Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

This is so true about the stock Lenco’s ability to engrave its bold presence in our listening rooms. So much so, that early on in the original thread there were quite a few reports of procrastination because of it. Many of these Lenco pioneers were so smitten with the stock “iron fist in velvet glove” treatment to music retrieval, that some plinth builds languished for awhile. It was as if Ulysses Nantais had neglected to cover the ears of his crew to these seductive sirens songs. There were grumblings among the men - “Can it really get any better than this?”

Well, of course, time went on - plinth builds proceeded and the answer to those early grumblings was a resounding, “yes!”

My confession for today is that while I promptly sank a Lenco L-75 into a mass, constrained plinth - complete with direct coupling and two tonearms, I have another Lenco – a BP L-61 - that has been on stilts for nearly two years in my basement workshop system. It was sent to me as a trash unit for parts. I cleaned & lubed all the proscribed workings: Took an unruly, noisy motor and made it quiet: Got a wonderful the idler tire rebuild for $25: Reaffixed a broken idler arm anchor to the speed adjustment sled.

The tonearm was replaced with a Sonus Formula IV unipivot that was a perfect fit for the Bogen/Presto placed armhole. The Sonus, a longer tube version of the Mayware, sports a Shure V15Vxmr (of which the replacement styli buy-up and hording seems complete and criminal). A modest Marantz 2230 receiver drives a pair of Rectilinear speakers of unknown model designation. The music all this produces is so enthralling, that it seems vastly out-of-place for my humble basement.

There are plinth plans for this L-61. The marble for the outer shell that will envelope a traditional mdf/birch-ply sandwich, has already been dimensionally cut. Large, internal borings and epoxy fills to the inside of the 7/8” marble shell will be my attempt to break up any potential resonance from the marble.

Those are the plans anyway - which continue to languish amidst the siren songs of this stilted Lenco.

- Mario

It is playing!
The first Lenco with custom made laser cut topplate.
Pictueres are at page 4 of:

http://www.lenco-lovers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=414

First impression is that it is seriously good. I have invited mr. Kundalini to come and have a listen ;-)

She's a beauty Peter, and I REALLY love that green!! Knowing how subtle and all I am ;-). Also love to see that familiar-homey birch-ply/MDF layering, so dependable. Beautiful accurate work as always, you should have been a watch-maker..or are you? Can't wait to get my own top-plate. Please contact me about your motor mounts too, I'd love to get some for my own project. Still waiting for my own top-plates, perhaps they're in Iceland, visiting, for the moment, bringing Good Lenco Vibes :-).

Ah and my good friend Mr. Kundalini: though there are flashes with the Audio Innovations/Klipsch combo, I have only heard the full brunt of the effect (which is to say, going beyond mere raising of hairs on arms and neck, caused by musical timing perfection, to full-fledge shivers up and down the spine, observable in others too), so far, with the Sony 3130F/AR2ax combo, and to a slightly lesser extent the Sony with other speakers too. Something about that Sony...

I want to re-set-up the Sony/AR system, but the combination of tubes and Klipsch Heresy MKIs is sooo beautiful in other ways I'm finding it hard to force myself to dismantle it. Gotta have several sound-rooms!

The other necessity for the full brunt of the Kundalini Effect - so far (there must be other combos, and the Ortofon Jubilee actually makes a very good stab at it, and of course the Decca) - is the humble Denon DL-103, which like the Sony, is seriously vintage, and yet, like the Sony, gets the timing and gestalt aspects of the music, with the necessary drive behind it, soooo incredibly best-in-the-world right. So, today, having been sent an Ikeda tonearm to test out by a Lenco afficionado, I will indeed take apart my beloved AI/Klipsch pairing, re-set-up my Sony/AR2ax pairing, and test out the Ikeda with the Denon, for which it is supposed to be an amazing match, to see if it too can pull off the Kundalini Effect. For those interested in the Ikeda, the Fidelity Research tonearms were designed and built by the same man, and are available, of course, at a lower price. The owner of the Ikeda has the right attitude re. the Kundalini Effect: open-minded and in a spirit of fun and enthusiasm, joie-de-vivre, grain of salt, but still valuing what I am talking about here: the intense and distilled musical experience, which in a sense transcends mere sound to yank directly on our DNA.

And needless to say, the Prime Ingredient for the Kundalini Effect is an idler-wheel drive! So, yes, I have to say it, despite the best efforts of a few who need to learn about having a good time, to kill the party and the fun (while profiting by it): Vive la Idler-Wheel!!!

And on the Lenco Front, some big news cooking perhaps this summer, as I continue to send the Giant Direct Coupled Glass-Reinforced Lencos (and Garrards) out to be inserted into ultra-high-end systems to amaze and delight, and to make the point: just how incredibly effective the Lenco is, in largely original trim (with its potential largely realized by judicious tuning and optimizing...and by the proven tonally-neutral and dynamically stupendous and balanced birch-ply/MDF recipe), with no need of anything but attention to detail and an inert mass. We don't yet know what its upper limits are, and isn't it exciting to attempt to find out what they are?!? And let's all hum the Mantra: "If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad;
if it measures bad and sounds good, you have measured the wrong thing."

And finally, speaking of having fun, I insert a photo under my "system" demonstrating why a Giant Lenco is a Giant Lenco, everything being relative, and "Giant" being a perfectly adequate and accurate word, not to mention evoking the intent/effect much more effectively than "Reasonably Large Lenco" or "Larger-Than-Average Lenco", which would have people both yawning and wondering what was meant. A photo, taken long ago, of a Giant Lenco with Rega tonearm sitting next to a Rega P3 record player, with Rega tonearm. Enjoy your Giant Lencos ;-).

Peter,
In one word- FABULOUS!!!
You have taken the Lenco to another planet, where green creatures roam in song.
Thanks to you and Jean for setting us vinyl lovers to seek out other, better worlds for our listening pleasure.

Oregon

At long last....my Lenco is singing again! Its taken me nearly a year to get the energy together to do this, but I've now got a Rega 350 arm mounted on a lovely piece of purpleheart. Not sure why, but I didnt ever feel confident with my Decca International arm-I was never sure that I'd got it set up correctly. Downside is that the Goldring cartridge I bought for the Rega arm somehow seems to have lost its stylus, so Ive had to mount the crappy Ortofon one from my old Dual deck on it at the moment until I can find my other cartridge thats lurking around somewhere. There are times when I wish I was more organised and didnt lose things But still...I'm lying on my bed listening to the vinyl Ive not had chance to hear for over a year....bliss!!! Managed to aquire some Jah Wobble on vinyl a few months ago-that man is a real maestro-I feel like a teenager again!