Well, I guess as the first to sell a high-end 'table in favour of a Lenco I'll add my own two cents to David's thread. I had a Maplenoll in various iterations, from early oak Athena to latest Ariadne with Corian body and 40-pound lead/graphite platter. The Lenco destroyed the Ariadne for speed and PRaT, the Ariadne considered the equal of the Platine Verdier and VPI TNT, and we already know how the TNT fared against the Lenco ;-). I found the earlier oak Maplenoll with lighter platter to have much better PRaT and life than the Ariadne, and did a lot of horse-trading in order to get my hands on the original fluid-damping trough/tonearm arrangement and light 15-pound lead platter with oak plinth which was the best iteration of the Maplenoll in my experience, a PRaT thing and control thing (that headshell trough idea really works), which I thought I could bring up to Lenco's PRaT standards and Sonic Superbulosity with some judicious tweaking and modifications. After all this, and the fluid damping trough, the Lenco was STILL comfortably ahead of it in ecvery area and the Audiomeca Roma I had, I threw in the towel and started the Home Despot thread. Why? Because, as I have repeatedly written, the High End is the Land of Diminishing Returns, and high end turntables should not be destroyed by other high end turntables, but simply improved on. The Lenco does destroy any belt-drive high end turntables it has been fairly pitted against so far to an embarassing degree, it was time to raise the possibility that the adoption of the belt-drive system was a mistake, that the superior system had always been the idler-wheel drive system, with Lenco acting as Ambassador. In addition to those who posted on this thread, the Home Despot thread, and various other threads, I have personaly heard the Lenco destroy several Maplenolls, not just mine, an Oracle Delphi MKIV, a VPI TNT MKII, a Rega P9 with RB1000 tonearm (while the Lenco had an RB300), a Linn LP12, and many other old classics. I started the thread which would either prove or disprove this conclusion, inviting those who tried to report on their conclusions, and so far no turntable has stood against the Mighty Lenco! Now the Lenco is reaching heights of Mightiness undreamt-of in your philosophies, what with Direct Coupling, motor re-adjustment and rebuilding, and new super-massive (and still reaonsably-priced) CLD plinths. The Lenco is the Alexander the Great of the turntable world, it's conquests just beginning: Next!!
