LP12 cartridge choice

This is an easy one, get the lingo. Many years ago my dealer set up an LP 12, Ekos,Troika and another LP 12 with the Lingo,Ittok,K9. The LP 12 with the Lingo sounded better. To this day I'm still shocked. If you have the bucks get the Lingo and a Benz Ruby 2. The Benz works very well with the Ekos, in my view better than the Arkiv which I had before. It will out track the Arkiv and has no rising top end.

I recommend the Origin Live DC motor kit for the LP-12. Then buy ~$1000 dollars worth of records with the money you would have spent on the Lingo. One man's opinion. Cheers, John

I have a fully "loaded" LP-12 including the Linto phono preamp. You should consider the Lingo upgrade before cartridge change. After that I would go with Linn's ArkivII cartridge.

Outboard power supply is very important. Try a denon dl103 and if you have the bucks, 600, try the shelter.

First, unless your Sondek is sitting on a very heavy piece of furniture rather than a dedicated support(preferably of low mass/high rigidity as per Linn recommendations) you should ditch the Trampolin and return to the stock base.
The improvement to focus,pace,timing,etc will be nearly half of the benefit of upgrading to Cirkus or Lingo.
Further gains can be had by leaving the lossy bottom cover off entirely and improvising new attachment points for the original Linn hard rubber feet with triangular pieces of Duron.
The downside is that this tweek exposes lethal voltages of the Valhalla board to the clumsy or curious.
A simple fabric cover could be fabricated to somewhat restrict accidental electrocution,tho.

Best,
Ken