linn sondek tt

dvddesigner,

I am the one who posted that I have a Chris Harban cocobolo plinth. When this plinth is locked together with a rigid top plate like Tangerine Audio's Karmen, combined with Linn's one piece aluminum Keel, you have a TT that reduces resonances so effectively that the noise floor drops very low (provided the rest of the system is clean). Good luck with the build, it is an amazing start to a very satisfying system.

dvddesigner,

Feel free to post or PM me if you have any questions for your Chris Harban LP12 build. Chris works with Peter Swain by providing plinths for the tables Peter sets up all around the world. There are also some very well respected LP12 dealers here in the US who will gladly work with you if you live here.

Happy Trails.

Thanks everyone - 

beskie - I will send PM. 

The LP12 is like the broom in 'only fools and horses' - I had the broom for 30 years - I changed the handle 20 times and the head another 30 times...

I bought a used LP-12 with a Cirkus upgrade off e-Bay about 2 years ago. I already had a Linn Ittok LV-II arm. 

I upgraded the power supply and motor to a DC powered motor (Mober - see honmo2000 eBay seller). First time I’d heard a sustained piano note stay solid as a rock. 

I upgraded the subchassis with a Greenstreet Audio sub-chassis. First thing I noticed as a benefit is the arm to spindle geometry was accurate to a point that was beyond my ability to measure it. It fit my LP-12/ittok jig perfect. The standard sub-chassis/armboard in the lower end LP-12s allow for an infinite array of geometry mis-alignments. It’s not hard to align, but the Greenstreet (and Linn’s Keel) completely takes the geometry issue out of the equation. 

Next, I upgraded the bearing and sub-platter with one developed by honmo2000. The surface noise dropped enough to warrant the purchase.

I then added a Tiger Paw Tranquility between the bearing and platter which dropped the surface noise again. There is no noise getting from the sub-chassis/bearing to the playing surface now. 

I’m very intrigued by the Tiger Paw Javelin arm as a replacement for the Ittok and that will probably be my next upgrade. 

I am currently running a VandenHul Frog that replaced a Dynavector XX-II Mk2. 

The LP-12 is an excellent deck to start a journey towards making it state of the art through third-party upgrades. I am not the type who would spend the money for a new LP-12 of any spec, especially the top line spec, which is essentially what I have now, except for the arm. And I have a LOT less invested than a top-spec LP-12. It is equivelant to, and it some ways better than, the exact same recorded piece of music over my Ayre DSD. 

I wouldn’t replace this table with anything on the current market until I was ready to look at linear-tracking tonearms and foot-thick acrylic platter tables. And I’m saying that partially tongue-in-cheek. 

My current (and probably final) system is Parasound JC-3+, Parasound JC-2, Dual ATI AT524NC amps powering a pair of analog x-over Linkwitz LX-521 speakers, all connected with VandenHul Rock or better. My digital front-end is an Ayre QB-9 DSD.