Linn LP12 turntable

As always, it helps to RTFM (read the manual).  Linn has an excellent one for the LP12.  In particular it stresses that the LP12 should stand on a lightweight surface, such as a light coffee table.  If wall mounted, the shelf should be low mass.

The Linn is a low mass design with long-travel springs.  Its resonant frequency is very low, but if teemed with a massive stand which itself absorbs energy and resonates around the same frequency, the two resonances can reinforce.

@daveyf 

I think we are in furious agreement!  The Linn aluminium Trampolin base acts like a lightweight coffee table.  It does not really matter what the coffee table stands on - could be a concrete ground slab or a suspended wooden floor.

My comments were more aimed at those who are accustomed to massive set ups which might not have or need compliant suspensions to absorb unwanted vibrations.

As an aside, I am modifying the plinth for my Garrard 301 so it can either behave as a massive plinth, or have the table board suspended as Garrard intended.

@signaforce 

I'd be signing up for the Linn as quickly as possible.  Worst case scenario is you can sell it again for about what you paid ... if not more!

Get in quickly or somebody else will snap it up ...

A centre speaker, which is unused during playback of vinyl, is mentioned in this thread.

I am pretty sure it was Ivor Tiefenbrun, the founder of Linn, who insisted during demonstrations that all redundant loudspeakers should be removed from the room because they act as passive radiators!

Ivor is outspoken, irreverent, highly opinionated, a brilliant and original thinker, and one of the most fascinating conversationalists either of us has met.

— John Atkinson & Robert Harley^[8]

Linn's founder, Ivor Tiefenbrun, is above all an engineer who believes in measuring what caused changes. He figured that if a turntable could be assembled with a screwdriver, it could be repaired with one. It could also be upgraded.  By having each unit assembled and signed by an individual, it could be returned to that individual for repairs.  This became a learning process feeding into engineered improvements.

There's a fascinating read here A Wee Dram of Scotch: Linn Products' Ivor Tiefenbrun | Stereophile.com

@yoyoyaya 

I guess the further you are from Glasgow, the less likely you are to return a unit for repair!  Linn's early market was the UK and that Stereophile article is itself over 30 years old.

Strangely, an inverse law seems to hold for Scotch.  The further you are from Scotland, the lower the price.  Another good reason to live in Australia ...

@yoyoyaya

SME and Linn have quite similar origin stories, albeit with a couple of decades separating them. Both had access to high-precision engineering facilities. In SME’s case their founder was looking for a tone arm and asked the workshop if they had any tubing. The resulting 3009 and its relatives were a perfect match for the likes of the Garrard 301 and the high compliance, high trackability, Shure V15 cartridges. Almost half a million tone arms were sold.

Fast forward, and the founder of Linn was unhappy with his turntable - it was not as good as his dad’s. So he built one, but it was not an improvement. He worked out that acoustic isolation was important, hence soft springing, but also that any slack between the stylus and the record would be amplified. Very tight bearing tolerances and rigid tone arms were needed.

SME responded by casting one-piece magnesium tone arms and eventually made their own turntables at pretty eyewatering prices. Eventually SME even picked up the remnants of Garrard’s turntable business and now offer a ’new’ Garrard 301 at prices that make me wonder if they are serious about it.

There is some speculation here about why Linn has not introduced new designs for vinyl playback. This only makes sense to me if the new design moves away from the modular, belt drive, suspended deck platform with rigid tone arm model. Maybe a direct drive, massive table like the half-ton Wilson Benesch GMT One System. Or something like the bargain price (by comparison) tangential tracking, air bearing Holbo deck?

From Linn's business perspective it probably makes more sense to continue down the digital path they once decried ...