I have a VPI and love it. The only change I would ever make would be to a WT. The arm design is brilliant.
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.
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- 49 posts total
I have 2 LP 12s and have done upgrades on both. One started where you are and has been modestly upgraded. (The other done full-out including Ekos SE arm, Karousel, Radikal ...) You could start with a Karousel bearing at $1,100 and $1k for a new base and Majik sub chassis. These would give you better grip and overall nicer musical presentation. If that's good stop there. . Later on your could add a used Lingo power supply at around $1k and get a new arm. A new Krane is $1.8k or get a used one you like. Also, Linn tables are very fussy and I would strongly recommend that you find a dealer to do the bearing, base, sub chassis at least. Those are installed prices anyway I believe.
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@audiovideonirvana while you are correct that the Linn LP12 Klimax comes in at around $30K, there is also the entry level LP12 Majik, which comes in around $5K. The nice thing is that one can upgrade the Majik to Klimax level if and when funds come available, how many tables can you say the same thing about?
@ddrave44 The problem the OP has is apparently there is no dealer anywhere near him, which is unfortunately becoming more common with Linn LP12 dealers. I have the exact same issue, as my "fettler' retired and the closest guy now is hours away. This is the one thing that is a negative with the Linn table, it pretty much requires set up experience/expertise and some specialized tools. For this reason, I suggested a different table to the OP, one that is not requiring basically any set up.
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@daveyf ”The problem the OP has is apparently there is no dealer anywhere near him, which is unfortunately becoming more common with Linn LP12 dealers.” BINGO! These are very fussy tables. One definitely needs a local dealer to be able to fix common problems, or do upgrades correctly. Just as an aside, my local Linn dealer no longer is. He got tired of the BS with parts and shipping, etc. and he decided to go VPI. Maybe if I had the inclination to be constantly tweaking it I wouldn’t mind, but I’d rather listen to music than tweak the turntable. With my VPI it’s play it and forget it. |
- 49 posts total