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Valhalla Electronics Zeus LP12 controller

Woodface said:
I find the mobile app element of this PSU to be a bit silly. Plenty of 2nd hand lingo’s about for the tight fisted.
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That is interesting, What don’t you like about the mobile app element and what PSU are you referring to ?
Have you tried it out on your own LP12 and reached your conclusions as a result ?

Good job we all like different things and have alternative choices though isn’t it.
 
Alun Rains said:
That is interesting, What don’t you like about the mobile app element and what PSU are you referring to ?
Have you tried it out on your own LP12 and reached your conclusions as a result ?

Good job we all like different things and have alternative choices though isn’t it.
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I have a lingo 2 myself. I just don’t see analogue in that way. I use my phone for digital all the time.
 
Woodface said:
I have a lingo 2 myself. I just don’t see analogue in that way. I use my phone for digital all the time.
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OK I understand.. I only ever use my phone for digital music via headphones away from home.
I throughly understand that there are always choices of secondhand Lingo’s in one version or another.
It’s also good to find something somewhat different and explore what that actually does somewhat better than
earlier Lingo’s too. Thanks for your input.
 
torstoi said:
..an aftermarket Subchassis, three rubber grommets and a Lingo1 for example can get you a very good deck in comparison.
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If you also replace the ringing platter with a more inert one you can reduce colouration further but..it's not an LP12 any more is it? I do roll my eyes when people talk about how you can make the LP12 'better' by removing its defining features. What is the point? Jut buy a different deck to begin with. Lots of record players that are not an LP12.

Miss Ariel said:
Its a niggle I suppose with the LP12 at Majik level the fact you have to put a adapter over the motor and change the belt is just not good enough in my opinion on a deck which is £3500
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That's Linn pricing for you. Mystery how they get away with it.

sq225917 said:
If it measures better, its better...
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But I don't care how it measures. I don't buy hi-fi t measure it, I buy it to listen to music with.
 
Mr Pig said:
If you also replace the ringing platter with a more inert one you can reduce colouration further but..it's not an LP12 any more is it? I do roll my eyes when people talk about how you can make the LP12 'better' by removing its defining features. What is the point? Jut buy a different deck to begin with. Lots of record players that are not an LP12.
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If you're rolling your eyes every time you don't understand something,
I imagine you must be rather dizzy by now.
Which to me would explain a lot of your content..
 
Having built, fettled, serviced and set up rather a lot of Linns with various psu's, none remained keepers for very long other than a Fully Funked Vectored one.
As a very early adopter of this, Arthur was good enough to insist I had the upgraded psu free gratis. Too much hassle says I but I was wrong. A revelation.
A deck bastardized by a dealer was in for .. what I wondered given the state of it? Arthur's forerunner to the Vector (can't recall the name), carbon fibre toplate and sub chassis with
the motor at 7 o clock position (all being an Origin Live piece of overpriced .....psu/motor). With a Syrinx PU 2 and a Grado wooden cartridge this thing blew my mind
and made me a convert to D.C. motors (long before I splashed out on the Funked deck).
Only other psu that I thought made a huge improvement to a 'sort off' LP 12 it went with, was a d.i.y. Geddon I bought off here for 90 quid.
Only ever experienced Lingo's 1 & 2 but any improvement they brought to the tables were overshadowed by the crap they introduced into the system.
I had a furniture maker friend make me lots of Linn plinths from exotic woods a long, long time before Woodsong,Collinson etc cottoned but not having
a Bricks & Mortar Store, everyone and their dog wanted these for buttons. Must dig out some photos.
Now more than happy with my Oracle (MK 11 with Pabst DC motor) and might get time to finish the various heavy plinth Lencos lying around. Love the sound of the many I have built
and sold but never happy with the finish given my limited woodworking skills,lol.
Only upgrades I forsee are the newest Emotiva integrated. Upgrades my current Emotiva pre but the built in power amp costs way less than
a set of valves for my Audiopax and gives me a safety net should they die. My Meridian M2's were always my happily go to standby but since her indoors
hates them and relegated to gathering dust in the spare bedroom, seems a shame & a waste given the pleasure they could give someone else.
Does seem a strange state of affairs when I'm contemplating a Blackbird tonearm rather than another classic car project let alone umpteen sets of new valves for the Pax
which would seem to be being smuggled out of Russia, given the price and the time they are taking to arrive?
Sorry wandered a bit, would love to hear a decent psu on a big Lenco and wonder if there's a D.C. motor up to the job?
 
I very much like the look of the VALHALLA ELECTRONICS ZEUS AC motor speed control system - and if it sounds as good as early reports tend to suggest, it's certainly priced right.

[In fact, the less expensive VALHALLA ELECTRONICS MINOS is of equal interest - in the event that the extended functionality of the ZEUS is not required...]

One thing that I'm sceptical about is the platter-based adaptive speed control on the ZEUS.

Surely if the platter speed is being checked and adjusted only once per LP revolution, the adjustments in speed will be just as bothersome as the fact that speed drifted from ideal in the first please?

That is to say, hearing speed drift mid-track is dead annoying. How does varying the platter speed (again) to recover from speed drift help?

Also, I wonder how far the speed needs to drift from ideal, before adaptive speed control kicks-in?

Finally, I am curious as to how easy - or hard - it is to actually plug-in a laptop and optimise the various aspects of motor control manually. Has anyone tried it?

Sorry if I am coming across negatively. Not intended. Actually, I think these products look very promising - but having never experienced such a system, I'd like to gain greater understanding, before taking the plunge.

Here is a quick comparison between the two VALHALLA ELECTRONICS AC Motor Speed Control solutions.

Features of VALHALLA ELECTRONICS MINOS:
Adjust motor voltage and phase in control software (for minimum motor vibration) ✓
Adjust motor speed in control software (frequency) ✓
Electronic 33.33 and 45 rpm switching ✓
Auto power off sleep timer (time configurable in software) ✓
Aluminium square Linn style on-33-45-off switch supplied ✓ MINOS ONLY
Aluminium OLED/Switch supplied (speed / WOW indication) X ZEUS ONLY
OLED display auto blank timer (configurable in software) X ZEUS ONLY
Speed sensor for adaptive speed control X ZEUS ONLY
Digital Signal Processing speed control (PID) X ZEUS ONLY
Super quiet motor mode - reduces drive voltage once full speed reached X ZEUS ONLY
OLED display. Display rotation speed / Wow X ZEUS ONLY
Stylus and Bearing wear counters X ZEUS ONLY
Off-board Power Supply and Switching X ZEUS ONLY
Upgradeable to a ZEUS ✓ MINOS ONLY
 
Very pleased with my External Zeus, had it for circa 15 months or so. I have never heard any speed drift whatsoever when playing records. I have also heard a Lingo 4 equipped LP12 and in my honest opinion they both sounded great and I noticed no discernible difference in either the timing or presentation of the music.
It is easy to plug the External Zeus into a laptop as the USB port is on the rear of the external casing. I assume that with an internal Zeus board you would connect the USB cable to the board inside the deck which would be a little trickier, OK when you have the baseboard removed of course. I only ever adjusted the motor speed via the software with the help of Steve Cobham the owner of Valhalla Electronics who guided me through the process. It was relatively easy with Steve's help of course.
With regards to your other technical questions, I would refer them to Steve Cobham.
Hope that helps
 
What percentage of 110 V do you use with Zeus? On TD150 and LP12 I've heard it's 65 V, what percentage would that be? 65/110 = 0,59 x 100 = 59 %?

Anyway the WOW showed between 0,001 and 0,008
With the needle in the track it increased to 0,1 and it took maybe 10 s to return to the previous values.
 
Zombie said:
What percentage of 110 V do you use with Zeus? On TD150 and LP12 I've heard it's 65 V, what percentage would that be? 65/110 = 0,59 x 100 = 59 %?

Anyway the WOW showed between 0,001 and 0,008
With the needle in the track it increased to 0,1 and it took maybe 10 s to return to the previous values.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I have no idea. I am UK based so it connects via 240v anyway
 
Zombie said:
What percentage of 110 V do you use with Zeus? On TD150 and LP12 I've heard it's 65 V, what percentage would that be? 65/110 = 0,59 x 100 = 59 %?

Anyway the WOW showed between 0,001 and 0,008
With the needle in the track it increased to 0,1 and it took maybe 10 s to return to the previous values.
Click to expand...
The DIYAudio Zeus returns these figures on my LP12. Takes about 10 revs to dial the speed in.

2023-03-07_08-53-40 by Garf Arf, on Flickr
2023-03-07_08-54-08 by Garf Arf, on Flickr

That bluetac just has to go :)
 
I don't want a power supply that tells me it's running at 33.3. I just want one that runs at 33.3. And I dislike the round light up button enough to stop me buying it. I don't even like the blue led on the Hercules but that would be easy enough to change.
 
Mr Pig said:
I don't want a power supply that tells me it's running at 33.3. I just want one that runs at 33.3. And I dislike the round light up button enough to stop me buying it. I don't even like the blue led on the Hercules but that would be easy enough to change.
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Easy enough to remove the block, and button, and reuse the original LP12 switch.

I don't like the blue switch either, might change it, it's DIY after all.

In fact I have all the bits to house the board externally, might do that too.
 
Mr Pig said:
I don't want a power supply that tells me it's running at 33.3. I just want one that runs at 33.3. And I dislike the round light up button enough to stop me buying it. I don't even like the blue led on the Hercules but that would be easy enough to change.
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The External Zeus has the more traditional looking switch it doesn’t have the display as that is built into the faceplate of the external housing. Hope that clarifies it.
 
Alun Rains said:
The External Zeus has the more traditional looking switch it doesn’t have the display as that is built into the faceplate of the external housing. Hope that clarifies it.
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Exactly, you have the commercial version whilst mine is the DIYAudio version. I know the commercial version has quite a few features over the DIYAudio one. I was tempted to trade in what I had to the commercial one, but thought, "well let's try the DIYAudio one and see". And it is impressive at speed control, plenty of pitch stability, the commercial one being better.
 
chiily said:
Exactly, you have the commercial version whilst mine is the DIYAudio version. I know the commercial version has quite a few features over the DIYAudio one. I was tempted to trade in what I had to the commercial one, but thought, "well let's try the DIYAudio one and see". And it is impressive at speed control, plenty of pitch stability, the commercial one being better.
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Yes indeed.. They do a great job regardless of the version. The commercial ones do look aesthetically better though.
 
I had the Hercules on my TT for about 8 years and found it great and would highly recommend it on an up to the Cirkus bearing deck. However, having just upgraded my deck I think taken with all the other upgrades I made the Lingo 4 is definitely worth it. It isn't cheap but once you get to the level of a mid-range LP12 upgrades are not going to be cheap. If it lasts as long as my Valhalla did, 30 years or so it will outlast me, so taking a long view and considering the longevity of Linn LP12 products, it seems not that expensive.
 
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