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Origin DC Motor in LP12: Marketing or reality?

I have asked this before and gotten NO (zero, nada, zilch, bupkis, null...) response. From what I can tell, there is 10 times (100x?) the amount of promotional material as there is personal experience of this upgrade on the internet. I am starting to wonder if they have ever sold any.

My TT is a Linn LP12, with Linn Basik Plus arm and Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood MkII cartridge, and it is fitted with the Valhalla board. I have a great isolation stand that gives me incredibly musical and natural sound and I love this in my system. I do not want to screw up the sound, but I'm willing to try to improve it without spending big bucks. I can afford about $400-600 for a large upgrade at a time, once or twice a year.

Everyone I know who has added a motor drive (Lingo, Walker, Clearaudio, VPI) reports fantastic results, and I have heard it myself on many of those systems.

I have considered, on and off, trying to upgrade with the Origin Live DC Motor Drive, but I can only find about 2-3 professional reviews, and no individual (amateur) critiques, just comments from people who have read about but haven't actually installed one.

Have any of you actually tried this upgrade? Would I get a great improvement over the Valhalla board? How does it compare to a Lingo? What are the pros and the cons?

p.s. Does anyone else notice that there are certain products that are very heavily promoted in this and other sites (classified and dealer), but rarely see comments about someone who bought the product?
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cakyol's avatar
cakyol
940 posts
 
I am late to this forum but here is my take on it.....

Synchronous motors are DESIGNED to be constant speed based on supply FREQUENCY.

DC motors have inherently variable speed based EXTREMELY  sensitively on DC voltage.

To ensure that a DC motor stays on constant speed, the speed has to be sampled many times a second and "CORRECTED" if the voltage drifts.  And, voltage will ALWAYS drift no matter what.

With a sync motor and specially with Valhalla, the frequency is derived from a xtal oscillator and is therefore EXTREMELY STABLE.

Therefore, in conclusion, it is much more difficult and troublesome to adjust speed by continuously correcting it, rather than having a motor which inherently runs at a constant speed by design, especially driven by a xtal oscillator.

The ONLY saving grace of the DC motor may be its quietness.  However, the synchronous motor can be made just as quiet by reducing the applied voltage to it and adjusting its phase shift capacitor to be as close to 90 degrees as possible.  These are still MUCH easier to achieve in practice than to build a speed sampler and correct the voltage.

bimasta's avatar
bimasta
227 posts
 
Origin Live told me that I may need to help the platter to get rotation started with my hand. If this turns out to be true, this is unacceptable. I was not thinking that my hand would be a crank for the turntable start procedure.
I’m the opposite. I always ’help’ my platter get started and up to speed. Otherwise, all the work is done by the belt and motor, or on a DD, by the motor. It causes belts to stretch, and motors to do far more work to overcome inertia, and the heavier the platter (and most think heavy is good) the more work is required. Once at speed, maintaining speed is much less stress on motor and belt. And I don’t think I’m being imposed upon: I’m helping.

Synchronous motors are DESIGNED to be constant speed based on supply FREQUENCY.
Supply frequency is not stable nor reliable. I filmed a documentary in a new power station. Everything was the latest tech. Very impressive — until I reached the frequency control room. The "high tech" controller was a guy at a big steering wheel (looked like the helm-wheel on a racing yacht) and staring at a huge meter. 50Hz was the target, and despite his efforts, the meter was always moving — 49Hz, 50Hz, 51Hz — and he would correct by turning the wheel. Sometimes it dipped to 48 or rose to 52. It AVERAGED 50Hz over 24 hours, but with many fluctuations. I hope, but don't know, it's been improved since then...
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

There are many MODIFICATIONS by LP 12 which can't

be called ''IMPROWEMENT''. Raul ever stated ''if an design is

good why so many modifications?'' My Kuzma Stabi Reference

was without any modification for years. My old LP 12 have had very

simple capacitors network and old Philips motor. Both caused

me to buy OL alternative. If i remember well for 500 euro.

My other reason was the possibility to adjust the speed.

I deed prefer  OL version but in comparison with the old

LP 12. But since than there were many modifications about

which I have no idea. So my experience of limited ''range''.

daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,835 posts
 
There are numerous reasons why a table might need to be updated...if that is even possible with the design. Not the least of which are improvements in the technology and the ability to retrofit same.
Linn has offered this opportunity with its Linn LP12 over the many years, something that I personally think says a lot for them. If nothing else, this aspect insures the ability to keep the table current with the latest upgrades. How many other turntable manufacturer’s can you say that about?


cakyol's avatar
cakyol
940 posts
 
Hi bimasta,

I do not know what country your power station experience was in but mains frequency is usually tightly controlled in most countries to be quite stable.  Even that is moot point since the Valhalla or Hercules boards generate their own internal frequency by an internal xtal oscillator which is usually about 0.1% stable.  No normal human will be able to tell the difference in pitch with that stability.  I have even found these guys online which have better than 0.002% stability.  That is almost literally satellite grade stability:

https://www.kccscientific.com/

Having said all this, just as an experiment I want to play around with the Origin Live DC motor but have some questions that dont seem to be answered on their own web site:

- Is the motor BRUSHLESS ?  Otherwise it will not last long. "Long" is subjective but brushed motors will always eventually fail due to mechanical friction.  It is only a matter of time.

- I do not see any 'feedback' mechanism on the Origin Live system.  How does it compensate against 'voltage drift' which will always happen no matter what, due to temp changes, component tolerances etc ?

Thanks

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