The Linn LP12

I had an older LP12 with an SME series 3 arm and Ortofon cartridge. I sold it and bought a second hand Rega RP3 for less than I so,d the Linn, and that I still use now and it is so much better sounding in virtually all areas.

Personally I think the LP12 is ok but doesn’t deserve the cult like reputation or the ridiculous price tag it now sells for.

Where do I begin?

After a comment elsewhere about an early 80's dem at a dealer I worked for (different branch mainly) when a period Rega 3 either sounded the same or better than the dem LP12 it was compared to, I feel I need to say something somewhere... This dem became a thing where the staff felt something wasn't right. Turns out the dem machines had all loosened off as they were moved around from dem room to dem room and had substantially loosened off. 'Our' bad and from then on, all the demo stock was checked VERY regularly - a period Rega 3 just isn't as clear and should smear the music slightly in direct comparison! One of the severe weaknesses of old LP12's is that they needed checking in their first couple of years of life as tightening things caused slight compression of the wooden materials used, but this eventually works its way out and stabilises. Current models are far better, using hard wood where needed and the drilled holes better fitting the bolts used, so more to tighten to and things don't go off as they once did in my experience!

I became hooked on the late 70's LP12/Grace 707, not because if any brainwashing by Ivor (we saw Charlie Brennan, who's a gentle soul as a businessman), but because it made my 1970's LP's *sound better* as in clearer and easier to follow musically - you could dip in and out of the recordings more easily. The Ittok messed with the bass on the 1980-issue LP12's and this is my mistake along with others, as we thought the extra bloom was correct - it patently wasn't! it took Linn over ten years to even partly sort it with the Cirkus Kit and followed by a much needed plinth revision internally (the fluting disappears for a while on many at around the same time), but by this time, franchise-style politics they tried to inflict ended with two thirds of their dealers being cast aside and by then I'd found a deck for half the price which out-performed it in all the 'Linn tune/rhythm' ways.

I had the piss taken from me when I suggested I'd kind-of like to try one again, cobbled from cast-off parts for the fun of it. Colourations be damned. It's still a fine looking turntable and if you are careful, it's not difficult to set up these days (older ones need parallel-bolt tools and a good looking at of the top plate bending (there's a technique to bending this as done from the mid eighties onwards) and plinth block hardness and attachment to the frame. The P-clip preparation also has a simple technique in its forming as many dealers in their quest to tighten it, ended up crushing one side of the tonearm cables and leaving the other side free to move. Stupid stuff to many, but it made the set-up procedure a bit more predictable I found if done right- and I WAS once judged quite good at it according to customers I dealt with then. I don't think I did anything worse than the current Leicester Guru Peter Swain does today (and I checked many of the decks he set up in his Listen Inn days and he IS good at this job - absolutely fastidious and charging accordingly...)

These days, I reckon there are modern tonearms which would match the ripe-toned  LP12 tons better while keeping the music together. Maybe the Roksan Nima and (you've been) Hadcock unipivots and it wouldn't surprise me if a Rega RB330 couldn't sound open and more free-flowing too as the old RB300 could with a suitable cartridge. The daftly priced ARO came into its own on this deck post the Cirkus Kit and I suspect so would a vintage Alphason and Mission 774 with more sympathetic exit cables than the later arms' thick and stiff 'shotgun' type. Linn's (now £1500+) Akito is now a joke to me, as even the later one with beefed up materials sounded dirty and not pleasant (original ones were made of metallic plasticine I remember and everything crushed with ease)

Linn have reduced slightly the mass of the existing outer platter I gather. An Axis platter will ruin the suspension I fear and Thorens 160 springs may need to be substituted. In that case, just buy a clean TD150 and put it in a LP12 plinth (any age, it doesn't matter here). Done this and it works - cough...

Can't argue with a word you've written Dave, if there was an applause emoticon, I'd have used it!

I suppose you could say that we're talking here about the LP12, so the gloves are off and anything's possible?

it was 30 years ago this week i bought me first lp12
lvx plus
k9
black ash plinth

was the best one i had. the so called up grades ruined the sound.
420 quid it cost from audio-t in enfield.

good memories that was.