Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Latest from Arthur Salvatore on his auditioning of a Jean Nantais Lenco is that his prior audition was with a Lenco that wasn't quite up to snuff. It had a problem with the idler spring.

Jean Nantais fixed that and the result:

"This is what I can state at this time: With the turntable and tonearm now optimized (though maybe the tonearm is still not "perfect"), this combination is definitely the finest I've ever heard in my system (or anywhere else)."

Further, he says that the performance of the Jean Nantais Lenco is "unprecedented".

This means a carefully tweaked Lenco just might be the best turntable in the world!

Full update is at Salvatore's HighEndAudio site, or on Lenco Heaven.

That article was such a tease! I can't wait to read the final results. If the new, full out Nantais can beat the Forsell and make Arthur say its the best he's ever heard, that's quite something as he's a hypercritical and fussy reviewer.

I don't need Arthur to tell me how good one of Jean's Lencos really is. Having owned and used many great turntables in the last 40 years, including Linn, Oracles, SOTAs, Maplenoll Ariadne Signature, and (lastly) a VPI TNT, I can definitely state that my Nantais Lenco is the best that I have owned. Incredible dynamics, huge soundstage, jet black background etc., etc., this tt is simply superb. And I don't even have one of the super heavy tables that Jean sold to Arthur. Now, if Jean could just come up with a permanent fix to that resonating spring to which Arthur refers (a fix I understand Jean has developed) Lenco supremacy will be assured.

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Salvatore wrote in his latest update on the modified Lenco. High praise indeed!

http://www.high-endaudio.com/RECENT.html#Apr - - - "This is what I can state at this time: With the turntable and tonearm now optimized (though maybe the tonearm is still not "perfect"), this combination is definitely the finest I've ever heard in my system (or anywhere else). It is noticeably superior to the Forsell, and to an even greater extent that I heard (and reported) previously."

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Cleopatra 52: "Now, if Jean could just come up with a permanent fix to that resonating spring to which Arthur refers (a fix I understand Jean has developed) Lenco supremacy will be assured."

A ways back I thought up an idea for an electromagnetic tensioner for the Lenco idler arm, whereby a solenoid would provide a magnetic force via a moving armature, which would be solidly linked to the Lenco idler arm...no spring. If the magnetic force were properly governed and the solenoid could be made to operate silently, without introducing vibration into the idler system (most solenoids make noise as the armature moves back and forth), it could be just what's needed, but at a cost: a much greater level of complexity. The Lenco spring whose only function is to get the idler into engagement with the motor and platter; and the self-engaging design of its idler (and of any properly-designed idler) that generates most of its grip from the rotation of the motor shaft, is SO elegant in its simplicity.