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Now the dust has settled - the Karousel

Can someone explain what a "lower noise floor" is, please?

On a fantastic pressing, of which I have a few, unless I turn the volume WAY up, I hear nothing that I wouldn't hear from a CD between tracks, basically total silence. Turn it up and there is mains hum, which I do not believe any modification to any TT could eliminate.
 
Re lower noise floor, I’m not sure if it is that but don’t know how else to describe it. Background noise that I wasn’t previously aware off has been reduced, allowing the music (More music?) to emerge.

re Hercules, a second hand Lingo 3 would be the best solution I’ve seen them for about £700.
 
Most people are blissfully unaware of the noise floor as the brain filters it out. Very few people have experienced a totally quiet space and suddenly you realise that your ears are full of the sounds made by your own body.

Right now I’m in a relatively quiet room but if I listen carefully I can hear the fridge compressor and distant traffic.

Record players bearings can certainly make a difference to the signal to noise on LP. It can also have a profound effect on speed stability.
 
The karousel bearing is essentially three part, rather than one (please pedants - we all know that in both cases there are more than three pieces in the construction). It also clamps to the sub-chassis via three dowels and a flange rather than 2 flanges and three bolts (or I assume so from online material).

Logically, the dowels v. flange would be a "worse" joint..... So is there a claim as to what change has produced the improvement?

£750 is a lot of money for a bearing (presumably including fitting), but the karousel is a total PITA thing to make to the accuracy and finish needed, and there are at least two profits, one of them profit on profit, involved.
 
Agreed. Any sound that is constant and doesn't actually hurt will be filtered out by your brain. It's only interested in sounds that change like the sound of a jaguar breathing.

I didn't really appreciate how noisy my Dynavector P75 is until I tried a Linn Linto when suddenly I could hear lyrics better and there were quite a few more instruments.
 
2ManyBoxes said:
Agreed. Any sound that is constant and doesn't actually hurt will be filtered out by your brain. It's only interested in sounds that change like the sound of a jaguar breathing.

I didn't really appreciate how noisy my Dynavector P75 is until I tried a Linn Linto when suddenly I could hear lyrics better and there were quite a few more instruments.
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But if applicable to a bearing, that argues that the "noise" from a bearing varies significantly. Tricky to believe.
 
Vinny said:
But if applicable to a bearing, that argues that the "noise" from a bearing varies significantly. Tricky to believe.
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That's cos they are trying to explain away, vibration from the bearing causing a loss of information reaching your ears as "noise drowning out" said information. The reality is ,the old bearing simply lost that information due to its interface with the its housing and the Tranquility showed quite conclusively that was the case. The Tranquility however, is a blasphemy against the cult's belief system so the problem that didn't exist until it was pointed out by a third party, can only be solved by in house Linn magic, at a price and with sufficient faffing about to make it difficult to pair with third party products.Perfectly understandable on Linn's behalf however, let's not pretend it was anything other than forced upon them by third party mods making it blatantly clear that, their previous "prefect bearing" was anything bar that.
 
Vinny said:
Linn's greatest aid to sales is that a true A v B v A etc. is impossible.
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I agree with your point. There are times I've changed a cable, CD player, cartridge or something and initially been impressed with the extra detail or whatever only to find I did not miss it and enjoyed the music more when I changed back. For the record, I really like the sound of the very early LP12. It had something that the later changes progressively lose.

Having said that, I can't see why the Karousel would not sound better as it is simply a better built bearing. It's not too dissimilar to bearings other manufacturers have been using for years and in hi-fi terms I'm sure it will actually be better.

I'm puzzled by the frustration caused by its lack of compatibility as I see these things as a technicality. The main problem as I can see it is that the bearing is a larger diameter. So if the hole in your top plate it too tight, make the hole bigger! There is nothing mounted to the top plate at the edges of the bearing hole so no reason you can't just put a drill through it. Is it really too tight through the hole in the PSU board or do Linn just have to say that? If it is, mount the PSU in a separate box.

If you really want one of these bearings I'm sure you'd be about to figure out how to use one. If I was buying an LP12 right not I'd at least want to try a Karousel one.
 
I doubt that the 'prefect' bearing actually exists but im happy when someone takes the time to design a better one.

The only thing tranquility proved was that is easy to mess up the sound of an LP12.
 
ex brickie said:
So far I've not seen a useful comment here about any improvements with the Karousel (apart from several referring to the lower noise floor).
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A lower noise floor is not nothing. The first thing that I noticed about the RP10 was how damn quiet it was but the knock on effect is not trivial. The less mechanical noise is present, the more signal you can hear. It's a good thing.
 
There will NEVER be a "perfect" bearing for an LP12, sure there may be better. and less so.....

The problem lies with the design, as in the huge majority of belt-drive, and other, turntables. The ideal would be a platter that rides PERFECTLY centrally in a spindle bearing and that takes direct drive, although the Vector system comes close(r). (No, I have not heard any Vector driven system, but the fact remains as an engineering certainty.)

Comparing two LP12 bearings, what factors are going to matter to sound reproduction, or, more to the point, what the stylus reads/sends back as signal?

Incidentally, the Tranquility has an effect on the thrust bearing, so logically ought to have all but no effect on what the stylus reads.
 
Vinny said:
There will NEVER be a "perfect" bearing for an LP12, sure there may be better. and less so.....

The problem lies with the design..
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This isn't a 'problem', just one of the multitude of chosen compromises present in every turntable ever made. The perfect turntable exists in theory only.
 
Mr Pig said:
This isn't a 'problem', just one of the multitude of chosen compromises present in every turntable ever made. The perfect turntable exists in theory only.
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Strange indeed that so many have chosen one of the most inherently compromised basic designs to try to get perfection............. not least if suspended, which makes the whole thing worse.
 
david ellwood said:
I doubt that the 'prefect' bearing actually exists but im happy when someone takes the time to design a better one.

The only thing tranquility proved was that is easy to mess up the sound of an LP12.
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You’d say anything not made by Linn messes up the sound. I remember when a certain Bucks based Linn dealer told me my Stiletto-plinthed (everything else Linn) LP12 SE didn’t ‘play the tune’. I was fed up of his crap and told him he was clearly utterly biased and/or deaf and wouldn’t get any more of my business.
 
paulski said:
I remember when a certain Bucks based Linn dealer told me my Stiletto-plinthed (everything else Linn) LP12 SE didn’t ‘play the tune’. I was fed up of his crap and told him he was clearly utterly biased and/or deaf and wouldn’t get any more of my business.
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A lot of the 'innovations' Linn have incorporated into the LP12 were initially invented by other people. The top plate bolt in the motor corner, alloy sub-chassis, DC motor etc and the story is always the same. Linn make it, superb. Someone else makes it, terrible.
 
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