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.

thermionicemission

Showing 1 response by musicfan2349

I’m the current caretaker of what was my pop’s LP12 with the Valhalla mod and Rabco straight line tracking tonearm. I completely retuned, leveled, lubed and rebelted it a couple of years ago and it sounds lovely. 

I liken it to my ‘93 Ducati also known as “the world’s greatest kit bike”; You could enjoy it as is from the factory or heap time and money at it with all sorts of modifications! LOL

Really there is no wrong answer though now I’m thinking of unpacking his old SOTA Sapphire and getting THAT going again  

 

Happy listening