Show us your Sondek

You mean these…??

That was ‘standard’, back then… Only choice, IIRC, was the wood - Afromosia, Walnut or Painted Black. I could be wrong… :thinking:

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Beautiful.
I’m going to get my old fluted afro (1983) out and gaze awhile. It’s not quite as nice condition as yours, but that’s a project for the future.

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I have ‘enhanced’ this picture, to try to show the wood better. And I did apply a little Lemon Oil, a few days ago…

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I must try this lemon oil.
My lacquer/coating/varnish (?) has worn a little on the front top, so I’m thinking of sanding it down.
Yours looks spectacular though!

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I hesitate to ‘recommend’ Lemon Oil… It was what I had to hand, for use on Guitar Fretboards. I only applied a little…

I am not sure there is any coating on the wood - which is not dissimilar to Teak - which would normally be oiled, so… Teak Oil maybe…?

Perhaps an LP12 Expert may come along, and tell us what should be used… :thinking:

Teak oil stinks!
Just try a nice soft bees wax.

Teak oil contains a lot of solvent, which is needed to get the oil to penetrate tropical hardwoods like teak because their high natural oil content makes it hard to absorb the oil you are applying. Once that solvent has evaporated, there should be no smell at all.

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Glad to see yet another LP12 user with exquisite taste on this forum. Until recent days I had thought I was the only one but a few have popped up since then.

I am of course referring to the classy smoked lid as opposed to the cheap looking see-through one used by the majority here. Pure exhibitionists, the lot of you…

OK, only teasing, but I have never had the slightest urge to change to change to the more modern lid. I never found why Linn changed it & can only presume that either Linn thought customers wanted their expensive arms & cartridges on permanent show or that the customers actually requested this change themselves to show off their arms & cartridges.

Does anyone actually know?

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I bought a used smokey lid for mine when I bought mine in 1989. I didn’t want my parents to realise that I had spent a lot of money on a new TT. I hoped that they would still think it was my Rega 3. I failed. I then swapped to the clear.

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Ermm… As I said, mine is standard, circa 1981… No taste was involved…!!

They were all like this, back then… :slight_smile:

My old smoky is in a box in the loft. I’ll dig it out and see how well I looked after it in the 80s! Bit of Displex, it may come up lovely!

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They had a vision that in ~40 years time someone would put a red felt mat on the platter, which would look better through a clear lid, perhaps?

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Spirit of time back than.

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Just found the sales leaflet and the original instruction manual to go with my 1973 Sondek including some SME bumf too. So for anyone who is interested . . . .

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On the back page of the 1973 leaflet, it reads - “Various plinth finishes are available including walnut, rosewood and matt black” I wonder what the other variations were ?

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Around 1981, I am pretty sure the options were Teak/Afromosia, Walnut or painted black. Cannot imagine Linn Products offering more options.

That is what I thought too. Maybe at the beginning of the Sondek production in the 70’s they were keeping their options open?

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Thanks so much for this, elsewhere, a comment about Technics turntables and how a Linn would not be used by a DJ. I know it was in the beginning possible to buy the LP12 as chassis only and was sure that the felt mat was an option for cueing purposes. Then I doubted myself. Item 11 under Installation Procedure confirms my memory.

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Pleased you enjoyed the post. So, out of pure curiosity I will try this method of tag cuing tomorrow and report back. It will be a bit trial and error for me :slight_smile: