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Origin DC Motor in LP12: Marketing or reality?

I have asked this before and gotten NO (zero, nada, zilch, bupkis, null...) response. From what I can tell, there is 10 times (100x?) the amount of promotional material as there is personal experience of this upgrade on the internet. I am starting to wonder if they have ever sold any.

My TT is a Linn LP12, with Linn Basik Plus arm and Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood MkII cartridge, and it is fitted with the Valhalla board. I have a great isolation stand that gives me incredibly musical and natural sound and I love this in my system. I do not want to screw up the sound, but I'm willing to try to improve it without spending big bucks. I can afford about $400-600 for a large upgrade at a time, once or twice a year.

Everyone I know who has added a motor drive (Lingo, Walker, Clearaudio, VPI) reports fantastic results, and I have heard it myself on many of those systems.

I have considered, on and off, trying to upgrade with the Origin Live DC Motor Drive, but I can only find about 2-3 professional reviews, and no individual (amateur) critiques, just comments from people who have read about but haven't actually installed one.

Have any of you actually tried this upgrade? Would I get a great improvement over the Valhalla board? How does it compare to a Lingo? What are the pros and the cons?

p.s. Does anyone else notice that there are certain products that are very heavily promoted in this and other sites (classified and dealer), but rarely see comments about someone who bought the product?
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jimbo3
304 posts
 
Par3in1- PRAT is Pace, Rythym And Timing.
linnlp12
79 posts
 
The best thing you can do to make to your Linn is to make sure the suspension is tuned. The difference between tuned and not tuned is dramatic. All the supplies sounded great to me and to be honest, I think the real reason people find the biggest improvement in power supplies is the fact that they usually retune the suspension when changes are made to the table. Having much much experience with Linn tables in all configurations, my advice to you for the best bang for your dollars, is blow off your Linn Basik tonearm and upgrade that. For the money spent, you will hear much more improvement than you will the drive system. A Linn Ittok is still reasonable in price, but difficult to work with because easy to damage bearing if mishandled. But I think it will be a very significant improvement over your Basik and will be in the same price range with a used drive system or much cheaper than a brand new Lingo. If you can afford it, Ekos or ARO. My 2 cents, everyone has their own opinion, but that would be my advice to you.
pclt
3 posts
 
I've got the original OL DC motor on my LP12. Blew away the stock basic motor it replaced and is better than my memory of a Valhalla motored LP12 I used to own.

I disagree with Linnlp12's posting above. I am quite certain I heard a significantly better sound with OL motor in combination with a Grace 707 arm than with a Valhalla motor with the significantly better Fidelity Research FR64 arm. Plus I have never heard suspension tuning improvements to match those wrought by any of my motor upgrades.

The new OL motor addresses my one issue with my motor; it's too noisy. Nothing comes through the speakers, but the physical noise generated by the motor's brushes are audible across the room in quiet pieces of music. The new OL motor has rubber shrink-wrap damping to address this. I'm thinking about wrapping my motor in BluTack.

All-in-all, the OL motor is great value for money. Some rough edges in implementation, but what comes out of the speakers is many times what you could reasonably expect from any product at that price point.

Have never compared directly with Armageddon or Lingo, but these are out of my price range. OL was affordable.

I was impressed with the increased soundstaging, tonal neutrality and detail. Did not notice any loss of the Linn's toe-tapping PRAT qualities. Strongly recommended.
dcaudio
88 posts
 
I have now had the Oracle turntable with the Origin Live motor for about one month.
Biggest issue so far. Motor noise. Very noisy compared to my old Oracle motor and my AR Turntable.
naimfan
166 posts
 
I've heard LP12s with a variety of power supplies, and I'd say the OL supply is comparable to the Valhalla but not a "slam dunk" improvement. It is considerably better than the Basik supply, but I think the Lingo, the Pink Triangle, and the Armageddon are all considerably better. It might be worth waiting until you can get a Lingo or an Armageddon. Having owned both, my personal preference is for the Armageddon, but others disagree.

Best,

Bob
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