, from the bass, which now sounds very precise and controlled, through to the highs, which sound extended, airy and delicate, in MY system. Let's hope this translates to Rick's. More and more I see no choice but to make new Neutrik balanced cables, home-made style, and burn them in using a tuner, in order to remove this possibility.

O, and Mario, sorry I forgot about your question: you have the process exactly right, I simply use a caulking gun (acrylic/fast-dry) to make dikes around the needed mechanisms, which I simply leave in place after the glue has hardened. I don't fill up to the rim as the threaded inserts for the bolts go only about half-way up, so I fill up to the rim of these inserts, after levelling (this is important). It takes about 12 hours for it to harden, 24 to cure completely, and I use the quicker dry (but given the amount, it takes much longer to harden). It's the marine-grade stuff which sells in litre bottles or bigger, not cheap.

Anyway, for all the nay-sayers out there, those who damn with faint praise, those who accused me for years of hyperbole, the Lenco has now duked out two rounds with the SME 30 for a draw so far overall (and this with a seriously faulty speed issue/mechanism I wasn't aware of until the Shootout), I defy you to throw in the ring your Well Tempereds, your VPI TNTs, your $2K-$20k belt-drives from whichever company, against the SME 30 and get even close to the same results. As reported, in terms of actual information-retrieval, the two were SO close it took days and days of back-and-forth A-B-ing in order to get a more precise idea of what was actually going on (even with a 10K rolloff), and led to a comparison with Master Tape in order to settle the issue (which in fact is not settled yet). I'm REALLY curious to see if Master Tape does indeed convey the PRaT and gestalt/magic I love so much (or is it an artefact of the Lenco/Idlers and possibly the vinyl itself), I have no doubt as to the results reported in terms of high-frequencies and their effects on the overall sound of the Lenco in Round Two, but I do have questions as to these particular aspects of musicality, which are my stock in trade ;-).

As always, I am SO grateful to Rick for enthusiastically signing up for this Great Experiment, more later on how the two drives systems impact information-retrieval: in a nutshell I had claimed that the Idler was quite simply the superior system, and here we have a mass-manufactured 15-pound Lenco with a minute so-so main bearing and 8-pound platter Direct Coupled to an 85-pound chunk of wood outperforming the SME (about 120 pounds of precision-machined and balanced metal by one of the premier engineering companies of analogue, with I think an 18 kg platter) in terms of what Rick considers colourations (dynamics, attack, transients, bass reach) and about equaling it overall in terms of detail (better in the midrange according to my ears and others', lesser in the high frequencies for now, a toss-up in the bass). Stylus Force Drag is an MUCH more serious problem than audiophiles assume, and it takes real torque of the sort offered by idler-wheel drives to overcome this; belt-drives in comparison loose the ball precisely at the moment of greatest groove excursion/transients/dynamic swings, regardless of platter mass (this is not the same as active torque), which is why Idlers, as this experiment shows so far, do a better job of transients and dynamics (though Rick believes this is due to the Lenco's top-plate resonances). Even if the final judgment goes to the SME, and given the improvements we'll see about that, I think I have already proven my point. And to give Rick even more credit, he is VERY interested in seeing what he perceives as this resonance problem taken care of via Reinderspeter's top-plate (and actually this is precisely what the top-plate will do), and sees himself as a help in the development of the Lenco, as indeed he is!

Now, to the soldering station :-)!!

Dear Jean, It sounds like your opinions are fixed and your mind is made up. I see little point in continuing this experiment.

That is unfortunate.

Both tables have virtues but seeking an ultimate should not be what this hobby is about.

We will have to agree to disagree, although I for one, did not intend for this to be some sort of absolute comparison between two fine tables.

Rick

Dear Rick, it's really too bad we couldn't continue the experiment so we could actually hear the Lenco fully adjusted/dialed-in with its problems removed, Murphy's Law strikes again that the one chance for this sort of thing is marred by problems I didn't know existed, thanks anyway for your immense generosity and helpfulness. This has been a REAL learning experience, which will lead to many new ideas and a MUCH better undertanding of all the issues, and I can't thank you enough for the opportunity.

To those watching, I didn't see this as a battle of 'tables, but instead a battle of drive systems: what is arguably the best of one type vs what is arguably the best of another (though the Lenco is built to relatively crappy standards, it is likely the most evolved design of yesteryear). As always, I see the Lenco as only a tool in the furtherance of placing the Idler-Wheel System in its rightful place amongst the pantheon of drive systems. The experiment certainly highlighted various issues MUCH more starkly than I had ever experienced before! And my Gigantic Lenco sounds much better now than it ever has before, thanks to the experience with Rick, which paid unexpected dividends in learning more about Lenco mechanisms, and the success of various tonearm/cartridge combos in differing systems (i.e. don't assume that what works in one system will work in another), a great learning experience!

And to those who may be traveling in the area, I invite you all to come hear for yourself the best I can currently do with Lencos (and Sony's and Garrards) in a special vintage Super-System I have assembled, thanks to those wonderful Electro-Voice speakers from the legendary Patrician line! Exposure to Rick's system will help immeasurably in adjusting/balancing this system for maximum neutrality/effectiveness, changes have already begun!

Kudos to Rick also for having the good taste to choose Sound Lab speakers and Atma-sphere electronics, the very same gear that I use myself. Rick, if you want some ideas on DIY upgrades to either the speakers or the electronics, let me know. Especially the speakers can be easily tweaked, if you are using a completely stock drive circuit (in the backplate at the base of each speaker).

The Lenco has a pronounced bass boost that is a little fast and heavy, a warmer, livelier midrange that may cause snare drums and percussion instruments to leap out in stark contrast to the background music, and a pronounced rolled off top end that tends to take some of the life out of the music and reduces the subtle room interactions that are present on the recording. This provides slam, impact, and a snap to every recording you might want to throw at it but it is not an honest reproducer. These issues may also be arm, cartridge or set-up related. It’s not an exact science here.

Be careful, Rick Hopkins. It is funny that when someone early in the original Lenco thread said something almost exactly the same, the guy was battered and ridiculed for being some kind of an insect and dismissed as a trouble maker. I suppose when a person actually has been or will be face to face with someone who speaks the truth as they find it, it is not so easy to be so flippantly dismissive. On the other side of the coin, the same thing happened to the guy that suggested using epoxy when gluing the plinth and the top plate right at the beginning. Dismissal and condescension. Now it appears to be a state of the art inclusion in the World of Lenco.

And my Gigantic Lenco sounds much better now than it ever has before, thanks to the experience with Rick, which paid unexpected dividends in learning more about Lenco mechanisms, and the success of various tonearm/cartridge combos in differing systems (i.e. don't assume that what works in one system will work in another), a great learning experience!

Mr. Nantais. You have written page after page after page of your opinions regarding the reproduction of sound among many components. The relative accuracy of such opinions, obviously, is wholly dependent on your having a good and trusted “ear” for sound. So let me now get this straight. Are just NOW realizing that what arm and pickup combos work in one system may not work so well in another? Have you not been able to hear marked differences before or have you just not bothered comparing the same arm and pickup combos on a variety of tables?

Ah Jejune, living up to your name as always, and waiting for the first sign of trouble. I have written repeatedly about different arm-cartridge combos, and their interactions with various electronics. I am just putting a positive spin on a negative development. Don't try to make this worse than it has to be, a stock-in-trade of your own. Try something constructive for a change. And to get the facts straight, I use the epoxy not to glue the plinth or glue the Lenco to the plinth, but simply to fill in gaps in the metal top-plate and kill resonances. Otherwise, there was just speculation as to whether epoxy was a plus or a minus in gluing the layers (elasticity vs rigidity), no "insects" involved, other than a trouble-maker much like you, the first one, who was not pushing epoxy in the design/plinthing of Lencos. Produce the relevant passages and we'll look at it more closely.

To those out there watching whose behaviour mirrors Jejune's, don't try to capitalize on what has been an amicable "break-up" and make it ugly, the experiment is over, we see things different ways, and I'm very grateful to Rick for giving me the opportunity to go as far as we did, as I repeatedly emphasized. Now let's move on. I know I will, and will take the lessons learned to further develop my own Reference System.

Here's the thing, jejune. Rick's conclusions may have merit, but we'll never know because both the tonearm and cartridge were not alike in this comparison. I am also willing to believe Jean's claim that some of the shortcomings of the Lenco, if indeed they can be traced to the Lenco given the aforementioned variables, were due to problems with the idler arm. Any noise generator in the playback system, like an excessively vibrating idler arm or a noisy motor, is going to be perceived as a hf roll-off and/or as a loss of spaciousness and transparency. What's lost here is that for an expenditure of less than $2K, one should not expect or require a turntable to better the performance of a $29K competitor. I use and enjoy my Lenco, to the extent that I am not concerned whether or not there is something better out there. Indeed, for the amount of money that some people spend, I hope they ARE getting something better. However, I do not necessarily subscribe to the "you get what you pay for" school when it comes to audio equipment.

Agreed. My Lenco project was not just the TT on the cheap.....believe me I can afford multi $$$$ turntable but chose other wise. Not only Lenco gave me the chance to transport myself into the World of Music but forced me to gain knowlodge and know how on turntable building , basis , setup, materials, constraction etc. It is not always about the money.......is it????? It can not be........right? At least for some of us. I am glad and thankfull, those that influence me and help me build it and restore Lenco......that is what it is all about.....or at least should be.

Cheers and enjoy your records anyway you can....being it a 30K or $200 analog rig. Whatever makes you jump, dance , sing or cry.

Mariusz

Am I the only one who has read the reviews of the big SME tables that almost uniformly say that they are dry and uninvolving?

Rick is obviously a well healed and experienced audiophile and I respect his opinion in the context of his post but I dont see the reason to go off in a huff. He likes what he likes but that doesn't mean that he is correct - audiophile detail vs wooly musicality... How should systems sound? Like you are sitting on the bandstand or in row "m".

Anyhow it must have killed Jean to kowtow in print as much as he did :) Good for character building :)

Mike

Mgreene, I pointed that out, too. In at least one or maybe two reviews of the SME30 that I recall, the reviewer found it to be very neutral, almost to a fault. The fault line lies near to the phrases "dry" and "uninvolving". But lets remember that these adjectives were used in relation to other state of the art tables or to the writers' favorite table, usually high end, too. And they were used to describe relative qualities, not absolutes. So, I think there are elements of LP reproduction that you and I would like better about the Lenco as compared to the SME, but overall it is certainly not surprising that the SME30 would be superior. As Jean himself has noted, we are only beginning to see the potential of idler drive fully realized. I haven't heard Mosin's latest creation, but I will wager that it would more than challenge the SME30. OTOH, it may cost as much.

Hi all, just to correct certain things, the high frequencies were, as Rick noted, severely rolled-off. I don't believe this was due to the idler mechanism (which flipped and flopped like a drunken sailor as the mechanism simply didn't fit this particular Lenco, coming from another [I had assumed these were all drop-in replacements and until the Shootout, considering how good it was anyway, I never noticed]), but instead more a cable issue. The Clearaudio's (my favourite cartridge of all time, and according to Rick I should never even consider selling it, so an unexpected benefit of this Shootout as well) accompanying graph shows it drops off at 14K, but since most men over 30 have roll-offs at about 13K, this shouldn't make much of a difference. The highs did improve, it seemed to both of us, when I swapped to the JMW, but the cable I made for the JMW was a BIG improvement over the cable I had to concoct for the SME, as well, being direct from the RCAs at one end to the Neutriks at the other. And perhaps switching to Mogamis, as I was considering, or something other than "warm-sounding" Cardas cable, would have made even more of a difference.

Anyway, I think this high-frequency roll-off did much too much to colour the outcome, had they been there, then, in terms of neutrality, the contest would have been much closer. But, the Lenco produced, as-was, only the lowest bass to the lower highs, and so sounded much "warmer" than it should have. So let's not make too much of this warmth and musicality issue (at least for now): in terms of absolute information-retrieval, i.e. raw detail, the two 'tables were actually very close within the frequency range the Lenco did reproduce; and in terms of "ordinary" overall dynamics (I mean apart from the "jumping out" percusssion/palpability factor of the Lenco) the two were actually quite close again. It wasn't a night-and-day slaughter of the SME by the Lenco in this respect, more a matter of degree (significant degree, but still degree). I was frankly surprised by how dynamic and exciting the SME really was. I was also frankly surprised by how deep and powerful the bass was. From the lowest bass through the midrange through to the lower high frequencies, the two 'tables were, in overall audiophile terms (detail, imaging, placement, dynamics, etc.), quite close. So, yes, the Lenco IS more involving, more exciting, and so forth, but don't assume it is far behind the SME 30 in terms of information-extraction (we had to switch back and forth, back and forth, in order to hear what each 'table was picking up and how they presented it, in order to hear what each was doing and judge which was correct, they were so close), this was mostly due to the missing high frequencies which, being simply not present on the Lenco, meant the SME simply picked up some detail, and fleshed-out/brought forward other detail, up here which the Lenco did not. Who knows what the JMW/Concerto would have done, and with better cable?

On the other hand, the SME 30 was powerful, dynamic, with deep controlled bass, in these areas quite close to the Lenco (and in the matter of bass, at least with the SME IV/Concerto combo, its equal, superiority was recording-dependent according to my ears), and not what I was expecting from the reviews I read and the auditioning I did of a SME 20. The Lenco furthered these dynamics somewhat, and added superior timing to my ears. The Concerto is considered extremely musical according to the reviews, and according to my ears is simply the best I have ever heard in this respect, and extraordinary in terms of detail, dynamics, and all the rest. I LOVE it. Perhaps the Concerto was giving the Lenco a further advantage in terms of musicality as well. Maybe switching the Concerto to the SME would have brought the SME some needed PRaT and gestalt, and switching the Benz LP to the Lenco would have brought the Lenco further neutrality, thus bringing the two 'tables closer together in terms of musicality - and neutrality - as well.

Anyway, both these 'tables were superb, the experience was amazing, and I thank Rick again for his time and hospitality. For those who are price-conscious, I suggest you don't get too upset the Lenco is SO cheap, the REAL reason idlers stopped being manufactured is that they were simply too expensive to manufacture (they switched to belt-drive because this was cheap and easy to manufacture). The companies - like Lenco - which produced these at the time were HUGE (LP was king and EVERYONE had an LP spinner), with huge R & D resources, and all was manufactured in-house. How much would it cost to design and produce a Lenco from scratch today? So yes, the Lenco can be picked up for $200 today, but that's used, on eBay, today, and even this price has more to do with perception (so-so) than reality (incredible).

Anyway, have fun all, back to my Concerto!!

Hello all;

I agree with Mgreen, Lewm & Jean on a number of points.
Firstly, the current audio dogma that quality is proportional to price is incorrect. This point has been propagated by the Audio press. The are many examples of where a DIY audiophiles creating pieces of audio equipment for low cost that supersedes production pieces costing multiple fold. So, why is it so hard to believe that this could happen with turntables. Also the 30k SME costs more like 15-18K wholesale, and 7-8K to produce from the manufacturer. So the difference in prices between a 2K Lenco & a 7-8K SME are not are large as they look on paper.

As Lewm mentioned, the only way to determine the effect of the table on the sound characteristic is to keep all other variables constant and just change the Table.

I do not agree that absolute neutrality makes a turntable great. But again this is person dependant. Obviously Rick deems neutrality to be his priority, in which case the SME maybe his ultimate turntable. But, one can not say that because a piece of equipment is "colored" is not top class. Who generates the rules that neutral is the pinnacle & colored is not? Who is to say that something is colored? The answer is each of us does!! I for instance do not assess a piece of equipment as neutral or not neutral, but I look for the equipment to be musical. As close to the live music as possible. If this means colored then so be it.

Further, if one follows the magazines there top classes of audio equipment are filled with varying flavors ( warm, neutral, cold/dark) sounding equipment. So how can 2 pieces of equipment that are on polar opposites of a spectrum both be on a Class A list? Easily, because different reviewers have varying tastes.

I am not sure Why Rick became upset with this discussion. Audio like so many other topics are always full of debate & opinion. That’s what makes each of us different. It is our ability to process information and come up with varied answers. This does not make one person right or wrong, it is all a matter of perspective.

Regards;
Opus

The subjective loggerheads of neutrality versus musicality I suspect lies mostly, but not entirely, outside of the domain of turntable as appliance – that part starting from the stylus on back. In this, I’m pretty much in agreement with Lewm. But even the turntable as appliance – the drive train that sets the speed and support of the vinyl spinning under the diamond, can play a great part in presentation. Without belaboring all that we’ve come to know, the Lenco as appliance, brings all to the table that anyone would want of a drive train – a heavy platter acting as stable flywheel, cranked by a powerful, but quiet motor. You only have to think of the Technics SP-10 with it phase servo dc motor cranking a near 7 lb. platter, the Garrard 301, and the Teres heavyweights to know this is a given and very desirable aspect of what a turntable should be as an appliance. And the Lenco comes to play in this same league. What we do in terms of coupling and isolation only improves the Lenco platform.
Now what we mount as the retriever combo over this superb spinning base, that is the black arts & craft end of the deal. That tiny microphone on a boom comes in many more flavors than Baskin & Robbins, all trying to cant for every angle in the approximation game.
After reading this head-to-head between the Jean’s Lenco and Richard’s SME, I wondered where this whole Musical/Neutral issue would have landed had Jean brought his RS Labs RS-A1 to the meet. I had the good fortune of listening to this tonearm on Jean’s system about 18 months ago. (By the way, it’s currently getting some good play over at Lenco Lovers with Ian’s acquisition of one).
This rickety, physics-defying contraption was outfitted with a Denon 103(E) – or was it the Decca? At any rate, the speed of the transients in play, coupled with a forward front sound, and utter black background had me wondering where Jean’s SACD player was hiding for this simulcast – it was that unvinyl-like. Was this neutrality over musicality or colouration? I’m not sure. I suspect it was a potpourri of a lot of subjective elements that culminated in a rendition that can only be expressed in a greater subjectivism - “stunning”.
A bit later, Jean popped in his beloved Grado Platinum Woody into a Moerch and we we’re back into obvious phono staging – lush and warm with slamming bass.
This is not all to maximize the importance of the retriever at the expense of the turntable as appliance, but to state that the Lenco, “dressed up to the nines”, can come close to being all things to all people packing various armaments.

- Mario

Mario, wouldn't using the RS-A1 limit you to those carts that can be mounted from underneath (i.e., not the one with already-threaded mounting holes)? I guess you could always ream out the holes on the RS-A1, but ...

Dave

HI Lewm, I missed the last sentance of your post. Sorry to take off on your point.

After re-reading Ricks post, I see that he didnt really leave in a huff, he just declined to continue and in a fairly gentlemanly way too. Maybe he mistook Jean's unflagging enthusiam for the Lenco as using his turntable as a whipping boy.

All in all, it is great fun and almost laughable that a Lenco sitting on a big hunk of wood can even be spoken of in the same breath as a highly engineered $30K audio product.

Mike

Hi Dave,
"To ream, or not to ream" the RS-A1 headshell, is the quadry facing Ian's over at LL, even as you write.
- Mario

Anyone here have experience running cinemag sut's with a denon 103r?
My 103 sounds great but I am getting stridency with the 103r.
any ideas? I only post here because it is all connected to my rega rb250 on my beloved LENCO!!!

Mario, that RS-A1 thread on LL is a hoot. Eight pages already, good grief. They keep trying to make sense of the arm and some seem to think the pivoting head follows the grooves sorta like an offset-head arm. Nope. I think you just have to recognize that nothing about the arm makes sense and yet it sounds fantastic, and until you can ignore the disconnect, you're in trouble:-)

Dave

Yeah Dave, it sure can be a gas with those boys. Lot of smart cookies, though. I often think we sometimes seem to be floundering about over there, only because there's a big lack of inhibitions empirically as well as socially. Things just go flying - it's fun. Note that you got an honorable on page 5 or so.
All best,
Mario

Hi Harvey, the solution is inelegant but effective: increase the effective mass of your tonearm. The easiest way is with Blu-tak and quarters on the headshell, then move the counterweight back to compensate to achieve the correct tracking force. If this works, then the Twl tweak is the way to go, with weights attached to the sides of the main bearing to increase mass, more elegant too once the experiment is confirmed. There are weights out there which are meant to increase trhe mas of the cartridge, which increases the tonearm's effective mass. Elegant-looking solution too.

Hi Mario: I did in fact try my RS-A1 very briefly, and with the tapped headshell I simply didn't have an untapped cartridge in my arsenal to compare with the Concerto or the Benz LP, all simply outclassed. So it was down to the SME IV/Concerto (in my system superior) or JMW/Concerto (in Rick's system superior). I will be reaming out the threads, finally. I do LOVE the combo of RS-A1/Denon DL-103"E", which is not only neutral tonally and extremely detailed, but ROCKS like all get-out with incredible PRaT!!! Of course, the Grado's richness and midrange magic will always be the Grado's signature: the MAS/Grado Woody combo will be reserved for my Electro-Voice system.

Have fun all!!

Don't know about the 103 but I had the 103R and sold it after about 60 hours, too much grain in my opinion. Hate to say it but I prefered my beat up DL-110.

Phill

Hi Phill: the 103s need the right tonearms in order not to sound aggressive, and this means mass. There are also all sorts of preamp issues as well. Given a sympathetic set-up they can sound utterly unaggressive and yet still slammin'! I have heard the 110, and it shares in much of the 103's sound, a great bargain in its own right!

Over here I have RE-discovered the Spendor BC-1 speakers, which mesh SO perfectly with my custom-made Pierre Amp (100 watts of SET-like push-pull SS power) that they have become my reference in-house speaker! The Pierre amp struggles with the high-sensitivity Klipsch Cornwall speakers, and yet makes the BC-1s, normally considered difficult to drive, into hugely dynamic slammin' rock-n roll speakers!! AND with amazing delicacy, detail, imaging and so forth, with surprisingly deep bass. Now I see why Malcolm is so enamoured of these: the right amp is required (high voltage?), the other amps I had in the past not enough to make them jump. These are now amazing at PRaT and gestalt, and amazing also in all traditional audiophile areas.

AND, in the Klipsch Cornwalls my rebuilt 12-watt Leak Stereo 20 now sounds like a Krell! Seemingly limitless power, with excellent bass and incredible dynamics and detail! NOW my garage system is set (simply too powerful for in-house....with a Lenco backing them up anyway ;-)), the Leak being too bright with the fab Electro-Voice, I hope to do swappies Cornwalls for the E-Vs, which are just right (the E-Vs being just right in my buddy's system).

I also scored an Ortofon 2M Black, will report on this presently!

Hope you're all having as much fun as I am!

thanks John, the twl is in place on my arm already, i added some mass to the tube, and am enjoying the 103 so much, im not even going to bother with the 103r just yet!

Hi all, hope you're enjoying the summer! Just reporting in on my Ortofon 2M Black phono cartrdige: it sounds GREAT!! It has the detail of a good (but not great) MC, but with the PALPABILITY, PRaT and gestalt traditionally (in the Audio Undergorund) the strength MMs.

Aw GAWD it feels good to be back in MM Land, at least for now (while my Clearaudio Concerto - the only MC I've heard which actually rivals the best MMs for PRaT and gestalt - goes for repairs as it was defective). The Ortofon is a fitting successor to the Shure V15Vx MR in the sense especially of PRaT, or Pace, Rhythm and Timing, an area where the Shure was unsurpassed in my opinion, and an area where too many audiophiles still have no idea which way is up. I believe many hear it, but since it isn't something as easily identifiable as raw detail - like tinkling bells in the background and so forth - they dismiss it as pleasing but not important (NOT!). Of course, prolonged exposure to idler wheel drives eventually leads to a state of NEED of PRaT and gestalt (all the musicians following the same beat at the same time to sound like a "tight" and communicative band/single element). Anyway, the Ortofon FIRST does these extremely important musical things right, THEN presents great detail, dynamics, deep tight bass and imnaging and so forth. Excellent. I'm running mine on the SME IV for now, as it turns out that so far the SME IV (and by extension the SME V) ALWAYS sounds great with MMs (PRaT, gestalt, dynamics), while being VERY hit and miss with MCs.

It turns out the incredible dynamics of a Lenco is too much for the Spendor BC-1's, which bottom out with a sharp CLACK! quite often, so I'm thinking of augmenting them with a Vandersteen subwoofer to preserve the excellent sense of transparency and PRAT the BC-1s do so well, and be able to beef up the sound without bottoming out the drivers.

And speaking of Lencos - of COURSE - the Lenco magic way with music - incredible gestalt, PRaT, flow, dynamics macro and micro, bass - is slowly percolating through my area and conquering folk willy-nilly, convincing them of the importance of MUSICALITY (as opposed to information, at which the Lenco is nevertheless superb/State of the Art)...and I have nothing to do with it (not much anyway apart from setting them up), as simple repeated exposure to Lencos allows them to work their musical magic and conquer by musical charms while I sit out in the country oblivious with a beer in my hand watching the lovely lasses ride by on their horses.

A fellow who had just bought an Ayre CX-7e CD player - considered one of the most musical CD players ever built by many - says he can no longer listen to it since setting up a Giant Direct Coupled Glass-Reinforced Lenco in his system, set up with a JMW 12/Van den Hul MC-10 combo. And another who had received the less-performant but still excellent Direct Coupled Technics SP-25 DD wrote the following, showing just how effective Direct Coupling, AND vinyl, is, also and especially in the area of musicality: "Hats off!! It was an absolute pleasure to listen to the turntable in my system. Everything from Beatles to Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony made music as never before. Even with a humble Cambridge Audio 640P phono amp and the table sitting on the floor the turntable beat the proverbial pants off my Stereophile Class A transport and DAC. I think the CDs are going to gather dust for some time. The turntable is giving me better sound than the Roksan Xerxes/Rega RB300/Dynavector DV10X and Dynavector P75 phono stage. Add to this the sheer ease of use and I would count this as one of my best..." Just goes to show the magial properties of Direct Coupling, and potential of both Idler and DD done right, and of course, the infinitely Mightier Musical Magic of Vinyl!! Vive la Vinyl!!

And I'm still working on my Mighty Vintage Garage system, centred at one end on the Lenco, and the other with the Leak Stereo Twenty/Klipsch Cornwall combo, still searching for just the right preamp. Right now with ANY preamp the POWER and ruler-flatness of the end result is awesome to behold, these Cornwalls REALLY are tonally neutral (not too bright, everything in its place, bass deep and awesome but not overwhelming), but neutral without being boring, they ROCK!! I'm thinking I'll have to score another ARC SP-8 soon, THE most musical phono preamp/preamp I've ever heard (the Kundalini Effect!!). Have fun all, more big news very soon with the Reinderspeter Lenco set up and playing in the garage system!!

Hi,

I have a replinthed L75. Love it. But I am getting a kind of rhythmic scraping noise which is audible, though pretty quiet, with motor on but no record playing,and can definitely and distinctively be heard through the speakers when the needle of a moderate microphonic cartridge is in some dead wax. I have removed the platter and found that when the power switch is fully in the "on" position, so that the idler wheel (with the help of the spring) contacts the edge of the cut-out in the top plate in the space of which the wheel moves back and forth when being being engaged or disengaged (and in and out when changing speeds). It definitely makes the scraping noise with that contact. The power switch can be partially turned on so as to move the wheel over far enough to engage the moving spindle without hitting the edge of the cut-out. Then I do not get the scraping sound. But when I then put the platter on and try to move the "on" switch only as far as needed to engage the spindle, but not far enough to contact the edge of the cut-out, I get the scraping sound again.

My own surmise is that the wheel should not have been contacting the edge of the cut out, but that in doing so, it got somewhat worn, and that that wear is causing it to make noise when it contacts the either or both of the underside of the spinning platter or the edge of the cut-out. No part of the edge of the wheel seems bare, so far as I can manage to inspect it. But when I cleaner it, rubber residue came off the edge.

Can any of you Lenco experts out there tell me if this diagnosis sounds plausible, and what, if anything, can be done about it? It sure seems like that wheel ought not to contact the cut-out edge, but it also seems inevitable, given the range of motion of the power switch, the location of the fixed parts relative to the moving ones, and the spring's tugging on the wheel arm.

Any help at all appreciated!

Dear Rnm4, You are quite correct; the idler wheel should never contact the edge of the cut-out in the chassis. Further, scraping against the edge may indeed have damaged the rubber gasket that rides on the edge of the wheel. But in passing, another possible source of scraping noise could be the brake system. If the piece of metal that constitutes the brake is touching the platter, that could account for the "other" scraping noise that you hear when you only partially engage the ON switch, so as to avoid the noise due to the scraping idler wheel. Some people just remove the brake entirely. Anyway, it seems as though your table needs some surgery. If someone else built your plinth and installed the table, you might want to take it back. Otherwise, you need to adjust your idler arm and possibly to replace the rubber too. Go to Lenco Lovers website for help on those two things.

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

It sounds very good - not elegant - but then, we aint millionaires.

I havent had a lot of listening time and only used a Ortofon MM - but it sounds awesome. I have to try MC's including Satin and other MM's. I found the M15e Super to be a little "polite" after hearing a Stanton 888, which itself seemed to have a somewhat overblown treble. Pics - tonite.

Mike

a few quick questions from an intermittent thread lurker/lenco user:

i just found a lenco in a local thrift. kinda cool btw, a L75 in an empire-style wooden plinth with wooden/plexi dustcover lid. anyway, i took it home to discover it is a 110-220 50Hz model. my first impulse was to think it was not for the u.s. market due to 50Hz. further thought and study makes me suspect otherwise, as the set points for 33.3 and 45 are different from my 60Hz model. it would appear that the design parameters allow for this difference. it that correct? (also with a "duh! i found it in the u.s. after all....") i can't yet check for accurate speed as the bearing is sluggish and needs refurbishing. also the idler is plastic btw, but appears true with good rubber.

next question: is the original arm decent for regular, non-audiophile use, or is it a throwaway? i've seen some comments that allude to rubber blocks of some sort that warrant replacing, but honestly don't have time to pore over the whole thread (and other sites) right now. the table may be earmarked for a girlfriend.

last question (for now): has anyone successfully adapted a jelco/audioquest arm to the existing armhole? it would appear to be a natural fit, with perhaps slight enlargement of the hole and mounting of the arm collet from below.

thanks in advance!

Hi Musicdoc-

You should really hit lenco-lovers.com for extensive answers to all your questions.

My friends a Lenco horder. Which model should I pull from the giant stash?

Johnk,
Best is L75 or L78.
Musicdoc,
Trash the original arm and get a Rega RB 250 or 300. No need to mess with the original arm.

As mentioned above, see Lencolovers.com

Johnk, if any of your friend's stash are the armless Lenco's, I'd go with one of those. Then you don't have to do an arm-ectomy.

Just posted a pic of my newest Lenco - a rebuild of my Lenco #1 with a Trans-Fi Terminator arm. All I did was add another layer of MDF on the bottom and beveled the top edge a la Francois. Its refinished it in clear shellac and wax.

I was exited by the review of the Trans-Fi Terminator on Enyoy the Music. Aside from the real world price, my rationale for getting one has a lot to do with the going prices of vintage tonearms. Why bid on one of those elderly, possibly worn-out arms when something that is potentially better than ALL arms (up to a price) is available? Even after only a very few hours, it sounds at least as good as any tonearm I have - that includes 12" VPI and SME. And I havent even tried any MC's yet.

It's still early days, but I am not sure I have heard bass like this out of any tonearm. Just to be clear, my system is a little bass heavy - the last thing I would want is more wooly upper and mid bass. As a matter of fact, I was a little worried about this after reading he review but this is clear, low, articulate bass that does not interfere with the other registers.

Mike

Hi Mike,
Good to see you resurfacing. Thanks for the the quick look and review on the Trans-Fi Terminator. A few questions:
What did you use for an air supply? Did you go the DIY route with plastic gas tank route as smoother? Also, I notice from your picture that you went with a single 10mm base spacer because of the Lenco's low-slung platter. Did you get a couple of extra spacers in case you want to mount the arm in a different environment?
All best,
Mario

It's Mario!

I did the leg work on the compressor - I use a pump called Dolphin 5 Star. Find it here: http://www.kensfish.com/diaphramairpumps.html

It looks just like a rebadged version of the pump Vic uses. Over $50 at Petco; $21 at the website above.

I did use the gas can - I got one that looks just like Vics - only mine is for gallons, his is for liters :) Note that I had trouble finding the barbed hose fittings. I finally found something close locally - the barb is the same but the screw end is bigger.

Vic sent me two spacers and several washers. I assume he was calculating for an L75 as opposed to the L59. With the Ortofon, I only need one.

Mike

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.

Phew, I see I've missed a lot of action by being cut off from the internet, including reviews of exciting new analog products!! Forced to use free internet for 15-minute pops once a week when I went to town led to such great typos as "Have fin", which is entirely appropriate considering the Dolphin pump Mike recommends for the Terminator tonearm :-).

Speaking of which, reminds me of early days in the original thread when I believe it was Reinderspeter who was using his DIY version of the Ladegaard tonearm on his first Lenco. I see I have a lot of catching up to do with respect to reviews and buzzes on products on Da 'Net after my long isolation in the country. Lots of surfing to do to catch up!! The Terminator sounds really exciting Mike! I was speaking with an old buddy I bumped into in town last week who had me build him a MG-1-adapted Lenco, the MG-1 being another low-priced air-bearing tonearm, as he has fallen completely under the spell of his MG-1 after years, the Lenco/MG-1 being one of the few pieces to survive an across-the board clearing after he had decided to sell everything off (including recent components from Audio Research, Bryston, Aesthetix, etc.) and start over from scratch. Others, on the other hand, find they can't live with the air-hiss noise, which is barely audible. Is it audible with the Terminator Mike? Not that this bothers me, we all have different things we can tolerate. I'll soon be building my long-threatened Lenco-Noll, using the Maplenoll tonearm on the Reinderspeter top-plate Lenco. Maybe I should re-think this and go for the Terminator. Having lived with the Maplenoll for years which was excellent in both audiophile and musical terms, I do have a thing for air-bearing parallel-tracking tonearms.

Speaking of the Reinderspeter top-plate Lew, yes, it seems to be an across-the-board improvement over the "regular" Lenco, but with losses of convenience (you have to remove the platter and manually slide the idler-wheel arm to adjust or change speeds), and with the clearance between the platter and the top-plate itself so small that even paint thickness can cause rubbing/scraping problems. So assemble first and then see how much paint you can use, as there are variations in both main bearing height, and in platter height/thickness, the latter likely due to variations in the brass insert to seat the platter on the main bearing. I had to go through my collection of platters and main bearings to find a match which cleared the professionally recoated top-plate. All that said, again on a rather brief comparison (there will be longer ones to come as I set up in the new abode/soundroom), the Reinderspeter top-plate did outperform the "regular" Lenco on all counts, across the frequency range, including motor noise. And again that said, I will always keep a "regular" massive glass-reinforced Direct Coupled Giant Lenco on hand for its convenience and ease of use, and because, let's face it: if it can square off against $50K record players (and above) then it's good enough for me! And improvements in the bass by the Reinderspeter top-plate aside, Mike's experience with the Terminator tonearm shows that improvements in the bass can be achieved by other means (if necessary: the Lenco bass was definitely more powerful than that from the SME 30, for instance, and every other 'table it has been pitted against so far, colouration questions aside), so the regular Giant Direct Coupled Lenco can be further improved by all kinds of means, and is already unbelievably (literally) good.

Speaking of which (again), my experience with the superb Kokomo bearing mod for the Garrards, which uses a "soft" ceramic ball bearing, suggests that such a creature might improve the Lenco main bearing, I'll have to try the Lenco bearing mod at some point with a softer ceramic bearing.

Now I'm setting up in a new place, I've tripped over and acquired lots of new equipment for the new sound room! First off: I walked into a used audio shop just as a pair of very unlikely speakers I would never have considered otherwise were playing, and I was entranced: a pair of Technics SB-4 speakers, being "Linear Phase Honeycomb Disc Speaker Systems", having flat diaphragms made of a very light and stiff metal honeycomb material. It is the smallest of a series of three-way speakers (the others being the SB-6 and SB-8), and is that mythical beast: a dynamic driver speaker which actually does sound like an electrostatic, having no speaker-box/resonant sound, and being extremely detailed with enormous clarity, speed and a chameleon-like ability to sound exactly like the driving electronics. To drive them I bought both a C-J PV-7, which simply does the best palpability/3D/air-resonance retrieval I have ever heard from any preamp (and so which makes live recordings sound better than I have ever heard them), and a C-J PV-8, which is the big and warm-sounding PV-7's polar opposite, not sounding like the pure tube preamp it is (it was designed to compete with the Audio Research SP-9, which at the time set the benchmark for detail and "neutrality" in reasonably-priced preamps). Of course I write of all these things with respect to each preamp's phono stage, but used as a complete preamp. Finally, to go along with all these things I heard and bought a Mitsubishi amp, the DA-A10DC, a 100-watt dual-mono design from way back, and one of the best transistor amps I've heard. Has no reputation, can be had cheap. Ultra-detailed, powerful, clean-sounding with no nasties. The speakers verge on the bright, but with no screechy nasties, which is why I favour the PV-7 for now. Of course, I'll soon be trying the Leak amp with them which though only 12 watts will do, as the Technics speakers are also sensitive and easy to drive. Oh, and I was using the AKG P8ES MM on a Rega RB-300 the whole time, and I was not missing my higher-end tonearms or cartridges at all, I LOVE the P8ES, which is very detailed, warm, magical and retrieves air and resonances itself like a Grado, and am again amazed a how good the good ol' Rega tonearms are.

Lots more too, but that's enough for now, I'll report back as I settle into the new sound-room and catch up on some reading. Have fun all!!