Linn or VPI

If i had to choose between these two tables, there is no doubt in my mind as to which direction i would head in. Personally, i would go for the VPI and never think twice about a Linn. Linn's are EXTREMELY tweaky and need someone that is willing to fidget with the table quite a bit, have very poor isolation from external vibrations, have a tendency to suffer from acoustic feedback when other tables stroll right down the same path unhindered, etc... I am basing this on my past experience with older Linn's from many moons ago, so take that into account.

As others have mentioned, there are several other alternatives to the tables that you are looking at. This is not to say that the VPI is a bad table, only that i think that you might be able to find alternatives that may be more appealing in the long run. I know that Albert likes the Basis / Graham combo and Twl has already commented on the Teres, which seems to be a nice design also. Personally, i am a fan of Sota tables for very specific reasons.

I would take a look at ALL of your options very carefully. With the amount of info and resources that we have nowadays with the internet, one is no longer at the mercy of local dealers trying to "pimp" their products, possibly at your long term expense. Sean
>

Elkyman: As i stated in my post, my comments are based on older Linn's. I do not know if they have made any changes to these as i have not seen / used one of these in a LONG time. My friend Carl used to be a dealer for them back in the mid 80's. There is a Linn store in downtown Chicago though, so maybe i should stop by to see what they have to offer now.

Other than that, i have a review from High Fidelity magazine from "way back when". They did a comparison product review between the Linn LP12, another "high end" TT and a respectable yet inexpensive Japanese model ( Kyocera ). Out of the three, the Linn had by far the worst isolation. They specifically stated that the Linn was hard to get set-up, that it suffered problems from heavy footfalls, mistracking, acoustic feedback, etc... when the other tables did not. If you can mount the Linn on some type of specialized isolation device, keep it perfectly level and balanced, minimize external floor-borne or air-borne vibrations, etc... you might not run into such situations.

While the installation that your friend has was obviously done quite well, not everyone is capable of setting up or having such an installation. In those cases, i can pretty much guarantee that there are other tables that will perform better with less hassle. After all, a "good" product should be designed well enough to overcome most of the common mistakes / less than optimum installations that most people would consider "normal". If one were to take the extra steps to really make such an installation "sing", that would fall under the category of "tweaking". Obviously, your friend has done quite a bit of that.

Since others have stated that owning a Linn and getting it to perform optimally and keep working at that level would require a "factory trained expert", that alone should scare you away from owning one. It should also tell you that i'm not alone in my beliefs or comments.

To each their own. As i've said before, buy and use what you like. Nobody else has to use it, listen to it or enjoy it. As such, do what will make YOU happy as that is all that counts in the long run. I've seen WAY too many systems built on "brand name recognition" that absolutely sucked. Sean
>

Phil, i went to the auction that the bank held once they had assumed Avant Garde Audio. I knew that they had Linn products, but did not know that they were located where the old Linn store was. I did think that it was kind of "weird" that Linn would set up a store where there was already a dealer or two selling their products though.

Now that Linn is gone out of Chicago, i guess that left room for Naim to move in : ) Sean
>