Linn Audio

casaross, your post raises and interesting subject. Not just the Sondek, but other products from other companies are introduced in their original forms and at original prices, and establish their price-to-performance niche in the marketplace. Over the years improvements, upgrades, and options for those products are introduced which, if fully implemented, completely change their-price-to-performance ratio, sometimes improving that ratio, but more commonly the opposite.

With those implementations, the product is now priced comparably with other products whose basic design may be superior to the owners product, offering better performance/sound for the same price. An owner of one of the original pieces may have not just an economic investment in that piece, but also an emotional one, and may be unable to dispassionately evaluate the wisdom of dumping a considerable amount of money into the piece instead of changing course.

The Sondek retailed for $300 when I discovered it in ’74, about the same price as the Thorens TD-125 Mk.2, and offering superior performance/sound. Over the years Linn offered many, many improvements, upgrades, and options for the Sondek, as did VPI for their HW-19 and TNT tables. IMO, VPI improved it’s price-to-performance ratio, Linn the opposite.

Linn was quite right in their "source-first" idea. Once lost, information can’t be recovered. But a loudspeaker can lose a lot too. A balanced system, no glaring weak link or bottle neck, is my philosophy. There’s no point in having any one component too much better than the others.

What the Linn Sondek did was remind everyone that a turntable is a mechanical device, not an electronic one. As soon as I discovered it (1974, I believe), I knew I had to get rid of my Thorens TD-125 Mk.2. I came to the conclusion, though, that it’s kind of a glorified AR XA without the cr*ppy arm.