Turntable choices

Oh Yeah , done right that'd look pretty cool :MILD:

Done wrong of course and it'll look like a pigs ear

Have no religious feelings one way or the other about LP12s soundwise. I like bits of kit and I like music but not so much I'd be rude to someone. Its the evangelism that gets to me - really guys - its not THAT important. The thread seems to have calmed down somewhat now. Good.

I know a lot of folk don't care about how their gear looks so long as it sounds the best (or they think it does ... no, no, lets not go there again ). I'm not one of them though, personally I prefer it to look cool too ... I'm with the Devil's Mistress on this one ... mebbe I'm a lady (quickly looks down pants) ... nope just got my priorities wrong I guess.

Don't get me wrong if it sounded like an old dansette but looked the bees I wouldn't go there. Good looks are just another requirements, not THE requirement. (Actually I shouldn't have said that - I do own an old Dansette as well, though I only use it when I want to amuse my niece and nephew and have a dance party in the back garden with a bunch of scratchy old sixties singles - but old dansettes do look kinda kewl in a very retro way)

Seriously though if you could get Linns in piano black I'd consider em, but the wooden plinth just makes em look like ye olde worlde seventies gramophone player. The uninitiated wouldn't know a Linn from an old SP25 (they don't look kewl, but retro in a very pipe and slippers sort of way), but show em something sexy like one of the new Roksans or something and they would immediately hail you as turntable god (or maybe a flash git).

 

If you have a decent local craftsman he can put a better piano black on any deck than most manufacturers. Probably charge less too.

 

Thanks to Merlin for a few hours of his time this afternoon and pleasant musical excution into vinyl for a few hours, Merlin VPI scout, Sim Combo and merlin speakers produces a cracking sound, with bags of involvement and interest, with groove aplenty, showing great naturaliness too, flowing with real music, a lovely sound for not a lot of outlay on the TT components, Lp12's take note, this is a lot more how it should be
Great musical communicatoin skills merlin rig poscesses, thanks again Mike. T.

 

I was flipping through HFN today and I saw a review of the entry level Avid TT. £1100 for a kit, no lid, you have to sit the motor on the stand beside the rest of the TT. And it occurred to me that an LP12 with a similar PSU (you'd have to improvise or ask your dealer for help here, but then the Avid is delivered 'fully knocked down'....) is about the same price new.

So why are so many people so down on a budget deck that punches well above its weight??? (And comes with a lid...)

Paul

 

Hi Bub,

good to see you back. Your thread is most enlightening ...

Getting back to TTs and WAF, for good sound, I can recommend a Nouvelle Platine Verdier; they do come in black. For WAF, I can recommend buying exactly what the W in question has seen and liked; creative licence don't go far in these matters

 

Gyrodecs and Orbe are beautiful, (albeit in the eye of the beholder).

In 1992 when I got into this hobby I day-dreamed about owning one. I thought they were the coolest thing Id ever seen.

Good point on WAF being what W has seen!. Perhaps a few photos from the net flashed in front of her to 'oooh! thats nice ' or 'er yuk thats ugly' would be good?

NB
Theres a release that I want from the LINN record label.
As far as I can see its only available on CD.
It is a pity (if I am correct) that Ivor doesnt support the software for his LP12's as readily as he does the product itself.
A great pity IMO.

Chris

 

Good thought Paul.

Now, if only I knew a furniture restorer who knew about hi-fi, preferably of Russian descent, living in London, and due to visit me around Easter time. Someone like that might even be able to give me a quote for a piano black finish for the plinth.

 

Bub,

If you'd specify your requirements with a little more precision, we might think of someone suitable.

 

Hi,

Racking my brain. Ta for the welcome back, btw.

Which part is enlightening? The LP12 levelling thing? I predict a flurry of orders for Mana spirit levels, they are indispensible for TT owners.

 

Ill be getting one for my next TT project (nearly all parts ordered )

James, how big is it, will it serve as a weight aswell?

 

The Mana spirit level may be indispensible for owners of Linns, but not for owners of sensibly designed turntables.

I have a Mana level. It is good, and very reasonably priced. But I also have a precision spirit level that cost me about 200 quid and shows the Mana to lack in absolute accuracy.

The enlightenment was more about the prejudices of some forum members, and also about the listening criteria of some people (hi Marco; good to see you posting here again, too. I think you're fundamentally wrong on this issue, though.)

 

Hi Markus
So in essence, i may be better to purchase a good engineering level?

The appeal was that it will fit over the spindle.

 

It's about an inch & a quarter in diameter, I guess. The only problem with it AFAICT is that it weighs slightly less than an LP. If you can adjust the TT so that the bubble lies bang in the centre of the circle with no variation when rotating, your TT will take a big step forward, as they say.

Yes I guess a more expensive level might be better.

 

Hi Penance,

as James implicates, a better level may be better, but it will also cost more. The Mana level is pretty good. I invested in an even better alternative when I ran an Aro. Unipivots depend on the force of gravity for azimuth. I found it pretty dang hard to get the Aro right without a precision level. I ran some pretty expensive carts in it and found I had to attend to every aspect of set-up with an annoying amount of nerdery to get them to sound like they were worth the money.

I subsequently found that gimballed arms like a level platter just as much.

If you do level the platter with a normal engineering level, pay attention to how you place the level on the platter: the center must be aligned with the center of the platter. In practice , that means putting the level next to the spindle and having an imaginary line through the center of the level run through the center of the spindle, if that makes sense. Also remember that you have to level the platter left-right and fore-aft. It's usually an iterative process.

I guess this approach wouldn't work on a Linn.

 

Thanks Markus
Ill compare some prices