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Item Audio "Spoke" for the Linn LP12 anybody..?

sq225917 said:
Yeh, so what, I see they have no measurement to back up their piece of advertising puff. Does it not strike you as curious that all these companies claiming to improve deck speed, Item audio, Teres, and even the Technics 1210 boys like Timestep have no speed stability data to show you, I wonder why.

@Item, why on earth would I bother coming round to the stall you are on? Are you going to let me pick your deck up and twist the sub-chassis from underneath to an audience. If you I'll book a time if you like.

Sondek, did we lose our cool?
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I found this quote in a Linn magazine that I have (from the 80s) from Linn engineers referring to the necessary centring and stability of the subchassis relative to the top-plate. ...
"...requires stability and self-centring in the suspension so that one type of movement does not turn into other less stable and controllable modes. It is vital that there isn't significant vibration affecting the drivebelt, causing disturbing fluctuations in speed and upsetting the stability and accuracy of musical pitch." Just the point that Item Audio, Sonddek and I have been agreeing on. :)
 
ictmanager said:
To Sonndek:
I could not agree with you more in virtually everything you have said about the Spoke theory. My experience of the practice of them is that the carbon fibre rods are the best ones as they affect freedom of the vertical motion of the subchassis least of all. (Item allow a choice of Spokes in Stainless Steel, Titanium or Carbon Fibre) I also have found that they seem to sound the best on my LP12.

To Speed:
Please would you explain what Rose Joints are? If they are what I think they are, then they would probably not work as well as flexing rods due to the transmition of vibration and tolerances causing slight looseness within the joints. I had wondered about some kind of hinge instead of rod...after all the German Phonosophie company use Leaf springs on their 'take' of the TD160.

To SQ225917:
Chill, mate.
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UK Rose joint = US Heim joint.

Any bikers here would know what these are. ;)
 
One thing which has occurred to me is that arm cable dressing can afford to be much better in a spoken Sondek. I would suggest trying it really loose, with a fold or two, so that it can transfer little motor noise to the arm.
 
sonddek said:
One thing which has occurred to me is that arm cable dressing can afford to be much better in a spoken Sondek.
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I've never understood why Linn chose to use ultra-stiff arm cables. The ARO cable is super flexible.
 
Now the Urika uses a short flexible 'flying' lead to the arm base that is no longer the purpose of the arm cable dressing....

Paul
 
i_should_coco said:
I always thought the purpose of the arm dressing was to constraint the lateral motion?
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If that is the case, it would make more sense for 'spokes' to be coupled to the plinth instead of the top-plate. This suggests that an ARO'd LP12 is more likely to be 'wobbly' and less capable of holding a tune. My ears tell me otherwise.
 
I have been asking this question on the Linn forum. Answer comes there none. I think the reason why nobody has noticed the increase in wow arising from use of thin cables or Urika is that everyone's so mesmerised by the inky blacks and greater 'insight' and superb detail. Who is listening for speed stability and tunefulness any more? Very few, and nobody at Linn, in my opinion, or they would try to do something about it.

I doubt the arm cable was a very good way of stabilising the suspension anyway, hence the endless refrain that if your deck isn't perfect then it's not set up right.

Meanwhile those who do notice that it's quite a wowy deck and try to do something about it, Item Analogue for instance, are ridiculed. Film at eleven.

If you're interested in this issue I recommend you loosen your arm cable from the p-clip, give it a couple of kinky s-bends so that it is well decoupled from the arm-base, and then tape a couple of lengths of taut thread or dental floss between the armboard and plinth at the far and near right corners. Experiment with their tautness. The transformation of the deck's ability to keep speed is, erm... radical.
 
I agree with you, but I still can't help wonder why the Aro doesn't sound worse then given what we believe.
 
There's still going to be a trade off between immunity from motor/external noise which would favour the slack arm cable and better lateral stability which would favour the stiffer arm cable. Could the ARO be less troubled by tiny subchassis movements than a conventionally gimballed arm?
 
For the life of me I can't think of any reason, geometric, practical or physical why the Aro should be troubled less by movement of the sub-chassis relative to the motor. Maybe if I favoured reduced background noise over absolute speed stability it might make sense, but I don't I'm an absolute bugger for stable speed.
 
The ARO is considerably lighter than the Ittok or Ekos, if my memory serves. This will raise the natural resonance (lateral) frequency of the subchassis.
 
I was just thinking more about the self stabilising effect that the inverted bearing might give. Regardless of what the pin does wouldn't the housing try to stay vertical? Whether that'd be useful with the subchassis moving around is another matter!
 
pure sound said:
Could the ARO be less troubled by tiny subchassis movements than a conventionally gimballed arm?
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I suggest any UP (eg. the Aro, my Graham 2.2 and the Moerch UP4) is less affected by subchassis movements than a conventional gimballed arm. (Also, if the armboard is slightly off level, the nature of a UP means that it automatically compensates for this.) :)

Regards,

Andy
 
Don't forget to come and see and hear the spoken and unspoken LP12's on Stamford Audio's stand at Whittlebury Hall this weekend, then we can get a bit more catagorical and polarised, and leave behind all these half hearted, wishy-washy conjectures.

Everyone on the thread should wear a pork pie hat and Ray Ban Wayfarer shades for ease of identification, see you there.
 
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