Thoughts on the Linn LP12 turntable

I should add that I brought up the Linn vs Sota analogy only to make my point about the significance of marketing.  Linn chose to keep the model name and its appearance constant while gradually upgrading the innards (at considerable added cost).  SOTA chose also to stick pretty close to the appearance of their original Sapphire while also upgrading the innards, also at increasing cost, but they also re-named each upgraded version which gave us the public the feel of a new product every 5-10 years.

For me, not having heard a Cosmos but having owned a Star Sapphire Series III for 10 years, what most sets the Cosmos apart is the Eclipse drive system and possibly the magnetic bearing. But that’s 40 years of development. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Marketing. If Linn had renamed their product with each upgrade, we’d be free of the inevitable comparisons between the original LP12 and the current variant, which although an upgraded variant, we’d now call an “LP20” or the like. Psychologically this might have been better for the Linn image. I liken it to Technics with the SL1200. They were foolish to re-use that name and to reproduce that appearance in the context of the current G/GR series tables, which are different and better in every way compared to the original SL1200 lineup. Many novice buyers cannot separate the old from the new in their thinking. Likewise too, the original SOTA Sapphire vs the Cosmos. The latter is really an upgraded Sapphire, a 40 year old design. But we discuss it as if the Cosmos was something new. Shakespeare had it right when he wrote”what’s in a name…?” 

Pani, I hadn’t heard of the Ginga, so your comment led me to look it up. Its design concept channels Mikro Seiki, if MS had been allowed to evolve for a decade or two. The TTs you like by and large could not be more different from the LP12.

As a person with no opinion, my observation is that both groups are guilty of taking the pro and con arguments personally, not just the negative side. If one wanted to defend Linn’s upgrade policy, one could say that other companies follow a similar path, except each succeeding set of improvements to the base product is given a new name and touted as a new improved product, at a higher price point. On the other hand, some of the LP12 upgrades, including those that stiffen the structure or upgrade the bearing, were not unknown in the 70s. It appears that compromises were originally made in favor of low or mid-market cost. My impression is that the original was built to a price point and that the subsequent upgrades were introduced to enhance the ranking of the product to compete with much more ambitious efforts from others. Linn was moving the product perception from “mass market” to “upscale”.

It seems some detractors may want to dribble LP12s, in fact.  (I’m on the sidelines in this discussion. Never owned one.)

“Drivel”, not “dribble”.

Otherwise, admirable for conviction.