I’m sad that my first and only Linn experience was less than optimal. I will say this, if I ever win the lottery, I’m earmarking $$$ for a fully loaded Linn Sondek Klimax and a VPI Direct. That’ll be the ultimate shootout…
Upgrade my older Linn Sondek or move on?
Hi All,
I have a 1984 Linn Sondek that is still as it came new with a couple of exceptions. I did rebuild my Valhalla board as I was having some issues. Still has the Basic LV X arm, but I added an XTC counterweight as the stock counterweight bushing turned to mush. I am running a Nagaoka MP-200 cartridge.
Question is do I drop the money to upgrade the arm, bearing, and power supply or move on to a new or used table? Looking at used parts to upgrade the Linn I can easily spend $2k. I can sell the Linn and that puts me in the $3.5k budget range for a different table.
I have been looking at Well Tempered and VPI. Any thoughts on these or other recommendations? Better sound quality and ease of set up / use would be the objectives. The rest of the system: Quicksilver M135 mono amps, Fisher CX-2 preamp, and Magnepan LRS+ speakers.
Showing 3 responses by audiovideonirvana
For over two decades, I dreamt of having a Linn Sondek LP12 in my system. When the opportunity arose of a good high-quality used LP12 (single-speed) available from Canada, I jumped at the chance. It had Mitch Cotter silver phono cables, and a Grace G707 tonearm. I added a Sumiko Bluepoint to complete it. At first, the table was an improvement over my old Rega Planar 3. But the more listening I did the more I noticed some weirdness, an underlying rumble tone in the sound. I called my local Linn dealer and he told me to bring it in. He suggested I fix the suspension, because it was not working the way the specifications stated. So I spent the money and fixed it. He also suggested, quite rightly, to get a new tonearm and cartridge but my budget wasn’t there yet at that time. The sound improved a bit, but not by the amount I thought it would. In the end, upgrading the whole enchilada would have been too expensive. As all of you on this forum know, a brand new Linn Sondek LP12 with all the bells and whistles costs north of US$30,000. The immutable law of diminishing returns. After seven years I finally sold it. I was underwhelmed by its sound and disappointed. I went to a VPI turntable and haven’t looked back. At least I can say I fulfilled my dream of owning a Linn… |
@daveyf ”The problem the OP has is apparently there is no dealer anywhere near him, which is unfortunately becoming more common with Linn LP12 dealers.” BINGO! These are very fussy tables. One definitely needs a local dealer to be able to fix common problems, or do upgrades correctly. Just as an aside, my local Linn dealer no longer is. He got tired of the BS with parts and shipping, etc. and he decided to go VPI. Maybe if I had the inclination to be constantly tweaking it I wouldn’t mind, but I’d rather listen to music than tweak the turntable. With my VPI it’s play it and forget it. |