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Upgrade my older Linn Sondek or move on?

Hi All,

I have a 1984 Linn Sondek that is still as it came new with a couple of exceptions. I did rebuild my Valhalla board as I was having some issues. Still has the Basic LV X arm, but I added an XTC counterweight as the stock counterweight bushing turned to mush. I am running a Nagaoka MP-200 cartridge. 

Question is do I drop the money to upgrade the arm, bearing, and power supply or move on to a new or used table? Looking at used parts to upgrade the Linn I can easily spend $2k. I can sell the Linn and that puts me in the $3.5k budget range for a different table. 

I have been looking at Well Tempered and VPI. Any thoughts on these or other recommendations? Better sound quality and ease of set up / use would be the objectives. The rest of the system: Quicksilver M135 mono amps, Fisher CX-2 preamp, and Magnepan LRS+ speakers.

thermionicemission
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,470 posts
 

Either get the Hercules power board and DC motor kit and Ittok arm or save the effort and get a Technics SL1200G with Nagaoka MP500.

 

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,221 posts
 

MOVE ON!! But, no to the well Tempered or VPI. A isolation suspension is crucial for the best performance. The Kuzma Ref 2 or the Stabi R on a Vibraplane, The SMEs, The Basis tables, The Avid Acutus then the best value of them all, the Sotas. You can put any turntable on a vibraplane or MinusK, but you will save money getting the suspension built in. The Sota design borrowed by Basis, SME and Acutus is far more stable than what you have in the LP12. I do this demonstration all the time. Put a seismograph application on your phone. Put it on the surface your turntable sits on then jump on the floor and bang the surface and watch the response on the phone. Now put the phone on your platter and do the same. On the Sota Cosmos platter you get absolutely nothing. Not even the tiniest squiggle.  People think if they put their turntable on a big heavy object that will protect them from environmental rumble and noise. That application will show you that is nonsense.  With the system like yours I would get a Sota Sapphire and put the best Rega arm you can afford on it. The RB2000 would be killer. Sota will mount it for you. Get the dust cover. You will be blown away by the improvement and ease of handling. Do the seismograph test and smile!

ghdprentice
6,403 posts
 

If you have a local Linn dealer that is going to install the parts or you are a detailed oriented meticulous person and want to do it yourself I would do the upgrades. Each of the upgrades you propose will significantly increase the sound quality. I have a LP12 which I have upgraded several times and have been ver impressed with the cost effectiveness of the improvements. In the end, you can take the table as far as you want to contemporary Klimax if you choose. A really great feature of the line.

 

If you are neither of the above then sell it and buy a new table. It is not that Linns are finicky or incredibly complex any more, they are precision instruments that must be set up precisely. A friend of mine is a Linn certified master technician and tells me lots of stories of folks that set up their own table and put on the wrong nuts, or did not level the internal springs and wonder why it didn’t sound right. Anyway, if you are not a detailed oriented person, like me, there are lots of great tables available.

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