It’s not the turntable the one to blame, it’s the springs, that resonate from around 2 to 7 Hertz, same frequency of resonance as the footfalls on suspended wood floors. Rid the turntable of the springs and the footfalls problem disappears.
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Every now and then one comes along. Hilarious 
If the mushrooms have this effect on the effects of footfall, then they will also have a fundamental effect on the sound you get from an LP12. I could not reasonably banish the effects of footfall, so I switched to an unsprung design (ok, there is some compliance in the feet), a Rega P9. This sounded different, but still excellent. I now have a P10.
If you have mushrooms on an LP12, it is not an LP12. Remember that Linn, like Naim, constantly look at new innovations, the arbiter of which is listening. Also remember that, at these levels, our choices are usually driven by preferences, if we prefer something then, for us, it IS better.
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No, it won’t that is nonsense.
A TT without suspension can be disturbed by footfall, particularly on a compliant boarded floor. A suspended TT can be more easily disturbed but it does not mean taking the suspension eliminates the issue. A suspended floor has other advantages. Footfall is a distraction and proof of very little it is the small vibrations being prevented from reaching the stylus and cartridge. This can be done in various ways leading to the various designs out there. But they all have to deal with vibration however they do that or it won’t sound good.
A Rega will be disturbed by that and is one reason why Rega offers a wall-mounted shelf to put one of their TTs on.
A floor that is not compliant on a surface that will not introduce or transfer vibration any TT will be happy suspended or not.
My Gyrodec is not disturbed by footfall because any movement in the floor is not transferred to it.
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jlewis, it seems to me that your comments are perfectly justified.
Of course the presence of three springs and the rebound play a part in the result. Although the springs on the lp12 are unevenly tensioned, the most important thing is that the suspension bounces vertically. A perfectly tuned suspension is reassuring; a suspension that bounces correctly without being subjected to the stress of the arm cable is more than enough for excellent listening. Like all turntables, platter drive is essential. The efficiency of the belt with the motor determines the energy of the lp12; like all belt-driven turntables. With the exception of poorly protected displacements, the strength and stability of the springs can fully preserve the suspension for 8/10 years, while the belt remains at its most effective for 5/6 years.
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No worries, it’s all good
Not thinking I am right or anything. Just sharing my thoughts / feelings on it
Have a good evening gents (if uk time)
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…and when I got my LP12 in the 1980s, they were notorious for going ‘out of tune’ as these parameters tended to ‘slip’.
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That is exactly the reason why the tonearm on an LP12 is thrown off the record wildly, even with mild footfalls, it is not nonsense, but physics. It doesn’t look like you are familiar with the issue.
I didn’t say take the suspension away, but rather take the springs, an LP12 suspended on silicone bushings it’s still a suspended turntable.
Meh. It is still not the TTs fault just bad placement and has nothing much to do with how it sounds.
A Rega badly placed will jump too or an LP12 suspended on silicone. Regas sound best to me on a wall shelf.
I say again My Gyrodec on springs is unaffected by footfall or indeed pretty much any vibration low or high. Sounds fantastic too.
I have no idea why some folk are so obsessed with disturbance by footfall it has little or nothing to do with how a TT sounds and can be fixed by placing a TT on a stable surface.
Exactly.
The floor is broken so lets faff about with the LP12 suspension. 
Car wheel bearings that are noisy are easily fixed by turning the radio up.
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Or equally, playing Rush on our 1982 Sondek, Meridian amp, and Briks………. 
( the joke being that we missed the burglar alarm at B&Q going off literally across the road until the side finished………then we dialled 999!)
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While we wait for any more new answers from people who have or have not been pleased by the mushrooms, a bit of design philosophy comment like the above does no harm. As usual, I can agree with some of it. Otoh….
- IME, footfall can be a major issue. For people who cannot put up a wall shelf (rented property or 18th century wooden panelling perhaps), a very bouncy floor can mean having no turntable except something ultra-massive.
Even a fairly bouncy floor means that careless footsteps risk stylus ruination with an LP12. If the only thing mushrooms do is fix that, while preserving most or all LP12 features, that will be enough for many.
I had a well-set-up and then-new Orbe in my house for many months about 20 years ago. The LP12 I had then was worse for sending a needle across the vinyl if people had heavy feet and it was on a rack, but not much. Whichever was on the wall shelf had zero problem of course.
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I am with those who say an LP12 can stay bouncing correctly for a decade or more. I am also with those who say that (after a few incidents and being fiddled with by kids and suffering trips on laps to and from dealers) it can need completely redoing within a year. They seemed to need a lot more attention 40+ years ago, but the owners I knew may just have been fiddlers.
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I can’t agree that the difference of good/ bad bounce is inaudible. I am not a great listener but even I have noticed vague and slow bass and squeaky/shrill treble - rather like a really knackered MC from the 90s.
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I also can’t agree that only a genius can set LP12 suspension (see the excellent Cymbiosis guidance again), or that anyone can do it without much in the way of tools or care without getting it wrong.
I have been at a dealer while their LP12 chap (Ray Horn for those with long memories) received a deck where DIY had not worked. I have seen and heard LP12s with bad bounce and bad sound, but never heard one so bad that the arm board was clearly rubbing in one corner to the point of immobility and a long way from horizontal…
- Needle- bouncing can affect Regas (RP3 or P6 say) and similarly light unsuspended options, though it is far harder to achieve. It is much less of an issue or no issue with really massive decks (Nottingham?) for obvious reasons.
A wall shelf is imho always a great option for any deck that isn’t ultra-heavy. They are also cheaper than rebuilding your floor, as some here have successfully done. The fact that Rega bother making a dedicated wall shelf for a P10 is surely a hint here.
- As I understand it, Ariston, Linn and Thorens went for the bouncy suspension approach to isolate the needle from motor vibration, not footfall. As Touraj Moghaddam argued about 40 years ago, this approach has its inherent weaknesses, but so do most others.
The most impressive things about Rega (and Vertere?) designs today may be that they cope so well with this issue without having to mount the motor entirely separately and with so little mass.
- Few of the major upgrades and changes to the first LP12 were first done by Linn, though they have eventually adopted many of them. Their doing so has imho been a very good thing.
Some here have recently heard a mid-70s LP12 (with a suitable but new cartridge) and liked it. My response when doing so was shock - it had boogie but nothing else I wanted. My memory of them was very different…
To me, any current LP12 sounds more like a hi-end streamer or CDP than it does like a 70s LP12! Does no-one remember the ‘honk’? Perhaps I am inadequately loyal?
The fact any modern and/ or non-basic LP12 has all that is extra detail and so much more neutrality and quietness, and yet still gets the head and feet going a bit more than any other source, is the really impressive thing about an LP12 to me.
- All turntables are compromises. Any modern (and some not-so modern) LP12s are very good compromises imho. Given the costs and increased complexity, so they should be.
I think that most here, but not all, have said at least some of that above, though none of it seems to have 100% agreement. As always I am happy to be shot down where necessary.
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That myth is still notorious to this day, a cash cow for dealers.
Many dealers seem rather more honest than that. “No, it’s fine is a common response”.
In the meantime, I can report that the Cygnet Folk Festival is sounding excellent.
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Excellent write up, very thoughtful, thanks for taking the time and sharing.
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A bouncy floor is still not an issue to blame a TT for and although an appropriate shelf is an easy fix if you can do that it is not the only way to provide a stable platform that will circumvent the issue. All TTs will benefit from a stable platform. It is all part of what we can call room treatment.
It depends on the severity of the floor bounce but isolation platforms can help as can high mass like a large cut stone although this can introduce other issues. Another way that proved remarkably effective was to wedge a piece of furniture in an alcove where the person had his hifi placed on and in so that the table top/top shelf of the furniture the TT stood on (not a Linn but I am sure it would have worked with one) was held firm against the walls. It wasn’t even screwed into the wall we used softwood wedges that could not be seen normally. This was done as a temporary fix but if it works why change it? So it stayed like that.
There is of course the possibility of actually fixing the floor. This can be done in several ways depending on the situation and how the floor is constructed. It could mean extra piers/ floor supports around the hifi frame/furniture or a concrete island for the hifi to stand on and so on. All rather more work of course that may not be possible or desirable. Doing something about a poorly supported suspended floor can help speakers sound their best as well.
Again though footfall is not what suspension is really all about. The TTs suspension no matter how it is achieved is about isolating from small higher frequency vibrations reaching the cartridge. This is what affects the sound not footfall.
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Some turntables seem to sound very much the same, whatever they stand on. Some don’t.
My own experience is that the advice to put any (and I mean “any”) LP12 on something “ light and rigid” is right.
We have tried both mine on my massive granite rack (with and without a suitable glass sheet and Naim cups and balls), and with a butcher’s block. We have tried adding the butcher’s block or a granite chopping board to my wall shelf. We tried using clever rubbery feet (HRS Nimbus) under all of those options.
All of these combinations made enough sense to be worth trying. All sounded different to my ‘light and rigid’ wall shelf - and much worse.
YMMV of course.
I agree and think the keyword you used there is “rigid” which is part of what I mean by stable platform. Light and rigid certainly is effective with a Linn but I was trying to be more universal than specific to a Linn TT.
A heavy thick mass can act as a store/battery of energy and feed that into the TT which is why I mentioned it can come with other issues and this can spoil the sound but it does work for some TTs.
I think some TTs are less affected by what they stand but all will benefit from a stable platform to me that step 1 in setting up a TT correctly for optimum sound.
I think that that is exactly right. Many experiments confirmed that lots of mass under the LP12 really didn’t work. Why apparently attaching it to the wall (with little to keep A from B) works well is not 100% clear to me, but it is clearly true.
With other turntables, other options work well.
I don’t know why many here are very happy with an LP12 on the top of a fully loaded Fraim but can only imagine that the cups and balls (when used as intended on a Fraim) work.
Much improved springs and grommets (introduced quite a while ago) drastically reduced the need for tweaking that was a thing with early Sondeks. Excellent post BTW.
Depends on the structure of the wall. A typical stud wall in say a modern timber framed house will not be anything like as inert as a brick/block built solid wall. The former likely being as poor as a heavy sideboard (the energy storage/release effect).
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