My experience is that good set up is key but frequent re-setting is not required if it is set up right in the first place.
4 Likes
Its not a myth, but you are welcome to this opinion. Most of it is common sense actually but I felt it needed setting out properly for owners to use/understand if they wish. All the info is available free as a download from the Cym website and it has been reproduced in many other places on social media for the benefit of all. It should benefit all the other good retailers who have a reputation for setting up LP12s as well. Their clients know who they are in the main, and it follows that these are the same guys who do a great job on setting up complete systems… Naim or Linn or whatever.
21 Likes
Exactly and David at SO is one if the guys I referred to in my last post - Credit where credit is due. 
7 Likes
I’m assuming you haven’t heard what setup does to an LP12. It can go anywhere from uninspiring to great on that alone even in pretty humble specs. I say this as someone that can do my own pretty well (though I still prefer to have Peter work on my main deck).
Also, that was a pretty rude post, IMO.
22 Likes
Not a myth, my LP12 set up by Peter, never needed any tweaking or fettling. Once set up correctly, it stays like that, even after the two hour car journey to home.
Put it on the wall shelf, remove a bit of packaging, refit the counter weight and back into the music.
Easy peasy.
DG…
10 Likes
With my moves for work, I’ve had Cymbiosis LP12s stay setup correctly after being checked as luggage with airlines, shipped in containers across the Atlantic and from South to North America, during house moves in the US, or, in the simplest case, carried on the train back from Leicester to London in the old days.
10 Likes
That’ll be the wrong assumption as I have extensive experience across many years on building LP12s from the ground up, the two I currently own started with just a plinth. It is actually quite difficult to mess up an LP12, the thing is so well designed that it just sounds good. Something would need to be way off to affect SQ in any meaningful way. If it was that critical, as in relying on precision and extensive knowledge, Linn would have never been able to rely on dealers to do setups, as they have little control over what they do.
1 Like
This is why they have specialist Linn training at the factory for dealers that wish to have that extra label of being an LP12 dealer they don’t all have LP12 decks automatically as a Linn dealer.
1 Like
Notice that I said “uninspiring”, not bad. Whenever I’ve heard an LP12 sounding off (vs. the better ones) I found something in the setup to correct. Unfortunately this includes setups from reputable Linn specialists.
That said, I’m sure they were still better than what many other customers have heard. I don’t think it needs perfect setup to see off some of the competition, but to get to as good as it gets, then yes.
1 Like
I’m aware, but you don’t come back with any deep, extensive knowledge from that training, in essence not too different from what’s on the Cymbiois guide. The point is there is no requirement of any specialized facilities, precision equipment or high level knowledge to correctly setup an LP12, most of it is common sense as Mr Peter himself remarked above.
1 Like
??? Cheap spring suspension, wood plinth. Look at the Kronos Sparta for similar price. It’s ridiculously on another level of building.
2 Likes
That picture is so outdated, this is the correct, optimal way of installing the springs:
Suspend it on silicone bushings instead for the ultimate performance.
1 Like
Along with a few special tools but much like any tradesman some are much better than others. 
3 Likes
True, but unless they fall from the heavens I don’t trust them with my LP12s.
As I understand it, you prefer the mushrooms to springs, which certainly seems consistent with your view that setting up your LP12s correctly is not rocket science.
On the other hand, some of us have springs. I have heard an improvement (after a fair amount of moving it around in cars and about a decade) from a service. Even with the excellent guidance that Peter Swain offers for free to anyone who looks at his website, it is not a job I trust myself to do as well as a good specialist.
You are probably just more capable and confident about that sort of job than I am, and perhaps than some others here. Your LP12s are now also simpler, and I think you are in Texas, so a DIY approach for you makes a lot of sense.
While @frenchrooster has a fundamental disagreement with what seems to pass for a consensus here (and has thus sensibly got a different turntable), I don’t think you disagree with the consensus here on much apart from the service complexity/ simplicity aspects. If I have got that wrong, my apologies, but could you explain again?
5 Likes
I might be the OP but I’m staying out of the squabbling. I will report to anyone interested that I’ve moved some funds around so that I can go straight to krad2 which I was very impressed with .
20 Likes
That’s the right move IMO @Cohen1263 . It would be another of those ‘nagging in the back of the mind’ things otherwise. Save time, go to the heart of the matter and enjoy for longer!
5 Likes
Top man! Yes I was always going to do it. I’m just delaying the kudos crossover a couple of months as a consequence.
7 Likes
I am just wondering why Lp12 costs so much, because the plinth is simple, just wood and springs , added later by a metal layer ( keel).
But maybe I do know anything about the real design and the parts involved.
Don’t want to troll here, even if it looks like as it.
I feel myself now the same as those who post in the audiophile switches thread, without having tested at home, and banging about the inflated prices asked for them.
I have to hide now.
:arrow_up_down:
9 Likes