Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hey Kim,

Looking Good! What's that beautiful gnarley wood on the sides? What are all the woods that you used? How's the Sumiko acting as a retriever? Do you have it set up with or without the dampning fluid? So many questions ....

I forgot to put in the specs. 25 7/8" wide, 20 15/16" long and 7 3/4" weight- 93 pounds. Alternating layers of 3/4" MDF and 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood. Pan sits directly on top layer of BB, four long wood scres through pan into plinth and 4 bolts through the plinth into the top plate. Trim is solid Bubinga, top and sides are quilted waterfall Bubinga veneer, finish is hand rubbed tung oil.I owe thanks to 4yanks for the tung oil inspiration and rottenstone suggestion for the final coat of oil. My first veneer project. The three feet are large round headed bolts for leveling. Kim

I'd have to say that it sounds as good as it looks. Honest. It completely blows all of my other tables away. Tables that I have defended for the past several years, and they all sounded good to me, a Thorens TD125 MKII, a Denon DP 60L, a Sony PS-X7, and a Dual 1229. This thing is in a league of its own. I've been spinning vinyl like it was going out of style lately and I'm lovin it. I figure I've got 200 plus hours in the whole project, but then I am slow and I didn't have a set of plans to work off of. Alot of time was spent trying to decide to do it this way or that way, does this look better. Trying several different things can chew up time and materials, so can mistakes O;). If you add in the time I spent reading EVERYTHING I could find on it, then it enters into the obsessed category. Guilty I guess.
The arm is a Sumiko Premier FT-3 with the PIB-1 interface on the back panel, the cartridge in the picture is a Shure M91ED, but today I put on a Shure M97xE, which has been an improvement. I knew it would but I had the M91ED in there while the construction was going on and all the tweaking. I didn't want to ruin a good cart in the building process. My other components are mid-fi, My main amp is a Sansui AU717. I have the matching tuner TU 717, but I don't use it, I use a Kenwood KT 3050, it sounds better. Maybe an alignment and some mods and I'm sure the reverse would be true. I have a Pioneer RT 909, don't use it much anymore, my listening is 99 percent vinyl. I have a Phillips CDR770 player so I can record straight off the vinyl.I have a Kenwood KX 5550 cassette deck to play those 25 cent cassettes I find from time to time. My speakers are Klipsch Chorus IIs. I love 'em.
My music tastes are varied. Started out with 60s and 70s rock, some progressive, and I'm a big Pink Floyd fan. A lot of my collectable Floyd has come down off the shelf and onto the Lenco. Finally a table worthy of playing my best. In recent years I have become a big classical fan, I can't believe I missed all that wonderful music for so long, but playing catch up is fun. My wife likes 50s and early 60s rock-n-roll and some older country classics. I'm starting to appreciate jazz a little now, so we have just about everything covered. My collection is well over 5000 and climbing weekly it seems. Well enough about me already.
Back to the Lenco, as great as it sounds, UNFORTUNATELY it will not be in my possession long. I made this for my stepson David who turned 30 about the time this project started. He has a growing passion for vinyl and I thought I would help him out and give him something to really enjoy. Thank God he has been patient.
I was planning on doing another Lenco for myself, but e-pay has been pretty dry for quite a while so I don't have another Lenco for myself. (no good deed goes unpunished)
But I do have another project in the starting blocks, another idler, a Russco Studio Pro B. The Russco is kinda noisey, you can hear the motor in between tracks from a couple of feet away. When the music is playing it sounds great. I'm hoping that a large plinth will take care of that. The background isn't black like on the Lenco, but it isn't that bad either. The Russco holds it own very well just sitting on the blocks compared to the Lenco in its giant plinth. I've been comparing the two for a couple of weeks and the Russco has surprised me in that its' performance soundwise is just a hair beneath the Lenco. It will be interesting to compare the two when I finish the Russco. If it takes as long as the Lenco, then it will be next year before that happens. The build of the Russco makes the Lenco look flimsy and unworthy, and the motor is rated at 1/75 horsepower. If I crank down the idler pressure I bet the Russco could spin the Giant Lenco. It's that powerful. Just awesome. Now I just need to decide what to do with it.
Kim

Mario, this one is set up without the dampening fluid. My Ft-4 is set up with it though, I thought the FT-3 with a new Shure M97xE wouldn't need it.

Kim

I have to add my own admiration for a gorgeous plinth Kim. And what a MONSTER!! Just goes to show that patience is indeed a virtue ;-). Fascinating account as well, great reading! Too bad that beauty will be sailing away, good luck on the Russco project. Keep adding to the idler repertoire!! Great to see the Son of Da Thread doing so well and off to a great start. A testament to the Power of the Idler and to all participants so far, and with thanks to Mario!

Up here I have been slowly settling into a new rhythm with energies directed in other directions and new routines forming, but this doesn't mean the Mighty Lenco Master had no lessons for me since I last posted! On the old thread I had acquired an Audio Research SP-8 and was struggling with speaker-room issues. I tore apart my listening room/living room several times re-organizing so I could get larger speakers with deeper bass to work well in there, which I finally did. Now all my larger speakers - the Athena Technologies S3's, the ESS AMT4's and the AR2ax's - all sound beautiful with deep, tight, powerful, slamming and PRaTful bass. I am also trying a relatively easy to implement perhaps-large improvement to the Lenco which I'll describe further if indeed it is an improvement (the Mighty Lenco is so good it is sometimes hard to tell if one has achieved an improvement!).

What I discovered recently with the new soundroom/speaker combo is something I will call the Kundalini Effect, after the mystic serpent which is said to lie coiled at the base of our spines: Kundalini. In living with the Denon DL-103E installed on the SME V mounted in turn on my own Giant Direct Coupled Lenco (which doesn't look so giant now I've got a gander at Kim's Lenco ;-)), and with the addition of my deep-bass speakers (Athenas and AR2ax's), I reached yet another and deeper level of musical bliss: whereas I was getting used to the hairs rising up on my arms and the occasional fit of shivers with my smaller Yamahas, with the introduction of deeper bass I now found myself often experiencing intense muscular spasms starting at the base of my spine and working its way up to my scalp, like "ordinary" shivers, but far more intense (and I mean this literally) when playing many of my records. Now the goosebump/hair-raising experience is rare enough in audio and as intense an audio experience as I've ever had in my life, but NEVER have I felt these intense spasms from the base of my spine all the way to my scalp! AND this is repeatable through both the Athenas and the AR2ax's. Though I attribute this in part to the tremendously musical ARC SP-8 (which is in audiophile terms superior to my Sony, but this is not why I'm keeping it: it's because of its intense musical POWER) and to the re-organization of my room, what I believe is happening is that the Lenco - and all good idler-wheel drives - retrieves musical energy and information in the bass which is quite simply lacking in belt-drives, and in such a fashion (gestalt, flow) that is also superior - at least for now - to Direct Drive. As with my arguments in older days that PRaT and musicality were not subjective but due to some technical aspect of vinyl engineering/replay detectable by our biological makeup (i.e. superior speed stability), so I believe that these physical/biological effects have some technical reason as well, and yes, once again it is superior speed stability, for which some elegant high-torque system is needed (i.e. idler-wheel drive). In short, until you've heard the Lenco (or other Mighty Idler-Drive) via a speaker with serious bass, you don't know just how powerful a listening experience it can be! Though My Yamahas are excellent "mini-monitors" (though quite large and with surprising bass nevertheless), they cannot offer the experience both my Athenas and my AR2ax's can offer: like the difference between looking at a Playboy magazine, and being at a Playboy Mansion party!! Now the Kundalini Effect may or may not be partly due to the new mod I'm trying out, I'll be back later this week with a full report.

Which brings me to the Acoustic Research 2ax's...High-End Audio On a Budget Alert!!!: these speakers are quite simply awesome, and deserve to be ranked - despite their clunky "it can't be" looks - with the likes of Quad ESL57's and LS3/5A's. Cheap too, as most are fixated on the famous AR3a’s, which reputedly aren’t as fast as the 2ax’s and speed is essential in caputring the razor-sharp transients and SLAM of good idlers. Sorta like the Lenco story ;-). In my new soundroom, they combined the extreme neutrality of my Yamahas with the musical exuberance of my Athenas (and in musical exuberance/magic, the Athenas are simply unbelievable). And they trump the Athenas in terms of SLAM and bass POWER.

The story is this: I had already settled on the ARs as being the best-suited to my new room, and decided to get off my lazy ass and finally finish the restoration. I bought new Solen caps for the crossover (simple, a 4uf and 6uf cap apiece), and took apart the pots to deep-clean them with an electronics cleaner and a stiff horsehair brush. These pots are works of engineering art as well: meant to be taken apart with a ceramic seat and a coil inset over which copper contacts rotate to give the correct resistance, it is also built so that there is only one way to re-assemble it, so it is foolproof AND lasts forever (like certain vintage idlers)! Before this, I had already had them re-foamed, as I bought them with rotten foam for 10 bucks at a garage sale. Anyway, now they are restored, the bass is quite simply unbelievable, as they aren't all that big (23 3/4" H x 13 1/2" W x 11 1/2" D), the smallest near-full-range speakers ever made. But more than just deep, the bass and percussion especially (which includes piano) emerges with lightning speed and with the heft of a wrecking ball, I confess I've never heard anything like it. Of course, having a Lenco helps ;-). And more than this, they are very neutral, image very well, have beautiful smooth highs (despite having the most primitive dome tweeters, these being the first on the market) and have excellent detail (a dedicated dome midrange). In comparison to the Athenas, they are far more neutral, in fact the MDF Athenas are the only boxy-sounding speakers I have, all the rest - being made of chipboard one and all - sound clear and clean. Which points the finger at MDF, the true reason for its near-ubiquitous use is the fact it is easily machined and finished, chipboard is simply a better material for speaker cabinets (this doesn’t apply to plinths, where MDF’s superior mass is required to keep the size down, though feel free to build total house-dominating monsters :-)). In fact, I intend to rebuild my Athena speaker cabinets in hefty chipboard (1 ½”), and get rid of that boxiness (this boxiness being relative to my very-neutral collection of speakers, the ESS being seemingly made of cement ;-)).

So, while the AR's don't have the delicacy of the Quads or the scary-real vocals of the LS3/5As, they are leagues ahead of either in terms of bass SLAM, reach and POWER (and yes, bass detail), AND in any sort of percussion/power/speed/slam (including piano) up into the midrange, while being nevertheless surprisingly detailed and neutral across the frequency range. This explains the Kundalini Effect, a faithful communication of yet another Mighty Lenco Master lesson! Anyway, as with the Lenco, many would dismiss these claims due to the AR's age (designed in the Sixties, but the Quad ESL57s are older) and lack of PR, and as with the Lenco, they would be mistaken. Highly recommended for those assembling a high-end system on a budget, and despite the budget aspect (likely less than a hundred bucks), still superior to many current high-end speakers in many ways (especially that wrecking-ball lightning slam and power). A couple of well-heeled audiophiles came over visiting last week, and freely admitted I was extracting far more from the little Yammies than they were from their expensive high-end gear (they didn't know what to attribute to what, but were shaken). They LOVED the Athenas, being the good sort of audiophile who simply accepts what they hear without contaminating status/money issues (and it isn't easy not to defend what one owns simply for the fact of owning it), true music-lovers. And they haven't yet heard the far-superior AR2ax's.

So that’s this rant for now, I’ll again absent myself and return to my cave to get on with other things, just had to report these experineces and discoveries! Here’s a pic of one of my Lencos, built for an MG-1 air-bearing tonearm and featured on the MG-1 website. Unlike Kim, I cheated :-): while I built and designed the plinth, the fellow I built it for has a professional cabinet-maker father who did the finishing: http://airtech.atspace.com/mg1lenco.jpg. I’ll be adding it to my system page with explanations, along with one I built specifically for the humungous JMW 12.5i tonearm (for the designer of truly High End award-winning amps and preamps I'm hoping to introduce you to in future, Lenco ownership evidently still being dangerous), done in a high-gloss red-wine lacquer by a professional lacquerer, which should serve as an aid for those contemplating a Lenco for the cumbersome (oversized bass) JMW tonearms. I'll be back when I'm certain of my latest experiments, and in the meantime congratulations to all the idler-drivers past, present and future!! Go Ye Out and Seek the Kundalini Effect.