Linn LP12 turntable

@ghdprentice, for absolute clarity, I was referring to Sony in terms of the sensors (also used b Leica) rather than Sony's cameras. But I stand by saying that the Zeiss Otus's will stand up against any 35mm lens and give top MF lenses a good run for their money as well.

The problem with LP12 upgrades is that the cost of an upgraded LP12 puts it into competition with a lot of newer turntables which, depending on the listener, may or may not be better. In its original form, the LP 12 was nothing special at all - woolly bass and sloppy sounding and lots of people who were not deafened by the hype preferred a Rega 3. It has gotten better over the years, admittedly. BTW, even back in the 80s when people were upgrading from the Grace 707 to the Ittok, the bearings in every 707 I ever saw were shot. Admittedly, they might survive with a high compliance MM, but most 707s were sold with the Supex 900 MC.

@Mylogic - re Ittok shortcomings. One thing that always drove me mad about the Ittok was its severely limited vertical travel - very easy to disturb the suspension if manually taking the record off the platter.

The soul of the Syrinx lives on in the Audio Origami PU7 which I haven't heard, but which is by all accounts a very fine arm.

One contemporary competitor to the Ittok was the Alphason HR 100S. And of course the Rega RB 300. The thing was that neither of those arms worked well on the LP 12 because they were too light to adequately balance the suspension. On a Roksan, the situation was very different.

@daveyf - to be fair, a lot of people liked the Naim Aro, which is also light. And yes, I have heard the WTA sound good on the LP12. What perhaps is interesting is that I struggle to think of any examples of people using the Ittok on non Linn decks. Interesting to hear if anyone on the forum has done that.

@OP - An old LP 12 with what is probably a thirty plus year old Ittok - very wise to pass on that one.

@Davey F. Interesting - thanks! Martin Colloms always maintained that different aspects of the LP 12'ss design, while perhaps questionable in themselves, were effective in terms of overall system synergy. Perhaps the same is true of the Ittok/LP 12 combination. Though personally, I always thought it had a bit of a zingy/splashy character - very different to the WTA in that regard.

@mylogic - they built a lot of beautiful ships in Glasgow but, I suppose riveting large sheets of steel together is somewhat different to building a tonearm.

@daveyf - yes, on one level an LP12s ability to be upgraded is a plus, but a lot of the upgrades are aimed at fixing flaws in the original design and engineering.

Its a bit like the restomod phenomenon in cars - yes you can replace and upgrade a lot of the parts but you will still be limited by the original design. And you will spend the price or more of a ground up modern design.

There are other modern designs that offer upgrades - for example, you can upgrade a Clearaudio Innovation to Master Innovation. And in that case you are adding additional new parts and not junking pieces of the existing turntable.

Even where a turntable cannot be upgraded, the economics of trading in the TT for a better model are not necessarily worse than the cost of purchasing parts upgrades. If you do a full set of Linn sanctioned upgrades on, say an 80's LP12, you have almost nothing of the original left except the plinth, platter and top plate.

@mylogic - re your question, IMO it's not in Linn's interest to produce a ground up new turntable design for two reasons:

One, because, as demonstrated by this thread, the upgradeability is a major selling point.

Secondly, from the time that Linn introduced the LK 1&2 amplifiers they started a strategic shift from mechanical engineering to electronics.

Taking both of those together, I doubt that the business case for designing and manufacturing an entirely new turntable stacks up for them.

@Richardbrand - having serviced many Linn LP 12's, I never came across a case of a turntable being returned to the factory. Anyway, to be fair to the LP12, the only things that ever breaks in them is the electronics and, very very rarely, the motor. The "we don't use a production line" (from the 1994 interview) is just spin. Linn's production volumes and the simplicity of the TT assembly process wouldn't have justified a production line. Working from memory, there are about 20 fastenings in total - screws nuts and bolts  required to assemble an 1990's-era LP12. I don't service them any more but I don't see radical changes to the basic structure of the TT in that regard,

@richardbrand. I'm not that far from Glasgow. But glad to know that Scotch is cheap down under - it certainly isn't in my neck of the woods - proving your scotch theory :))

@ alessandrocat - SME and Linn's turntables are the proverbial chalk and cheese when it comes to sonics. If you love your SME then I very much doubt you would like an LP12.

@richardbrand. I've been involved in the industry since the late seventies, so I'm pretty conversant with the history.

Hi @allesandrocat. I'm delighted you have found a TT you love. If you like the SME 10 then you would be well served by an SME 20 or 30, or, depending on the age of your SME 10, one of the newer power supplies. Regards Y

@ghd prentice.Have you tried a Zeiss Otus on a Nikon with the Sony 45mp Sensor?. There are more roads to Rome than Leica.