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Possible turntable upgrade....

Hi All,

So it started as a simple, 'buy some new speakers' impulse. Well, that escalated quickly!

Now, I am looking at my turntable as the possible weakest link. Would love your help/advice/input/experience on whether it's time to give up on my old, beloved c.1980's Linn LP12 that I have had since the mid 80s. The deck has Lingo 1 and Cirkus/Valhalla upgrades of note.

Details: LP12 as above, Graham Phantom arm, Clearaudio Concerto cart.

System: Aesthetix Janus (brand new) pre, BAT 250SE (w BAT-PAK) amp. Tara Labs throughout (recent upgrade) including phono cables, Vivid B1 speakers (Tara The 2 cables).

So, it seems that the Graham Phantom may be too much arm for the Linn (been told Linn is better with a lighter arm) so should I upgrade the deck to build the analog around the arm and take it to the level of the Aesthetix/Vivids etc? Basically, is my money better spent on a new deck as opposed to trying to upgrade an old design such as the Linn? Is the Linn now the weakest link in my system? 

If so, recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I know tastes come into it etc but hopefully my choice of Vivids etc give an insight. Especially love to hear from anyone with a Graham Phantom arm. Price range: as low as possible to make the necessary difference, definitely under $10k. Preferably closer to $5k. Of particular interest (but little listening experience) would be Clearaudio and Transrotor. Open to all ideas. All positive input is greatly appreciated.

Thank you all.  
denjer1

Showing 4 responses by mijostyn

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,175 posts
 
Millercarbon the only way to isolate a table is to suspend it correctly. You are right about tuning the suspension and The SOTA  does this by adding and or subtracting lead shot to a well under the tonearm board. Any table on a fixed base is only as isolated as what it is sitting on. The problem with the Linn was that its suspension had a very low Q. All you had to do was sneeze in front of it and it would start bouncing. The SOTA and the SME will not do this. You can put them on a collapsible card table and they will be totally immune to anything that happens around it. Try that with any fixed base table no matter the weight.  
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,175 posts
 
Denjer I have owned two Linns over the years and I hated both of them but they were still the best table you could buy at the time. You have to trust me on this one. Get a SOTA Cosmos and stick your Graham on it.
You will never buy another turntable. You will be in Heaven. You will be able to put your sub woofer right in front of it and blast the crap out of it and nothing will happen. You will be able to jump up and down right in front of it and nothing will happen. It now has a magnetic bearing like the more expensive Clearaudio tables. They will drill the arm board and weight the chassis for the Graham. You get your choice of wood and a dust cover if you like! They are great people and you will have the best experience with them. You should consider a better cartridge. A Clearaudio Da Vinci would do perfectly. I love spending other peoples money. I have owned at least 20 tables and the only one that compares is the SME. 
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,175 posts
 
Stringreens, The Linn's suspension is not damped at all so the Q is very low. It is very tonearm sensitive. If you put too light a tone arm on it the resonant frequency of the suspension will get high enough to throw the arm right off the record. I made that mistake once. It was terribly sensitive to foot falls and any other disturbance near it. The tone arm board is crap. I made a laminated board for it which weighed more which fixed the problem with the light arm. Compared to the SOTA , SME and the Basis tables the construction quality is second rate. The SOTA is special because it achieves equal performance to the SME with less expensive and far more attractive materials and now has a better bearing than The SME. It is 1/2 the price because it is made in America. They will update any of their turntables and will even take them as trade ins. You can not find a better company to deal with. 
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,175 posts
 
Actually noromance you can kick the stand under a SOTA and as long as you do not kick the stand out from under it will continue along as if nothing happened. But, not only is it insensitive to this abuse it is also insensitive to everything else that is happening in the room like the music, your sub woofer and your mother in law screaming at you. So, even on a concrete floor it will out perform most other turntables. I have not heard one with the new bearing yet but I can't see how it would not be even better. Why it does not get the press it deserves is beyond me. Back in the early 80s when the Sapphire was initially released it was the darling of the audio press. It trounced tables three time the cost. It still does that but it does not have the reputation it deserves. The SME is a great table. It sounds every bit as good as the SOTA as far as I can tell and I think I should know as I have both of them. The SME is not as easy to live with as the SOTA and it is no where near as handsome as a SOTA in Ebony. The only problem that some might see in the SOTA is that it will only accept a 9 or 10" arm. I got the SME 30/12 because I wanted a longer heavier arm for low compliance cartridges like the Air Tight and I wanted to be able to AB cartridges. There are many who think the SME is the best table made and I love mine but it is no better than the SOTA and is three times the money in the US.
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