Linn or VPI

Get the TNT

Elkyman: As i stated in my post, my comments are based on older Linn's. I do not know if they have made any changes to these as i have not seen / used one of these in a LONG time. My friend Carl used to be a dealer for them back in the mid 80's. There is a Linn store in downtown Chicago though, so maybe i should stop by to see what they have to offer now.

Other than that, i have a review from High Fidelity magazine from "way back when". They did a comparison product review between the Linn LP12, another "high end" TT and a respectable yet inexpensive Japanese model ( Kyocera ). Out of the three, the Linn had by far the worst isolation. They specifically stated that the Linn was hard to get set-up, that it suffered problems from heavy footfalls, mistracking, acoustic feedback, etc... when the other tables did not. If you can mount the Linn on some type of specialized isolation device, keep it perfectly level and balanced, minimize external floor-borne or air-borne vibrations, etc... you might not run into such situations.

While the installation that your friend has was obviously done quite well, not everyone is capable of setting up or having such an installation. In those cases, i can pretty much guarantee that there are other tables that will perform better with less hassle. After all, a "good" product should be designed well enough to overcome most of the common mistakes / less than optimum installations that most people would consider "normal". If one were to take the extra steps to really make such an installation "sing", that would fall under the category of "tweaking". Obviously, your friend has done quite a bit of that.

Since others have stated that owning a Linn and getting it to perform optimally and keep working at that level would require a "factory trained expert", that alone should scare you away from owning one. It should also tell you that i'm not alone in my beliefs or comments.

To each their own. As i've said before, buy and use what you like. Nobody else has to use it, listen to it or enjoy it. As such, do what will make YOU happy as that is all that counts in the long run. I've seen WAY too many systems built on "brand name recognition" that absolutely sucked. Sean
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Oracle Delphi V would be my only pick. Do some research on this 'table...it's easy to set up, infinitely tweakable, and very easy to swap arms if you're so inclined. It's also drop dead gorgeous.

I've had both. It's not even close: the VPI crushes the LP12. Look at the new TNT HR-X.
The blunt problem is that Ivor Tiefenbrunn, owner of Linn, is utterly uninterested in the table and they have not kept pace with the astonishing improvements that have taken place in the past years.

I liked my old LP-12 so much that I got another one for my living room system. Now I have two. I don't know how the tables are "tweaky;" I've never tweaked or touched mine at all. I'm probably just naive, but what am I supposed to be watching for and tweaking from time to time? One of my Linns has the Akito arm, the other has the Ekos.