Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Dear Jean, It sounds like your opinions are fixed and your mind is made up. I see little point in continuing this experiment.

That is unfortunate.

Both tables have virtues but seeking an ultimate should not be what this hobby is about.

We will have to agree to disagree, although I for one, did not intend for this to be some sort of absolute comparison between two fine tables.

Rick

Dear Rick, it's really too bad we couldn't continue the experiment so we could actually hear the Lenco fully adjusted/dialed-in with its problems removed, Murphy's Law strikes again that the one chance for this sort of thing is marred by problems I didn't know existed, thanks anyway for your immense generosity and helpfulness. This has been a REAL learning experience, which will lead to many new ideas and a MUCH better undertanding of all the issues, and I can't thank you enough for the opportunity.

To those watching, I didn't see this as a battle of 'tables, but instead a battle of drive systems: what is arguably the best of one type vs what is arguably the best of another (though the Lenco is built to relatively crappy standards, it is likely the most evolved design of yesteryear). As always, I see the Lenco as only a tool in the furtherance of placing the Idler-Wheel System in its rightful place amongst the pantheon of drive systems. The experiment certainly highlighted various issues MUCH more starkly than I had ever experienced before! And my Gigantic Lenco sounds much better now than it ever has before, thanks to the experience with Rick, which paid unexpected dividends in learning more about Lenco mechanisms, and the success of various tonearm/cartridge combos in differing systems (i.e. don't assume that what works in one system will work in another), a great learning experience!

And to those who may be traveling in the area, I invite you all to come hear for yourself the best I can currently do with Lencos (and Sony's and Garrards) in a special vintage Super-System I have assembled, thanks to those wonderful Electro-Voice speakers from the legendary Patrician line! Exposure to Rick's system will help immeasurably in adjusting/balancing this system for maximum neutrality/effectiveness, changes have already begun!

Kudos to Rick also for having the good taste to choose Sound Lab speakers and Atma-sphere electronics, the very same gear that I use myself. Rick, if you want some ideas on DIY upgrades to either the speakers or the electronics, let me know. Especially the speakers can be easily tweaked, if you are using a completely stock drive circuit (in the backplate at the base of each speaker).

The Lenco has a pronounced bass boost that is a little fast and heavy, a warmer, livelier midrange that may cause snare drums and percussion instruments to leap out in stark contrast to the background music, and a pronounced rolled off top end that tends to take some of the life out of the music and reduces the subtle room interactions that are present on the recording. This provides slam, impact, and a snap to every recording you might want to throw at it but it is not an honest reproducer. These issues may also be arm, cartridge or set-up related. It’s not an exact science here.

Be careful, Rick Hopkins. It is funny that when someone early in the original Lenco thread said something almost exactly the same, the guy was battered and ridiculed for being some kind of an insect and dismissed as a trouble maker. I suppose when a person actually has been or will be face to face with someone who speaks the truth as they find it, it is not so easy to be so flippantly dismissive. On the other side of the coin, the same thing happened to the guy that suggested using epoxy when gluing the plinth and the top plate right at the beginning. Dismissal and condescension. Now it appears to be a state of the art inclusion in the World of Lenco.

And my Gigantic Lenco sounds much better now than it ever has before, thanks to the experience with Rick, which paid unexpected dividends in learning more about Lenco mechanisms, and the success of various tonearm/cartridge combos in differing systems (i.e. don't assume that what works in one system will work in another), a great learning experience!

Mr. Nantais. You have written page after page after page of your opinions regarding the reproduction of sound among many components. The relative accuracy of such opinions, obviously, is wholly dependent on your having a good and trusted “ear” for sound. So let me now get this straight. Are just NOW realizing that what arm and pickup combos work in one system may not work so well in another? Have you not been able to hear marked differences before or have you just not bothered comparing the same arm and pickup combos on a variety of tables?

Ah Jejune, living up to your name as always, and waiting for the first sign of trouble. I have written repeatedly about different arm-cartridge combos, and their interactions with various electronics. I am just putting a positive spin on a negative development. Don't try to make this worse than it has to be, a stock-in-trade of your own. Try something constructive for a change. And to get the facts straight, I use the epoxy not to glue the plinth or glue the Lenco to the plinth, but simply to fill in gaps in the metal top-plate and kill resonances. Otherwise, there was just speculation as to whether epoxy was a plus or a minus in gluing the layers (elasticity vs rigidity), no "insects" involved, other than a trouble-maker much like you, the first one, who was not pushing epoxy in the design/plinthing of Lencos. Produce the relevant passages and we'll look at it more closely.

To those out there watching whose behaviour mirrors Jejune's, don't try to capitalize on what has been an amicable "break-up" and make it ugly, the experiment is over, we see things different ways, and I'm very grateful to Rick for giving me the opportunity to go as far as we did, as I repeatedly emphasized. Now let's move on. I know I will, and will take the lessons learned to further develop my own Reference System.