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LP12 why is it so divisive - discuss.

philsparks said:
hi all

i bought my 1st LP12 in 1985 - with an entry level LVX arm it was £400. Just checked the UK inflation rates and this equates to £920 in today's money - or the price of say a decent cheapish naim CD player. Current list for a Linn majik is £2300.

in 88 I wanted to buy an LP12 with Ittok. Price was £800. This equates to £1600 in todays money, so a bit less then a CDX, which some would argue is a similar level of performance. These days an Ekos alone is £3,500. I know it's better but it is the only arm upgrade Linn offer for the LP12.

As an earlier post stated, in the 80s people could aspire to an LP12/Ittok/Troika. In today's money it would be around £2k and was held by many to be one of the best souces you could buy.

The top line LP12 today would be about £15k. Simply silly money for most.

Phil
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Well said, and I would be typical of the enthusiast you describe.

This is why some of the after market additions to existing decks are so attractive.
 
Agreed. I've owned an LP12 for nearly 20 years. For me, it always provides a compelling and involving listen, and I'll probably never part with it. But if I needed to buy a new record deck tomorrow, it wouldn't be an LP12. They're simply vastly overpriced.
 
Nick Urfe said:
Agreed. I've owned an LP12 for nearly 20 years. For me, it always provides a compelling and involving listen, and I'll probably never part with it. But if I needed to buy a new record deck tomorrow, it wouldn't be an LP12. They're simply vastly overpriced.
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+1 That's just how I feel as well.
 
I think that's a very reasonable view. A late 80s pre Cirkus Valhalla is for me a real sweet spot and you can still pick them up with an Ittok around the £700 mark. I recently sold one such for £650 here as a case in point. At that price they make a lot of sense unless you have a religious hatred of Linn. I'm not saying they are the best but they punch their weight in that company. When a second hand Rega P3 is £250-300 spending twice that on a Linn is money very well spent IMO.

Hand over £2k for one though, or 5 times more for a slightly better one? Yeah, right. I'll just get a loan from the fairies at the bottom of the garden.
 
bob atherton said:
FWIW when I listened to the Aro v Ekos I owned an Ittok at that time. For the dem myself and a good mate, Steve, who is also a great guitarist, but not into hi-fi, came along for the ride.

We played a few tracks on the Ittok and then tried the same tracks on the Aro. The musical flow was not so good and there was a 'not seeing the wood for the trees' sort of feel about the music. We then tried the Ekos and this sounded like a better Ittok.

It didn't take too long for us both to agree that the Ittok was good the Aro was a bit strange and the Ekos was very good.

I am quite prepared to believe that the Aro was faulty or not set up well but at the end of the day we heard what we heard and I bought the Ekos.

I have heard many people since say that the Aro has more musical flow than even the Ekos, so the dem that I had began to make me wonder a bit. On this one it really must be a case of YMMV.
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Thanks, Bob. I had the opposite experience when I demo'd the ARO with my Ittok. The ARO is sensitive to set-up, and a simple mistake like tightening up the pillar to Linn tightness, for example, would kill the magic. Likewise, the bearing must be free to rotate but have no air trapped inside etc. etc.

I considered the Ekos2 at the time, but once I heard the ARO - it wasn't going to leave my LP12. So I never got to try the Ekos.
 
Markus,

If Andrew is commenting on ARO vs Ittok rather than what Rubikon does, why can't it be in this room? Please clarify your position exactly as I have no interest in the trade room, but would love to read about Andrew's comparison. I'm sure others feel the same way.
 
James.

If Markus wants any review of 'Ittok' v 'ARO' in the trade section due to the arms being on a 'trade' part then so be it. I have no issue at all with the moderation on pfm.



Andrew.
 
Andrew,

It'd be quite a different matter if you're comparing sub-chassis. But you're not. Does that mean I can't compare amplifiers because they're played through Ergo loudspeakers (er, not that I'm trading any more, but you get my point)?
 
James said:
Thanks, Bob. I had the opposite experience when I demo'd the ARO with my Ittok. The ARO is sensitive to set-up, and a simple mistake like tightening up the pillar to Linn tightness, for example, would kill the magic. Likewise, the bearing must be free to rotate but have no air trapped inside etc. etc.

I considered the Ekos2 at the time, but once I heard the ARO - it wasn't going to leave my LP12. So I never got to try the Ekos.
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A few years back I picked up a secondhand LP12/Lingo/Ekos/Troika with the very latest bearing. It was immaculate and sounded superb. I then got burgled and the muppet who did the job shagged the bearing on the Ekos whilst he was presumably deciding how he could nick it (he also put a supercap and 2 135's in a canvas suitcase before coming to the conclusion that it might hamper his getaway). I had the Ekos upgraded to an Ekos 2 whilst they were fixing the bearing (I have a suspicion that Linn may have just replaced the old arm with a new one). A year or so later I got the chance to buy an LP12/Valhalla/Aro deck at a very good price and given I'd always wondered whether the Aro would sound better decided to buy it. I ran them side by side for a while (with my spare Troika on the Aro) and came to the conclusion that I prefered the sound of the Aro based deck. So I swapped it onto the Lingo deck and sold off the Ekos 2 and older deck. The LP12 and Aro are still going strong although I've since moved away from Naim for amps etc. This version also saw off a Michell Orbe with SME 5. An excellent deck/arm but certainly no better than the LP12 and at the time it had considerably more residual value. Not anymore though it seems.
 
James said:
Andrew,

It'd be quite a different matter if you're comparing sub-chassis. But you're not. Does that mean I can't compare amplifiers because they're played through Ergo loudspeakers (er, not that I'm trading any more, but you get my point)?
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I would agree - sure there is a RubiKon slant to things, but the sub-chassis is common between both arms. The difference is the arms, and I would be interested in seeing Andrew's opinions of the result. Any gerfluffle regarding the RubiKon is meaningless to me - I already own a Sole so know what a sub-chassis upgrade can do, and could never justify/afford the RubiKon :) Anyone on a stock sub-chassis considering an upgrade is going to be interested only in as much as they either own a Linn or Naim arm - so again it is a comparison between arms, not sub-chassis. It adds more choice, but that is no bad thing IMO?

Richard
 
James said:
That's hilarious.
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Fair play to the guy, he actually managed to get the suitcase upright! It wasn't the dumbest thing he did either. The speaker cables run behind the feet of a gas fire. He'd yanked the cables to try and get them out and seriously bent the pipe where it connects from the fire to the mains feed. Not sure whether he sat down and smoked the cigarette before or after he did this.....and then stubbed out the cig on the sofa and left the but on the floor to make sure the SOCO got plenty of DNA to sample.
 
James said:
The ARO is sensitive to set-up, and a simple mistake like tightening up the pillar to Linn tightness, for example, would kill the magic. Likewise, the bearing must be free to rotate but have no air trapped inside etc. etc.
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Absolutely correct. I have experienced poor cable dressing (by a dealer) on my ARO. I've also experienced overtightening of the pillar by a dealer. Both of these kill SQ. I know of others that have also experienced the same poor setup of the ARO by rubbish dealers.
 
Hmmm, makes me think that maybe the dealer did a poor set up on their Aro. It was their first Aro and had only fitted it a couple of days before the dem.

I'm happy with the Ekos, but who knows how it might have turned out...?
 
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