Verdier and Amazon

Well, LP12 is a simple enough product that can drop in a supercharged turbo, drives like a rocket, and corners like no tomorrow.

1) Supercharging: What it need is removing the steel chassis and replaced with carbon graphite parts (literally identical material used in Formula-1 race cars).

2) Improve the suspension: the springs can be modified with new suspension that stays true and tuned, more musical and better rhythm and timing.

3) Changed the "tires": Add extra layer of support, such as carbon platform, Mana, or Aurios. Of course, I do all of the aboves.

What LP12 is not, a big heavy table that suppresses the music, such as TNT, Verdier, Norttingham. And I dare anyone with this table to check mine out.

I am totally floored by playing a nicely set-up LP12/Ekos/Arkiv/Lingo/Carbon-charged/Mana/phono cable upgraded set-up. Took me about 5 hours to take it from stock to super-charged.

BTW, a fully-Linn setup with Arkiv and Linto is a match in heaven, and need to spend 2-3 times to get back the same quality of sound. It will compete right up there with top phono stages with a mid-range price: more cohesive than the ARC PH3 (not surprised), and more puunchy than Vendetta SCP-2B. The only downfall is Linto does not seem to like other cartridges from different brand. With Arkiv, I wouldn't miss the Helikon a bit.

www.extremephono.com

Hi,
I think what I implied:

1) The system synergy is important. Linn+Arkiv+Linto, even with no modification, can sound better than a mis-matched, but more expensive setup. 80% of people could have screwed up in mix-n-match. How many times we bought a wrong interconnect or component?

2) Some people are afraid to mod their equipment (but I personally only do modifications that can be reversed, don't chop up your equipment, and make sure everything can be retracted). Modification easily add more performance at less cost. The original manufacturer have to mark-up their cost x5-x10 at the retail level, so they have to design their product to fit a price point, compromising performance. For example, the expensive Sony SCD-1 has a cheap carbon resistors for the analog output, uses 5535 opamps to get balanced output, etc...

3) I failed to point out that I can mod the LP12 or DIY for less than the cost of an used cartridge. To beat the result, need something like SME20.

I personally believe that a SME20 or Simon Yorke may be the ultimate machine. For some reason, I don't like Verdier's magnetic bearing, but that's just personal, but I think to accomodate his magnetic bearing, some compromises such as the tolerance of the bearing has to be increased. To me, mechanical ground is very important to PRAT, and magnetic bearing has no ground.