How good is a modern top spec LP12.

It's still a fruitbox with all the good and bad that goes with it - they daren't change the original formula too much - but it' a very very good fruitbox now. The me-too add-ons/upgrades that Tiger Paw, Tangerine Audio and so on offer do seem to change the sound, but I can't currently say if it's more musical for them or not, or just more 'HiFi.' the Armageddon kit with ARO tended to make a late LP12 sound just like a 1975 one - better in the bass but messy with it...

For the price of a new Akito, an AceSpacedeck with RB330 is musically better in my experience better than a Gyro (the sound doesn't 'swim' as it does with the Gyro's I've heard - a good few over the decades) and at least as good as any top model LP12 I've heard, and this before the 'Heavy' kit and Wave mechanic is added, both lifting refinement further. A HyperSpace is as good or better than an Orbe, although it doesn't look as flash and the Dias at several grand now is in a different vinyl plane of existence in my opinion, making an LP12 look ridiculously under engineered in material terms and musically inferior, whatever the effin' sub chassis. I've not heard a current top Rega, but the RP8 was sonically effective too and looks so cool with it!

I don't like bothering dealers and I have a Linn/Naim/Rega one a couple of miles from my front door. We know each other (and my background) and it's not as if I've not been invited to visit. I can't bring myself to go and as he has both NAS which he used to promote and now Linn, he refuses to be drawn on which is really better. I've done my comparisons elsewhere and as I know the general quality of master recordings, I feel I know beyond doubt which is best for me, even if the LP12's slightly darker tones suit others.

I knew NAS Tom Fletcher personally and he was truly lovely man of great kindness and generosity. He knew what he was on about and it was through engineering rather than 'twidling' that got the performance.

I was never a Roksan dealer but knew Touraj of old. A shame I never took him up on his offer of a traded in Xerxes for nowt. Jimmy got great sounds from his with Breuer arm and Arta Xerxes phono stage built in to the arm cables. Not sure I ever heard a difference removing the spindle though and I don't much care for felt mats, but that' no hardship.

There is a discussion on the Hoffman forum for LP12 v Technics 1200g. I got into a spat with a Linn diehard who once worked for a dealership. Turns out his old Linn has been in bits in a box for years because of kids and pets LOL. Two other Lp12 owners commented sensibly. One has an Akito Circus Lingo from mid 90's. He auditioned the most expensive current version and prefered his. Another bought near the most expensive with DC motor and never could get it to run pitch accurate. So I conclude the improvements are likely pretty marginal with some of the traditional Linn downsides remaining.

To put a modern perspective on it all I hope...

I've just had a very lengthy phone conversation with an old friend and colleague whom I first worked with at KJ first time round in 1978. He was telling me about the £25k Linn Anniversary LP12 with top arm, cartridge and a plinth made from fancy whisky casks or similar. For this kind of money there's the 'entry level' Kronos turntable which comes to this kind of money once armed up and expensive cartridge is fitted. Apparently in sound, there's absolutely no comparison, the Linn sounding less precise, foggy almost and just not as convincing and utterly 'stable' as the Kronos model does - and this is the baby of their range! My diehard digital-only friend told me he went up into the store's smaller dem room when the big model (with twin platters rotating opposite directions) was being set up by the manufacturer and he was absolutely blown away by how good it was, the sound nothing like how 'vinyl' usually is perceived. I trust his ears and always have done...



www.engadget.com/2013/09/20/linn-sondek-highland-park-anniversary-edition/

www.hifisound.co.uk/analogue-c49/turntable-zone-c11/turntables-c19/sparta-0-5-turntable-p1336/s2043?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=kronos-audio-sparta-0-5-turntable-kronossparta05&utm_campaign=product%2Blisting%2Bads&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7vXVm8K62wIVA-AbCh2bJQjKEAQYBSABEgIF1fD_BwE

I have heard the Sparta tt on a couple of occasions, but only at hifi shows. And not to be outdone by Linn you can upgrade the 0.5 model to full spec.

www.hifisound.co.uk/analogue-c49/turntable-zone-c11/turntables-c19/sparta-5-upgrade-kit-p1337

My active ATC's were actually good with vinyl BUT, they would never work with highly compressed recordings, whatever the format and bass distortion was shown in all its gory glory.

I've heard turntables that out-do the LP12 in all the pr@t and tune-dem areas the LP12 was sold on, so at the prices currently asked, I can only recommend the timeless TD150 styling, as in every technical and sonic-involvement respect, the LP12 is surpassed for far less money now.

In the LP12's case, it's 'surpassing' in my book. Compared to the master tape played on the machine that fed the cutting lathe, the *then* LP12/Ittok/Troika *playing vinyl* rather than the acetate (which sounded very good), sounded thick toned, squidgy and soft. I've said before we had master tape copies back in '74 'cos vinyl wasn't judged good enough to dem the gear properly (I know, what the hell were end users going to use at home?).

The following year, I heard a turntable system at half? the price of an LP12/Ittok/K9 that was so much clearer, musical and more involving, as well as siting immune... I do believe the LP12 has got much better - Linn of all people knew how bad it was in the 80's as they had incontrovertible proof with the master recordings they were accumulating - but of course it's a great excuse for massive price increases and it's now in a class of 'oil rig' types, the best of which discussed earlier being pretty well at the limits of what vinyl can do in my opinion.

You're right about the 'funky' character of the 80's example though. It's just that people like me believed it to be truthful when it patently wasn't and we tailored our systems around it. No wonder CD sounded so 'bad' to us when it first appeared, when it wasn't really (the Sony 101 wasn't anyway). Loads I could add, but I dominate too much here - apologies.

Some people (including myself) likes having some 'bounce' added to the music.

S.

Look Dave. I couldn't give a toss about Master Tapes. If the system doesn't make my toe tap, it's bloody useless to me. Regardless of the accuracy!

Please accept we all have different tastes.

S.

DSJR, Just put up with me, OK. Well you've been doing that, since I first appeared on the forums in 2008

Sadly I don't have your acute ears so unfortunately I can't relate to you! Another thing to bare in mind is that we come from different generations. But I do respect your knowledge.

Now go reel some master tapes!

S.

I listen to music for pleasure. Not to bloody analyse it.

But hey, each to their own.

S.

That is a good question, Martin.

As a younger man I used to judge a system based on it's looks. Sad, I know, but true. Years later, I realised some of the most ugliest speakers can end up sounding great.

S.

I'm trying to explain - badly as it happens - that good master recordings should be so far and away BETTER than any vinyl copy played on an LP12, that bounce, toe tapping, musicality, definition, cerebral precision, boogie factor, rhythm and all those crappy descriptions are irrelevant because the masters usually do all that and more, making an LP12 sound sickly, soggy, pitch wavering (I hadn't noticed it until I heard decks that didn't do it as I thought all vinyl was like this) and downright bland in comparison, lacking in all the HiFi and musical areas 'we' like. I can't show you, so you won't believe me until someone oes this comparison for you - and then plays a CD made from that master on a sensible un-messed with CD player (I believe the differences in DACs and so on pale into insignificance here)!

Go and hear it live - and by that I mean a jazz trio in your local pub, rather than an orchestral concert in a large hall or a local rock band blasting it out! Loads of good 50's jazz recordings out there done with the minimum of 'production' in the studio. Then listen to how a *typical* vinyl record alters the perception in almost every way, adding a warm halo quite often that's attractive, but not there originally. The very best oil-rig style decks out there seem to minimise this added sound quite well, as do Decca cartridges for example (if you get a good one).



Shane, I do want to hear the music as near as recorded as possible, but that doesn't mean making for a merely cerebral experience with no soul. Hearing 'Regret' by the Blue Nile played quietly off the master into Kans (FFS!) while the acetate was cut, brought me to tears in seconds and the feeling of total despair and anguish in the singing of the song was so palpable the memory is vivid so many years later. The current CD remaster with this track added on comes close, but maybe not quite as I remember it off the 30IPS half inch master tape played on an ATR 102 (I think it was) with no noise reduction.