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 4 responses by thermionicemission

@noromance  If I sell the Linn the budget will be $3.5k.
@ghdprentice No local Linn dealer. I would have to do the upgrades myself. Not completely opposed to doing it, however I would like as close to as little set up as possible.

@pindac thank you for the link

Just to toss this in…my local Clearaudio dealer has a couple of demo tables for sale:

Concept with Satisfy arm $1200 with some entry level Clearaudio cartridge 

Performance DC Wood with Tracer arm $4200 no cartridge

Thoughts?

 

 

I would like to thank everyone for their input. @iopscrl you are so right. There is no black magic here. I jumped in and was able to adjust the suspension and in turn level the arm board much better. Bounce is in agreement with what I’ve read and seen.
I will go for the Circus, Ittok LVII, and Hercules II for the first round. Your thoughts are in line with many others. I do generally like the table. Beat the pants off my old Rega P3 and sounds better than my brothers Thorens TD-160 which he has meticulously set up. Maybe step up the cart from the Nagaoka MP-200 as well. Any suggestions? I need the higher output of a MC due to my vintage Fisher CX400-2 preamp.