I’m sure even Linn would admit that the suspended sub chassis design of the LP 12 is prior art and that any gain in performance over similar designs is due to the design and engineering of its various elements to eliminate unwanted vibrations in the vertical plane.
The last turntable I owned before I got an LP12 was a silver Thorens 160 BC mark II. I bought it (with financing from the bank of mum and dad) from Comet on Bold Street in Liverpool in late 1977 for the princely sum of £79.00, without an arm.
Used with the SME 3009 Series II (fixed headshell, for lowest effective mass of course) and the Shure M75 EJ2 body with ED2 stylus that I transferred from a Connoisseur BD1, records played on it sounded great through my Rotel RX 150A receiver and matching Rank Domus 200 loudspeakers.
I was also very impressed with the design, which looked very sleek in silver, and the build quality, especially of the sub platter-bearing assembly and heavy, cast 12-inch platter. The 45 RPM wide-hole adaptor, which lived in the center of the sub platter around the spindle, was a really nice touch.
My records sounded even better when the FrankenShure was replaced with an Ortofon VMS 20E/II, and better still when the receiver and speakers were replaced with an A&R A60 and a pair of Celef Mini Professional loudspeakers. I recall spending many happy hours listening to music on that system during the long summer of 1979 while I was waiting for my O Level results.
In the Autumn of 1979, my dad and I hauled the Thorens in a taxi to Brady’s on Smithdown Road to compare it with the LP12. The LP12 was fitted with the S-shaped Rega R200 arm and an Ortofon VMS 20E/II body. For the demo, we switched the stylus between the turntables.
We also tried to replicate the system I had at home, but Brady’s didn’t have the Mini Professionals any more, so we used the next model up in the Celef range, the PE1.
We started with side 1 of Wish You Were Here on my Thorens. The PE1s were clearly an upgrade on my Mini Professionals and I was wondering if I should upgrade my speakers instead.
Then we played the same track on the LP12. I had read Paul Benson’s infamous review of the LP12 in HiFi Answers and so was aware that the LP12 was better because it retrieved more information from records than other turntables. Therefore, I was expecting to a hear a little extra low-level detail, maybe the tinkling of a cymbal or some such, that I hadn’t heard before.
I was not expecting the musicians to emerge from behind the speakers to occupy the space around, between, and even outside the speakers. Great though the Thorens was (similar level of performance to the excellent Rega Planar 3 that Brady’s used for my earlier amplifier and speaker demos), the LP12 was, to my ears, better than the Thorens by an amount that justified spending £294.00 on the LP12 without arm. Brady’s even gave me £95.00 trade-in for my Thorens/SME.
I kept that LP12 until Linn introduced the Lingo in 1990, when I replaced it with the LP12 I have today.
