Now the dust has settled - the Karousel
- Thread starter Thorn
- Start date
Grenadier_45
pfm Member
The Karousel is a larger diameter than previous bearings. The hole in a Valhalla or the semi-clones of it doesn’t leave enough clearance for safety. Especially as the Valhalla has 350V d.c. on it. So it isn’t that it won’t work, as such, more that it has the potential (sorry) to electrocute the innocent user, if, for example, a fault developed with the earthing arrangement on the subchassis.
There will be a way around this. Make the hole in the board bigger, insulate the bearing housing. Won't be a Linn approved fix but it'll work.
This sounds very reminiscent of the Cirkus bearing. It was clearer and more detailed than the old bearing, everyone raved about and at first I was really impressed with it.
But quite soon the novelty of the extra detail wore off and I realized I wasn't getting into the music as much. It didn't 'boogie' as well, there wasn't the same sense that you were listening to three-dimensional, real people. It was a colder, less emotional sound.
I removed the Cirkus after a few years, I did try to make it work, but the old bearing was more alive. Detail isn't everything. There have always been decks that offered more detail than the LP12 but what they didn't do was give you the same sense of listening to real people that the LP12 did.
The Cirkus bearing just made the bearing housing stiffer and that's also all the new bearing does. I am concerned that the Karousel might be taking the LP12 further down a road Linn started on thirty years ago that I don't much like.
david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
Mr Pig , have you heard the Karousel, or are you spouting totally uninformed claptrap ?
Whilst I’d be genuinely surprised if anyone found the Karousel to be be subjectively worse than the pre-Cirkus bearing I think that’s a little unfair. Mr Pig was simply saying that he worries that Karousel may take the sound in a direction that he doesn’t like. He didn’t actually express an opinion at all.
david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
What’s your opinion on it Paulski?
Yes. I've not heard it so can't say if it's good or bad. I'm actually considering buying a Karousel deck to hear it so I'm open minded here. I've spoken to a couple of dealers.
For me it started around the time of the first Lingo and Cirkus. Linn started moving away from the very things that made the LP12 great in the first place. I concluded that Linn didn't actually know why the deck resonated with people, they'd just stumbled upon something that worked, and like everyone else, they were working on the notion that more detail and clarity is automatically better.
So for me the LP12 has grown less like an LP12 and more like the very decks people chose not to buy when they picked the Linn in the seventies or eighties. If you listen to an early LP12 or Ariston RD11 it's really obvious. In Hi-Fi terms relative to a modern deck, sure, it's lacking but man it swings!
On my LP12 the Karousel brings improvements pretty-much across the board. After several weeks and having gone through that period where one sometimes starts to question an upgrade I’m still hearing the improvement so dramatic is it.
I do think that someone going from pre-Cirkus to Karousel might initially be overwhelmed with the change in sound but I’d be very surprised if they didn’t ultimately come down on the side of the Karousel.
Fitted mine today, replacing a Cirkus / Tranquility - quite gobsmacked by the improvement. Nice that Linn include new springs, oil, nylocks etc.
There seems to be just more of everything, bass, separation, depth. Thoroughly recommended.
System is LP12, Greenstreet Chassis, Mober DC motor, Aro, Troika, thicker top plate, aftermarket plinth. Thinking about it the only part from the original 1983 LP12 is the outer platter and the cross brace!
There seems to be just more of everything, bass, separation, depth. Thoroughly recommended.
System is LP12, Greenstreet Chassis, Mober DC motor, Aro, Troika, thicker top plate, aftermarket plinth. Thinking about it the only part from the original 1983 LP12 is the outer platter and the cross brace!
david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
Give it a week!
nitrous
pfm Member
Mr Pig, you may actually be surprised by the Karousel. One aspect I’ve mentioned before is that I actually feel it brings back some of the boogie factor, that perhaps receded a bit in the later upgrades, which did improve detail and accuracy. Of course it doesn’t suddenly mean your Circkus or pre Circkus deck is suddenly broken! You pays your money.......
I'm totally open minded about it. The LP12 is far from perfect but neither is the RP10, or rather it's almost too perfect! Something that's more of a halfway between the two is appealing.
rkay5
Active Member
I got a Karousel without the whole kit. I'm using it with the Mober SSP12 sub-platter. The Karousel bearing is a big improvement over the Circkus/Tranquility. I didn't think it would be this big improvement in the sound, the much lower noise floor is the biggest improvement. I'm very with the Karousel.
david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
Did you allow the stock inner platter time to run in before comparison with the mober?
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
I'm likely to change my pre-Cirkus to Karousel. What specific changes did you observe?
I went from Cirkus to Karousel, James. I was speculating that the change from pre-Cirkus to Karousel might be fairly dramatic but I’ve no actual experience of that.