Linn LP12s – Fire away!

[NickofWimbledon]

Target wall shelves are OK, we sold many TT2's, but the laminated shelf material itself Target choose was never great/not the most musical, the frame is good though, welded well, not the most lightweight but it's rigid, well "was" good as the new Target stuff -reacquired by some Canadian Co.- is an absolute joke unless your handy at welding yourself to fix all the mistakes/bad welds, we had simple 1/4" cheap and dense particle board cut to size and painted black, a $30 option as an alternative to what came with the Target TT-2, sounded more musical, I used one myself for many years upstairs before I moved my system to the main floor which is on a solid cement foundation, Much better.. Many other customers learn to walk carefully when the deck is playing using the AudioTech or Archidee as I mentioned before, but I understand this can be simply unacceptable in many cases. Just don't want to see you doing a disservice to your new deck evaluation with questionable mods probably actually working against it IMO, in your situation I would take all that stuff from under the deck and simply place the deck on the Target shelf alone as a start, this way you're hearing more the deck and less of the shelf mods.

We tried swapping out the Target MDF board for the MDF board off an old Sound Org table - no difference to my cloth ears. We tried tempered glass and laminated (ignoring generalised prejudice) in place of the MDF, and it was at least as bad as 'conventional wisdom' suggested. On the other hand, a wooden chopping block and a c.6kg slab of granite were expected to be bad (rigid but not light) - the wood sounded a bit dead but the granite was not bad at all.

I am not sure why you regard what is under the LP12 now (SRM platform) as 'all these questionable mods' or '' all that stuff'. Mr. Swain is ultra-knowledgeable and ultra-helpful, but not known for being undeservedly kind about tweaks and 3rd party products he does not use/ offer. Equally, Infidelity sell the Tangerine products and not SRM, but fitted the SRM base and platform to my old LP12 at my request and reported that they too found it worked well (they tested on a Quadraspire wall shelf at the shop, not my Target).

However, none of that proves that the SRM platform will be a help rather than a hindrance with the Stiletto. As mentioned above, we will certainly listen with & without to hear whether it is a plus or a minus - once we have sorted out other things that clearly do need changing. After all, critical listening while still having a hum and while using RCA-BNC adaptors is clearly pointless. In the absence of a complete analysis of everything that is going on when playing an LP in my house (which we certainly do cannot have), using ears to decide what works in this specific situation seems the best approach.

Your comments on Trampolins and no-baseboard LP12s match my memory. I found taking the hardboard off my old LP12 a modest improvement, but every time I heard a Trampolin on a wall shelf (or an Ikea table on a concrete floor) I found it took some life and vigour. To me, that's not a surprise, because my understanding is that the only reason Linn created them is because so many people put LP12s on non-ideal supports (including hefty racks full of boxes).

I also note that the Linn feet on my old LP12 are (still) rubbery and compliant, and of course the Tramp has much more of that. The SRM base and its metal feet are less compliant than the standard feet. Thus, if the argument about two sets of suspension in motion are right, and if one has a support/ room that can live with no bounce/ absorption at all, then bases from SRM/ Stack/ Tangerine should all have an advantage. Equally, if the Tramp 2 really does work on a heavy support much better than a naked/ solid base (which is the point of its existence) then I can well imagine that those same bases might be much less appealing than a Tramp 2 on some supports.

On the other hand, I am wary of judging today's Linn standard base or Tramp 2 for a particular room & support unless hearing that combination. If I were using the top of a big Quadraspire rack to test LP12 bases (or a sideboard), I am very willing to believe that my ears would have agreed with other people and favoured a Tramp 2. The fact that the Tramp 1 was not great when launched, with many favouring no base or the hardboard if on a 'light and rigid support', does not mean I can fairly judge how today's Tramp 2 would sound on a different support in a specific room using the evidence (i.e. my memory) of more primitive kit from 30+ years ago. If I really want an answer in 2022 any actual room, then listening is surely the least-bad way to get one.

 

[Chris]

Who is Martin Peters?

You young whippersnapper ! West Ham footballer 1966 . Alf Ramsey dixit : "10 years ahead of his time".
Not true of course - he meant Alex Young or Jim Baxter.

 

[Mr Pig]

Who is Martin Peters? West Ham footballer 1966.

So before I was born, at the other end of the country and in a sport I know nothing about? ;0) Seriously, he could be a current footballist in Glasgow and I would still have no clue who he was.

We tried tempered glass and laminated (ignoring generalised prejudice) in place of the MDF, and it was at least as bad as 'conventional wisdom' suggested.

It's almost impossible to generalize. John Watson tried lots of different configurations before he found one that worked. Mana glass is not tempered, it's just plate/float glass, it is 'tuned' to the stand and it has two damping strips on it. Devitate and it sounds horrible.

 

[John]

Time to eschew the rubber bumpons and go full Mana with your LP12.

https://adriancowderoy.com/the-mana-acoustics-clamp-customer-review/

 

[david ellwood]

Youve got to be impressed that they found a way to make it worse, Id honestly have said it was already at peak excrement.

I was wrong!

 

[John]

Youve got to be impressed that they found a way to make it worse, Id honestly have said it was already at peak excrement.

I was wrong!

What’s your support arrangement for your Stiletto LP12? Do you use the Skorpian baseboard and Eklipse sub platform?

 

[Paul Hindle]

We tried swapping out the Target MDF board for the MDF board off an old Sound Org table - no difference to my cloth ears. We tried tempered glass and laminated (ignoring generalised prejudice) in place of the MDF, and it was at least as bad as 'conventional wisdom' suggested. On the other hand, a wooden chopping block and a c.6kg slab of granite were expected to be bad (rigid but not light) - the wood sounded a bit dead but the granite was not bad at all.

I am not sure why you regard what is under the LP12 now (SRM platform) as 'all these questionable mods' or '' all that stuff'. Mr. Swain is ultra-knowledgeable and ultra-helpful, but not known for being undeservedly kind about tweaks and 3rd party products he does not use/ offer. Equally, Infidelity sell the Tangerine products and not SRM, but fitted the SRM base and platform to my old LP12 at my request and reported that they too found it worked well (they tested on a Quadraspire wall shelf at the shop, not my Target).

However, none of that proves that the SRM platform will be a help rather than a hindrance with the Stiletto. As mentioned above, we will certainly listen with & without to hear whether it is a plus or a minus - once we have sorted out other things that clearly do need changing. After all, critical listening while still having a hum and while using RCA-BNC adaptors is clearly pointless. In the absence of a complete analysis of everything that is going on when playing an LP in my house (which we certainly do cannot have), using ears to decide what works in this specific situation seems the best approach.

Your comments on Trampolins and no-baseboard LP12s match my memory. I found taking the hardboard off my old LP12 a modest improvement, but every time I heard a Trampolin on a wall shelf (or an Ikea table on a concrete floor) I found it took some life and vigour. To me, that's not a surprise, because my understanding is that the only reason Linn created them is because so many people put LP12s on non-ideal supports (including hefty racks full of boxes).

I also note that the Linn feet on my old LP12 are (still) rubbery and compliant, and of course the Tramp has much more of that. The SRM base and its metal feet are less compliant than the standard feet. Thus, if the argument about two sets of suspension in motion are right, and if one has a support/ room that can live with no bounce/ absorption at all, then bases from SRM/ Stack/ Tangerine should all have an advantage. Equally, if the Tramp 2 really does work on a heavy support much better than a naked/ solid base (which is the point of its existence) then I can well imagine that those same bases might be much less appealing than a Tramp 2 on some supports.

On the other hand, I am wary of judging today's Linn standard base or Tramp 2 for a particular room & support unless hearing that combination. If I were using the top of a big Quadraspire rack to test LP12 bases (or a sideboard), I am very willing to believe that my ears would have agreed with other people and favoured a Tramp 2. The fact that the Tramp 1 was not great when launched, with many favouring no base or the hardboard if on a 'light and rigid support', does not mean I can fairly judge how today's Tramp 2 would sound on a different support in a specific room using the evidence (i.e. my memory) of more primitive kit from 30+ years ago. If I really want an answer in 2022 any actual room, then listening is surely the least-bad way to get one.

Now would be the perfect opportunity to audition the Aptitlig bamboo chopping board “Platform” from IKEA.

 

[Mr Pig]

Time to eschew the rubber bumpons and go full Mana with your LP12.

I actually have a Clamp but I'm not using it just now. I tried it on my CD player but it only acts as a transport so the difference was not huge. And I move my CD player often to make way for other turntables so the Clamp just wasn't very practical.

I've been terrified to try it on my LP12 because I don't want to damage the immaculate plinth! I have no doubt it would work, as turntables respond ridiculously well to Mana, but my head is in the sand a bit just now.

 

[per-Sony-fied]

Lots of talk about the Trampolin. Since my TT is sitting on one, albeit never actually been screwed to the plinth since purchase of new plinth over 10 years ago I guess I should try the deck without it. Never really thought it makes much difference. Also, perhaps, should try the Townshend audio rack of which it sits upon, inflated & uninflated. However all I can use right now for feet is vinyl bumbers (square white sticky feet) or some really small self adhesive felt pads of about 1mm thick!

 

[Mr Pig]

Since my TT is sitting on one I guess I should try the deck without it.

I think it will depend on what the deck is sitting on. It's designed to help when the deck is sat on heavy furniture. If the deck is on a proper support it will probably sound better without it.

 

[NickofWimbledon]

Time to eschew the rubber bumpons and go full Mana with your LP12.

https://adriancowderoy.com/the-mana-acoustics-clamp-customer-review/

It is interesting how little we can generalise on support. I remember being bowled over with a Xerxes on a huge Mana stack about 30 years ago - but also finding an old one at someone's house very nasty indeed.

When we have sorted out arm lead or plug for same, and fixed what is left of the hum, I'll try removing the SRM platform. I may also try other cheap/ free options including a chopping board or two. However, given that the difference between SRM and plain MDF only was small on the old LP12, I suspect that my cloth ears won't hear any difference at all between the Stiletto on the various different support options - unless one or more of them is horrible.

In any event, a bit of experiment to check what other cheap/ free options sound like may help can't hurt, which looks to be where @per-Sony-fied is too. My guess is that he too find that @Mr Pig 's last post is dead right - it depends whether one is using a Tramp as designed (i.e. for supports that don't qualify as simply 'light and rigid') or not.

Whatever answer I get about supports at my house might well be different with a different wall shelf, or if the Stiletto did not include a Skorpion base (which it does), or if I felt like spending £1500 on a Tangerine Eklipse (which I don't) - and any non-stupid choices on support will matter much less than a lot of other things on which we could spend time.

 

[SONDEKNZ]

Many dislike glass and some are convinced it must sound like it looks - see references to 'bright' or 'brittle' perhaps. However, look at the green site's Show Us Your Sondek page: the single commonest support is a Naim Fraim, with lots of glass and metal - I doubt that every single owner is deaf, daft or deceived. I have heard glass sound awful - as made clear above - but it doesn't always do so…

I’m with you here…

We have tried to better the glass plate under our hot-rod LP12, but each time we move away from the glass plate, the magic declines.

This was true when we ran the full LINN sprung suspension, and remains equally true, now that we have replaced the springs and grommets with the incredible AUDIOSILENTE SILICONE MUSHROOMS, providing a “barely suspended” environment.

Admittedly, we do have BLACK DIAMOND RACING CONES hard-threaded directly into the LP12 plinth and sitting on the glass plate - no baseboard - and FINITE ELEMENTE CERABALL feet under the glass plate, isolating the entire rig from the top of our massive stereo rack.

So it seems to me, the glass plate is providing the ideal (comparatively) lightweight and incredibly rigid support that the LP12 has always preferred.

The glass stays.

Still, YMMV.

 

[david ellwood]

What’s your support arrangement for your Stiletto LP12? Do you use the Skorpian baseboard and Eklipse sub platform?

Unfortunately the Skorpian didnt support the Urika at the time that I purchased (it does now).

I have a tramp2 with its feet removed and this is sitting on a bespoke solid steel Sound Organisation table with a 8mm thick aluminium top plate.

It works well but the Stiletto is very sensitive to good support.

Whats good support for a standard deck isnt necessarily adequate for a Stiletto.

 

[tpetsch]

Tried a couple of wallshelves too (still got an AudioTech) but always found good tables and racks more engaging for some reason, even though the floor is quite bouncy. I still have an Archidee but settled on the Isoblue rack for aesthetic reasons - not the cleanest sound but very natural.
Also ditched the Trampolin and gone back to normal feet - just seemed to have better timing to my ears.
That AudioTech was good value. I was hoping to get £200 - £300 for the Archidee. Did you ever compare AudioTech to Archidee table? I recall the AudioTech designer telling me the Archidee was basically crap (years later) but I think he felt they'd copied his design.

I mention the Archidee -TNX- because the AudioTechs are kinda rare these days Charlie and don't come upon the used market very often, but yes, the AudioTechs are the ones to get if you can find one. A friend picked one up on Ebay over 2 years ago, and the only other one I've seen since then is the one I just posted, then wound up buying myself. We had both at the shop and Archidee comes in a close second soundwise, we had early ones and I'm not surprised if the quality varied on them but they rarely pop up now days too. We also tried Mana at the shop, got a bunch of it from the importer one year to try out for a few months, sold a few pieces -mostly what we got to review- but it never really made a big impression on us at the shop.

 

[NickofWimbledon]

Unfortunately the Skorpian didnt support the Urika at the time that I purchased (it does now).

I have a tramp2 with its feet removed and this is sitting on a bespoke solid steel Sound Organisation table with a 8mm thick aluminium top plate.

It works well but the Stiletto is very sensitive to good support.

Whats good support for a standard deck isnt necessarily adequate for a Stiletto.

I am hoping that the Skorpion means that my Stiletto will be less sensitive to its support. However, my test (when I get to support) will be the same as yours I suspect - it it sounds better, then it is better.

 

[Mr Pig]

I am hoping that the Skorpion means that my Stiletto will be less sensitive to its support.

I have never found a turntable which was not very sensitive to what it was sitting on.

 

[NickofWimbledon]

@Mr Pig - in my specific case, we'll know soon enough!

@tpetsch - your post raises another interesting point. There are lots of expensive turntables out there. Last time new sales were this high, there were several companies making good dedicated stands for suspended and unsuspended decks, whether that means its own table or a wall shelf. Now there are very few of them left- hence why famously good designs like the Audiotech are in demand on eBay. I realise that most new turntables are unsuspended and may do very well on top of a Fraim or equivalent, or on Rega's own dedicated wall shelf, but isn't there a market again now for a wall shelf that will take 30kg decks and/ or that will take suspended decks like Linn and Thorens?

If Linn decided to offer their own wall shelf just for LP12s, and if it didn't look too ridiculous, I'd imagine that they could charge a very fat margin indeed.

 

[tpetsch]

@Mr Pig - in my specific case, we'll know soon enough!

@tpetsch - your post raises another interesting point. There are lots of expensive turntables out there. Last time new sales were this high, there were several companies making good dedicated stands for suspended and unsuspended decks, whether that means its own table or a wall shelf. Now there are very few of them left- hence why famously good designs like the Audiotech are in demand on eBay. I realise that most new turntables are unsuspended and may do very well on top of a Fraim or equivalent, or on Rega's own dedicated wall shelf, but isn't there a market again now for a wall shelf that will take 30kg decks and/ or that will take suspended decks like Linn and Thorens?

If Linn decided to offer their own wall shelf just for LP12s, and if it didn't look too ridiculous, I'd imagine that they could charge a very fat margin indeed.

I haven't been working in the field for several years now so I'm not up on the most up to date on what may be available these days furniture wise, but I can tell you that your old Target TT2 you have -if it is a TT2- is a fine wall shelf as far as wall shelves go, I would just change the shelf, you know, the actual piece of wood the deck sits on to a 1/4" bare, dense particle board, give that an A/B.. Or try some bamboo as Paul mentioned above, Ive never used bamboo shelf material myself and would be curious? Also what ever "similar build type" new stuff that I've come across lately has horrendous build quality, weak, missing and cracked spot type welds, not even a bead, so if something good does come along -which I haven't seen- I imagine it will be very expensive. Also many people find the furniture that sounds good to be very ugly, low wife acceptance factor as we used to say, so not much reason to even make ugly, black lightweight welded up industrial tool room looking solid metal framed racks any more from a business perspective, these days for shipping and warehousing reasons the furniture needs to be modular, flat packed and "to be" assembled, gone are the days when you pull a completely pre-assembled & solidly welded up -rigid- 5 high out of a box, a big waste of space for the people making it and for the guys selling it, not to mention the shipping costs.

Oh, there is this NOKTable stuff, but I don't think it's been restocked in a while, not sure it ever will be?, very similar to the Archidee but with the missing legs on the lower long sides instead of the short sides.
http://www.nokturneaudio.com/NOKTable.html

Older Target TT2 -type VW- wall mount FWIW, these had very good build quality, but then again, they were also made 30 years ago, not my pic.

 

[Mr Pig]

If Linn decided to offer their own wall shelf just for LP12s, and if it didn't look too ridiculous, I'd imagine that they could charge a very fat margin indeed.

Alan Gibb, Ex-Linn and owner of Stereo Stereo in Glasgow, was one of the people behind the Audiotech stands. Unfortunately for them, Mana was around at the same time so they didn't stand much of a chance. Naim used and recommended Mana until they brought the Fraim out.

I'm sure Linn could sell a dedicated support but they've never shown much interest. To me it seems they are more interested in getting the deck to work in typical domestic settings, hence the various isolating baseboards. They use a Solid Sounds rack at a recent show.

I did love Audiotech spikes. They were stainless steel, when most stands had mild steel spikes, and the hole for an allan key to keep them still while tightening them was brilliant. Sounded better than other spikes too. Still have some in use here.

I don't know that there is big market for dedicated turntable supports. Turntable sales will never reach the level they were at in the seventies and eighties and I think people's expectations and tastes have changed. They are less hard core and more style conscious.

 

[John]

I’ve used Sound Organisation, Audiotech and Archidee dedicated floor supports on my 1990’s home with suspended wood floors and thought the Archidee was the better of them all. I then bought a couple Audiotech wall shelfs and had my LP12 on one and my Exposure 15 integrated amp on the other. I thought that arrangement was better than when I had them on the floor with the LP12 on the Archidee and Exposure on a dedicated SO table. I later replaced one of the Audiotech wall shelfs with a Mana wall shelf and preferred that to the Audiotech.

The best move was getting the turntable out of the room and setup on a stand sitting on a solid poured concrete basement floor and wiring it up to that same room. This is the room and the speakers I was using during that time. The second backer board and the Audiotech wall shelf was taken down when I moved the gear to the basement.