Not loving this, to be honest. The minimal cosmetic changes look twee to me and the interface between the armboard and the top plate is terrible with the mix of right angles and iCurves ™ . This looks like a render done by an intern at Apple.
getting Ive involved is great from a marketing perspective and they could have gone for an epic anodised unibody aluminium plinth/top plate combo to match the Krad, and embedded the armboard into it to maintain the radius effect and as a nod to Ive’s more iconic designs.
I also think at this price a hand built custom arm that is a step up from the SE, or at least a cosmetic upgrade… Call it an iKOS.
I own two LP12s, one has the Cirkus and the other one Karousel. Several other components are different, so impossible to compare bearings alone, but I can say they both sound really good, different presentations mainly. I’m not doubting there is SQ to gain by going Karousel, but according to my experience there’s no need to rush.
If Linn make the Bedrok plinth available as an upgrade, they should make the plinth corners square so that all current keels and kores are fully compatable. Leave the round stuff for the 50.
Seems like there are a number of folk in the high end audio industry who believe that if they build it, price it high, they will come. Linn’s new 50th LP12 strikes me as a perfect example of this thinking.
Hopefully, at some point, they will build it…and they will NOT come!!
Personally, i can see zero reason to pay big $$ for this table when there are numerous other competitors available at the same price point that will easily better the SQ of this table…
Last time Linn released their 40thAnniversary LP12 model ( at I believe $40K), I remember several folk who lost their shirts when they came to sell this model into the secondary market! I suspect exactly the same will happen here.
I must admit I have some sympathy for the views expressed earlier here that hi-fi is becoming a little too much like other luxury goods like designer handbags, watches and cars where the emphasis seems to be heavily on ultra expensive low volume ‘specials’.
Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when I was reading Audiophile and Hi-Fi Review the most expensive gear featured was out of my reach, but it was certainly attainable in the longer term. I might have been running a Systemdek IIX/Linn LVX into Naim Nait 1 but I reasonably believed an LP12 and NAC32.5/NAP250 could be in my future. This made reading the magazines featuring such products very rewarding to read. They were sort of whetting my appetite for what was to come. I just don’t think the same is true nowadays. Anybody picking up a modern day audio mag will be confronted by this LP12 at £50 000 and many other even more exotic designs.
In short I think that some manufacturers have learned that there’s more money in building exotica than the bread and butter designs that most people buy, and that’s a shame in my view. In this respect Naim are to be applauded for bringing back an anniversary product that is iconic and affordable for many. In light of its enormous success I hope that the boardroom at Naim is busy discussing an all new shoebox separates range with CD player and streamer built around the Nait 1…
Oh and I hope they’ve all got chrome bumpers lol!! As for Linn personally I’d love to have seen them launch an LP12, Ittok, Troica reissue at a sensible price - lets say £10k-£15k ish.
Up until seeing this, the main issue i have with the LP12 are the setup issues. I know what a professionally setup deck sounds like after all the issues i had when getting an Ekos2 plus Akiva. If i was guaranteed such a service and setup i may even go out a buy a karousel, kore and kandid tomorrow, but that is not necessarily given.
Maybe the answer in the end is to trade it in and get back to something more modern and simpler like a rega planar rp10 with recommended arm, cartridge and phonostage?
We shall see i suppose. I would like to keep vinyl replay because i have still loads of vinyl and a new room to finally store it all is finally on the way
The Systemdek IIX was a brilliant deck for the money, but of course, built to a (low) price. However, the original Systemdek (and its Systemdek III evolution) were very well built indeed, and so quite costly. Systemdek used an oil pump type bearing which was very effective. Their biggest problem was the nextel finish used for the plinth, which does not age well. Whether you like them or not, the Systemdek III introduced one of the best designs of record clamp, being very light yet extremely strong and simple to attach and remove. It went on to be used on what was probably their best overall deck design which was the Systemdek IIS, which used the cake tin design of the Systemdek II but with a Beefed up sub-chassis and heavy dished platter from the III.
The Rega is for sure a great option but I prefer the GyroDec at similar cost. It’s a thoroughly stable and easy to optimise design and unlike the Linn it doesn’t require the services of a guru to get it singing. Also all suspension adjustment is done from above without needing to take anything apart. It’s very much a form follows function device - an engineers table, but frankly it’s a ridiculous bargain by high end standards. With a top flight arm and cartridge it’s capable of performing right up there with some truly exotic turntables and in many cases showing them a clean pair of heels.
I’ve run a Gyro since 1999 and it’s an astonishingly high end performer that has needed nothing other than a belt change every 10 years. I decided to change the bearing oil a couple of years back twenty years or so into its service life, not because it needed it, but because I upgraded the record clamp and spindle to the Orbe variant.
There’s a lot of very well thought out engineering in that deck from the oil recirculating bearing to the way that the arm mounting plates are machined to account for the weight of whatever arm you are fitting. This ensures that the subchassis is always statically and dynamically balanced no matter what arm is fitted. Then you’ve got the fact it decouples the motor unit from the turntable plinth and chassis totally - their only connection is via the belt. The platter too has been cut from acrylic because when clamped to the record it shares a very similar acoustic impedance. This couples the record to the platter enabling vibration caused by the record tracking the groove to be dissipated back into the platter and suspension system rather than feeding back to the arm.
It’s only weakness in my view is that it’s rather susceptible to footfall on sprung wooden floors (whereas something like an SME or even Rega is not). I think this has a lot to do with the fact the springs are not terribly stiff. I deal with it by tiptoing past when it’s in use, others wall mount them and I’m curious to see if the forthcoming magnetic feet reduce the issue.
So far it’s the best turntable I have ever heard apart from an Orbe or an SME. Strangely enough it’s the deck SME used when developing their Series IV and V tonearms and the upgrade from RB600 to SME IV provided a startling improvement on mine.
Anyway there’s a lot of wonderful turntables out there should you wish to change, I’m merely batting another option to you!
I think that having replaced my original c.37 year old bearing, my Cirkus can be run for a bit yet.
I did hesitate for quite a while, because of the cost of the Cirkus (£400+ and there was no trade in offered) - and because I would be throwing away part of ‘my’ LP12.
The cost of the Karousel being nearly double that, makes my choice easy. No
I do admire Clearaudio’s form following function aesthetic of the deck itself, but that tonearm looks like a harbour shipping container loading rig!
At the recent UK North West Audio Show the UK importer demonstrated a Clearaudio Master Innovation turntable in silver and the lighter panzerholz, coupled with the top of the line DS Audio optical Grand Master cartridge and a traditional arm (not sure on which one, as per the photo below). The sound was simply breathtaking, in fact one of the best sounding rooms at the show.
Totally agree re: Systemdek Richard. The IIX was my first turntable but I always admired the II and III although I never owned either. It’s a pity the firm didn’t continue long enough to enjoy the resurgence of vinyl. I have no idea what happened to them really - they just seemed to disappear sometime in the 90’s I think.
My kittens would soon destroy the cartridge at the very least on this whereas the LP12 50th would survive in much the same way my 79 vintage does. And in my opinion, the Linn looks lovely in comparison to this.
I agree, a friend had a Michel Gyrodec which he upgraded to an ORB spec, with an SME arm and koetzu urushi blue cartridge. The phonostage I don’t remember and there were some upgrades to the motor or even a different ones.
I heard this in a 500 system and yes it was very good.
So yes a very good suggestion and advice. I also like the “accessibility” of this deck. I may relegate the LP12 to my second system, which is where it started and change the very aging Akiva to a decent MM cartridge and add some BNCs so I can connect it to the N boards of the recently serviced NAC 42.
Thanks for the suggestions
The only thing I seen to remember is that Michel are not really setup to service customers outside the UK, but could be wrong about that
Fancy getting your hands on one of the forty turntables? You will need to be quick (probably) and also need £25,000… Contact your local Linn specialist retailer should you be ready to splash the cash.
If I remember correctly a Klimax Deck was around £18K at the time.
