2. analog
  3. 1080279531

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?
Ag insider logo xs@2xpbowne
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

More to discover