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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 2 responses by tvrgeek

tvrgeek
299 posts
 

If one could budget it, I would move on. As great as the Linn was, it was a pain and modern manufacturing has improved for less money ( relative). 

tvrgeek
299 posts
 

Ha-Ha, I had two friends back in Colorado. Both with Quads, MV-50's and PV-5s. Both ran Denon MC. One a Linn, One a SOTA.   Now, the sound from both was fantastic, but they would argue endlessly about their tables!  

The biggest improvement I heard on a table was at Transcendental Sound in Denver. He put his table in an isolated box on a suspension.  No feedback. Really improved midrange clarity.  If I remember, he ran a Panasonic strain gauge cartridge powered by Jeff Roland's power supply. Jordan module arrays on giant sono-tube woofer cabinets. 

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