Linn Bedrok LP12 Plinth Upgrade

In the US, the term "VAT" as it is used in the UK and in many other countries, has never been used, and I don’t see it being applied now that the orange one has declared the new much higher tariffs.  The added cost is kept under the table where the consumer never sees it as such.  Instead, the retail price just goes up enough to compensate the importer/distributor for the cost of the tariff. A big difference is that if I shop in the UK, and if I produce my passport or other proof of US citizenship, then I would not have to pay the VAT.  (At least that is the way it works in Tokyo; Japan also has a VAT. That charge is deducted when I produce my passport.) The same does not apply here for a tariff.  Anyone purchasing goods in the US, regardless of citizenship, would be per se paying any added cost related to a tariff. The VAT is a tax levied only at the time of purchase.  The tariff is a tax paid at the point of importation into the market where the item will be sold.

If all that is real, the higher price probably reflects the imposition of a tariff by us on import of the bedrock. So there wouldn’t be any additional charge to the consumer; he’s already paying the tariff at the new US price. What’s already overpriced gets overprice-per.

davey, Can you relay what the engineer said as regards the apparent looseness of the Karosel bearing as seen in the video under discussion? Thanks.

A very happy birthday to Ivor.

davey, Thank you for complimenting my system.  I presume you refer to the Sound Lab-based system.  As you may know, I also have a pair of fully functional Beveridge 2SW speakers in my second system, augmented below 80Hz by a pair of TL woofers I built myself.  I feel like a parent to both systems, and I love them both equally but for different strengths. 15-20 years ago, I got interested in vintage DD turntables, in part because the best ones are rare to find and collectible, and in part because I wanted to get away from belt drive turntables.  Along the way since then I also picked up a Lenco idler and modified it extensively. I am quite happy enough with what I have. My first real TT was an AR XA, back in the 70s.  Since then I have owned a Thorens TD125, a Transcriptors Reference (not super good but extremely fun to watch), a SOTA Star Sapphire Series III, and finally just brefore the DD conversion, a Hyperspace, which only became excellent after the addition of an outboard motor controller. My experience with the latter TT showed me that my Sapphire was not very good in several aspects, smearing piano decay and conveying vocalsl. Maybe there was something wrong with it. In any case, I have sworn off belt drives and especially spring-suspended belt drives. On the other hand, one of the finest TTs I have ever heard was my neighbor's Dohmann Helix. Go figure. So, while I am staying away from springs, I am quite impressed with the Minus K platform built into the Dohmann. Also, I heard an LP12 serving a system at the RMAF many years ago, and it seemed to be quite good. I got involved on this thread only because I was curious about the materials used to create the Bedrock and why it had to cost so much. I re-plinthed or heavily modified the original plinth for all of my DD TTs, except the Kenwood L07D.  So plinth materials is a subject that interests me.

I guess this thread should be a discussion only including LP12 owners, who also do not own the Bedrock. 

newton-john. Of course I see the irony. Which is why I posted.  But the title of the thread indicates that the Bedrock is the subject, which, unless I missed something, you also do not own. We have that much in common. Anyway, I hope you know I bear no ill will toward the LP12 or the Bedrock. I originally commented in order to clarify for myself what the Bedrock is made of and how it is fashioned. Our of curiosity. My own preferences in TTs are pretty much the opposite of an LP12.

This is the 149th post about a plinth that no one of us owns or ever heard. God bless Audiogon.

Davey, You said you can put your stylus into the lead in groove and there is dead silence.  All I am saying is that should be the case for any decent turntable at normal listening levels, because one ought not to hear bearing noise (even though bearing noise is undoubtedly present at some very low level below the signal) with any decent turntable. And of course the Linn is much better than "decent". 

In regard to Mylogic's subsequent comment, some LPs and some cartridges are more prone than others to pick up what some call "pre-groove echo".  Pre-groove echo is often audible at a very low level when the stylus is seemingly between cuts but is really entering into the grooves for the next cut.  So that could seem like you are hearing "information" between grooves.

Noise once you lower the cartridge onto the LP surface is going to be primarily do to the quality of the pressing and any defects in the stylus shape or tracking, surely not due to the bearing assembly, which noise ought to be way below the threshold set for noise by the stylus and the vinyl. Doncha think? That said, I guess it might be possible to perceive that the noise floor is lowered independently of "groove" noise even though that latter is dominant by measurement. It's actually a complex question.

Not to beat a tired horse, but when I first read the word "fettler" on this thread, I had no trouble understanding its meaning, owing to our use of the term "fiddling", meaning to mess around with a complex object, and the obvious relationship to the term "fine fettle".  Funnily, in American English, we generally don't use "fiddler" synonymously with fettler.  That term is reserved for actual musicians who play the fiddle. The Wiki definitions are obviously biased toward American English.

Mylogic, What I meant was that the DM101 just based on photos appears to have no damping for its spring suspension, which is generally needed to prevent overshoot and oscillation of the suspension.  Hence, I guess, the Logic Bounce that you mention.

I googled Logic.  Very interesting spring-suspended TT and very reminiscent of the early AR XA turntable, which was my own first true audiophile turntable, probably in 1970-71. I suppose Logic may have crossed my path at some point, and I just forgot about it. I can say they were not marketed very vigorously in New York City or New England audio stores back then, Seems like the DM101 could be tweaked in a positive direction. Spring suspension could benefit from some damping, or so it seems.

I’ve been in the hobby since the early 70s, living in the NE US in proximity to both Boston and NYC, a frequent visitor to some of the legendary stores in those two cities and then living in Washington DC since those days, and I’ve never ever heard of Logic or its turntables. What gives?

I had never heard the word "fettler" until reading this thread. I am aware of the term "fettle", as in the term "fine fettle", which I guess means everything is copacetic for that individual or that object. Wikipedia has several disparate definitions for fettler, only one of which seems applicable to the care and feeding of an LP12. See definition #3 here.  And even that definition does not specify that the thing is done well.

Is fettler a term adopted by Linn explicitly to refer to a tech who is qualified to work on the LP12? If so, an inept fettler does not leave your LP12 in fine fettle.

Yes, I guess I was thinking of the Booplinth, when I referred to bamboo, not the Bedrock. But my subsequent wondering about this and that applies to both. Why no cross-bracing? And why no attempt to create a plinth that fills in the void under the platform that supports everything else with sculpted wood or other material, sculpted to accommodate the workings that hang down, so as to eliminate the potentially resonant air chamber? That approach has been successful with idler drives (Garrard and Lenco aftermarket plinths) and with direct drive (see PBN Audio plinth for DP80). Since I approach the question from a position of complete naivete’, I wonder whether it has been done and was not so successful. No devoted Lenco-ite would be caught listening with the OEM Lenco plinth, which was hollow inside.

If I were a Linn aficionado, the Bedrock would stimulate me to think up other ways to make a plinth that would probably cost less but also further improve upon the bedrock. I think the one piece bamboo idea is terrific but why no internal cross bracing if rigidity is a goal and why no attempt to fill the hollow space below the works with a contoured structure of the same composition? Has that been tried and found wanting?

What davey said, especially if considering an opinion from "some guy".

Elliot, The spring suspension isolates the chassis, motor, platter, bearing, etc, from the plinth, at least that is my understanding without having owned an LP12.  So I would think of the plinth as being outside the suspension system. One would have to be careful adding further isolation that affects the plinth, since any additional external suspension might spuriously interact with the springs, producing oscillation in the worst case scenario. 

Incidentally, I own a Denon DP80 that came to me with the DK300 plinth and a Victor TT101 that came to me with its OEM plinth. I ditched the DK300 in favor of slate, and I heavily modified the TT101 plinth by (1) replaced the armboard with a solid aluminum copy to which I added mass and further rigidity from below, and (2) added about 20 lbs of mass and constrained layer damping to the plinth by bolting to it some large pieces of solid aluminum, from below. The OEM TT101 armboard was a joke in the light of our current understanding of the need for rigidity, mass, and coupling to the bearing. I can't swear to it now, but I think the DK300 is made from MDF, which to my ear adds an obvious cardboardy coloration.

It’s Lew M, not Lew N. I live in the US, not in the UK. The price on the Linn website is $32,800. The price of the SP1000R at Music Direct is $19,999, or something like that. The list price of both TTs does include a tonearm. So, for a US resident, there is a roughly $13K difference in price, in favor of the Technics. However, I was not aware that the price for the Linn Klimax also includes a cartridge (AND phono stage?) If the Linn price does include a phono stage, then I do stand corrected. But that does not make the price of the Linn LESS than that of the Technics. They would be about the same here in the US, unless you posit that the Linn cartridge and phono are a phenomenal value.

I don’t. use the term "aficionado" as a pejorative. If you have owned the same TT for 30 or 40 years and have upgraded it along the way at high cost, and if you defend that TT on internet websites against its critics, then the term aficionado applies, in my parlance anyway. I’ll admit to being an ESL aficionado, for example, since I have owned nothing but ESL speakers of one kind or another for more than 45 years. You could also say I am an aficionado of OTL amplifiers to drive ESLs. I also beg to differ with you on Linn owners. They are an intelligent lot who certainly do know the difference between belt-drive and direct drive.

Newton, baby: Technics SP1000R price is $20K, brand new from Music Direct. That's $10K less than a Klimax LP12.  (Actually, the Klimax is shown at $32,800 on the Linn website, so more like ~$13K less for the SP1000R.) A new Minus K platform is probably around $5K.

https://www.musicdirect.com/equipment/turntables/technics-sl-1000r-reference-turntable-system/

Obviously, it depends first and foremost on what one wants to own. I realize that most Linn aficionados do not want to own a direct drive TT.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn the cost of a Klimax LP12 plus and minus the new plinth.  I suppose it is reluctantly acceptable to a person who already owns and loves the LP12.  I admit that I have a bias in the opposite direction; I prefer direct drive turntables and even a modified and modernized idler drive turntable (my Lenco), over any belt drive except maybe the Dohmann, among high end belt drives I have actually seen and heard, and I have not heard many in the high price category. Allowing for the possibility of buying a pre-owned turntable, which mylogic seems only recently to have discovered, there are a myriad of choices at and below the $40,000 "price point" that I would prefer.  However, I mean no disrespect to LP12 fans; the performance is probably way better than I imagine.

China? You could certainly have a Panzerholz plinth made locally in the USA for way less than $11K.  Talk to Albert Porter; he has been making a beautiful complex Panzerholz plinth for the Technics SP10 Mk2 and Mk3 for many years, probably right there in Texas.

So it IS Panzerholz-like or it IS Baltic Birch.  One or the other.  What is the base price of the latest version, Klimax?  I am guessing  in the $20K range.  If you own one already and now want the plinth upgrade for $9K or $11K, that's a lot of moolah. You could buy a Technics SP1000R and a Minus K platform and have change left over.

If it really is Baltic Birch, then it is horrifically overpriced.  I heretofore thought the plinth of the 50th Anniversary LP12 was made from a densified wood, like Panzerholz, which is expensive to buy and very difficult to machine, somewhat justifying the high cost. I also thought the new plinth upgrade for ordinary LP12s would be the same as the plinth designed for the limited edition version. If the plinth upgrade really is made of Baltic Birch, which is a good choice but very pedestrian (see Lenco Heaven), then there is no possible justification for the high price, in my opinion. Furthermore, it would be easy to make one yourself or have it made by a skilled furniture maker, for much lower cost.