As I revisit my record collection with a pre-loved Radikal Akurate, I do not mourn for one moment the trading of my Armageddon Classic. Whilst it served me well as a tremendous upgrade from a burned out Valhalla board, the Radikal with Karousel upgrade has taken the experience beyond what I thought was achievable. The whole system has come alive. No need to change anything else. Even the ancient regime of 32.5 and Keilidhs. Absolute game changer. Muse will of the people on the CDX2.2 sounds amazing, but OMG (oh my gods) the LP12 is positively beyond stratospheric, nigh on Bifrostian!
Moral of the story: power supplies are key. End of.
Didn’t Naim make the point a few decades ago?!
Let the halls of Asgaard shake with the sublimity of hash-free replay.
If I’m absolutely honest I may have preferred the rather coloured sound of my LP12 with an original Lingo/knackered Cirkus to the very thin sounding Akurate/Karousel LP12 I now have. Maybe it’s me the Krystal, Trampolin 2, I just don’t know.
I think there has been a retrofittable Radiksl upgrade for a while though.
Something must be amiss O’Malley! The sound is anything but thin. The bass is thunderous, the noise levels beneath the floor and the sound clean, natural, punchy, and full with a tremendously sweet upper end. Like the old FFS Decca recordings: Full Frequency Sound! Aros were condemned by some as not having rich, deep bass. Not any more. and then there’s just the sense of absolute timing like a great jazz ensemble, absolutely on the beat. Vega’s Solitude Standing is a completely new recording, and the playing on that is absolutely tight as a nut. The Karousel needs a good 10 days of constant revolution before it’s up to snuff, and the Radikal sounds better if left on and moved away from any toroidal transformers, although the impact there is simply to unmuddy the sound. Middle height Fraim legs now on order!
I’m going to have to revisit the LP12 which has been moved to a new room along with the rest of the system. It’s on an ancient Sound Organisation 3 tier stand which is probably far from ideal but it’s always been on that.
I’m just not sure that the overall sonic signature of the LP12 hasn’t moved away from what I originally enjoyed even if it was more coloured.
Possibly something amiss as you say, I’ve always been unsure of the Linn Linto phono stage which I bought decades ago and had serviced a few years ago.
Maybe I’m just falling out of love with vinyl, something I’d never have imagined, but not helped by the expense of new releases, and the physical storage requirements which only get bigger as years go by.
It may happen that the drive belt is incorrectly oriented. This influences the driving torque between the motor pulley and the counter plate; the grip ?
Also check the orientation of the deck felt ?
We may be straying somewhat from the question, but…
I had a Linto for some years, into Naim 72 or 82, and to me it was neither full and expressive nor clean and detailed, to the extent that no cartridge I tried could handle bass or fine detail as well as my CDS2. Linto to Superline was a big upgrade for the money, and I don’t think a Linto is comparable in quality to a Krystal or the rest of your TT or system generally.
FWIW, I was also very pleased with a Kore sub-chassis - but (like the original Cirkus bearing or getting my first Lingo IIRC) was to me a lot better but even more obviously very different - more detailed, more neutral, less warm &c.
I’d certainly suggest trying better phono stages, as well as checking the belt is the right way round and not knackered. Also, I assume that the LP12 was serviced when the Radikal etc. went in, but how about your Olive gear?
Finally I had the Sound Org. tripod stand and still have one in the attic somewhere - it was fine with RP3 on top and Creek amp below and ok with a cheap Marantz CD player plus RP3/ 72/Hicap/ 140. However, it wasn’t really ‘light but rigid’ with all that on it, and (whether as a result or otherwise) was so bad when I got an LP12 that I got a wall shelf and a smaller rack - and suddenly realised that the old stand had been ringing at higher volumes for the previous decade. You may well be able to do better than that stand for very little cost.
From memory the Linto was Linn’s best phono stage at the time of release when I had an Arkiv on the Ekos 1. I’ve never been entirely convinced by its presentation but the LP12 has sounded better to be honest.
It’s old but like the olive gear was serviced at Class A a few years ago.
Demoing phono stages is not as straightforward as in years gone by sadly. I’m going to try the LP12 on a cheap Ikea table but it’s rather low and will kill my back!
Another possible culprit is an Achromat mat, unfortunately after several months I used the supplied adhesive stickers to attach it to the outer platter which I regret doing as I can no longer A/B with the Linn mat.
It’s also several mm thicker and the LP12 was serviced and Krystal set up with this thicker mat attached.
Strongly suspect I’ll break the Achromat trying to remove it, but worse, due to the thickness the arm height will be a few mm higher than ideal though perhaps the lesser of 2 evils?
I went through several mats after the Achro - the standard Linn, various leather, cork and other materials (still have them all up in the loft).
Couldnt make up my mind on many of them. Pluses, minuses.
The Collaro just brought a sense of space, definition, ease and swing to the whole thing that I never swapped it out once on.
