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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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rjmag01
1 posts
 
I've just installed the OL ultra power supply and DC 200 motor on my Linn and am using the basic wallwart transformer. I'd like to upgrade the transformer but am balking at the $300+ price.

I understand that the guts of the upgrade unit is a toroid transformer so I'm thinking about building the unit myself. Anyone try a DIY on this before?
stops
56 posts
 
I have had the origin live Advanced Silver with upgraded transformer on my Linn LP12 since 4/06.It has been excellent in terms of reliability. The improvement in sound over the Valhalla was HUGE and I can absolutely recommend it. Installation was a snap. There are pots to tweak the speeds (33, 45) and they remain quite stable after you have run in the motor for a few days.I use a test record I have that has concert "A" on it and a tuning meter (music instruments) to set the speed exactly. Of course a strobe works fine.

Hope this helps.
abucktwoeighty's avatar
abucktwoeighty
1,079 posts
 
Have had my upgrade for 2-3 yrs. now, and the improvement was huge. My experience for the most part mirrors Stops, above. I wish I would have made the change from the Valhalla to the Origin Live sooner! One can never be sure of how much bang for the buck one gets, and I wasn't sure I would get a $600 improvement. I took the plunge, and found it to be money very well spent.
I see the original post was nearly seven years ago, but it doesn't hurt to let people know about it.
david12
1,454 posts
 
OI put the OL motor on my Valhalla Linn some years ago and did'nt hear a dramatic change. My system wasn't that good then, so it may have been hard to hear the change. I put on a OL Silver taper tone arm and that was a real upgrade on the Ittok
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.

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