1) Is it the most tuneful turntable I've ever heard? Yes. And I appreciate it for that reason, though as one person once said, no turntable is perfect and therefore you can never have too many turntables. This "tunefulness" is not entirely a matter of superior speed constancy, I believe, but part of kind of pleasant coloration not entirely involving rotational speed but also high and lowpass filtering and/or combination with resonances. The speed, for it's part, varies as much or more than other premium turntables, but it varies in a peculiarly slow and pleasant way that sounds natural and relaxed. I'm thinking it might vary around the same speed as the effects of off center wow, possibly sometimes cancelling the off center wow, and otherwise being masked by it. Other turntables may vary speed in a more abrupt, forced, and mechanical sounding way. Of course I'm talking about tiny variations that are not easy to hear, especially in the case of the Linn.
2) My LP12 Vallhalla with Ittok LVII (does LVII mean 57 ? like Heinz ketchup ???) arm, seems to have a slightly over-brightish quality. I think the largest part of this may come from the quite noticeable metallic resonances of the stainless steel tonearm (with the funny name not coincidentally made to sound like "I Talk" ???). Those resonances could be damped, and otherwise I think the excellent pitch and bass produced by the arm indicates that it has marvelously tight bearings, which is one of the hardest parts to get right in making a tonearm. So this is a good tonearm which could be made even better, I believe, by getting past the designer's religious convictions against damping.
3) My belief remains in harmony with a majority of high end audiophiles that in principle records should be clamped (or otherwise held close to) a highly absorptive mat. The Linn felt mat is only partly absorbtive--but it may or may not be part of some mysterious "synergy" with the rest of the turntable. Clamping on the Linn is made difficult and less useful by many factors : the loose suspension, which quickly bottoms rubbing the aluminum platter on the stainless plinth top when trying to apply the clamp; the low spindle, requiring round-the-platter checking for level balance if the clamp--like the Michell clamp--has no level and doesn't deal well with low spindles...I suspect most if not all clamps would have a problem with it, and clamping it might not do entirely the right things here with the thin felt mat and undamped platter, reducing much of the felts isolation properties between the platter which is ringing from many things, including the bearing and the vinyl, and the record.
At minimum, clamping should be done with a different kind of mat, or combination of mats. And it's too much trouble on the Linn except for the most critical listening or transcription. It is nice how tuneful the turntable sounds without taking such bothersome measures. It could be regarded as a kind of "convenience" turntable, much the way audiophiles thought of CD's when they were introduced.
Update: With NO metal washer, and a 180g pressing of Blood on the Tracks, the clamped version was clearly better. I did the claming in one careful press, not needing to verify the flatness until afterwards, by releasing and spinning, which was much more convenient than the previos pressing down at each slight rotation. Both ways it was flat around the edge, in fact the claming didn't seem to have much direct isolation at that point, but much more isolation through the rest of the record. (A Merrill-Williams type perimeter clamp...Merrill's innovation since the 70's...would be ideal but impossible on most tables, except those designed for clamping or vacuum...I'm now thinking perimeter plus central weights as Merrill does may be better than vacuum--quieter.)
Unclamped it was harsh and edgy, clamped it was cool but highly transient. Clamping was the clear winner in realism, pleasantness, spaciousness, musical interaction.
Unclamped was that old "tuneful" simplification, as Arthur Salvatore says. He doesn't say it comes from clamplessness but I'm thinking the clamplessness, even with old Linn mat being used with the clamp, must account for 80% of the familiar tuneful (de-complexifiying) coloration goes away.
Now at least one would think it wouldn't have much impact on timing. Though, BTW, the Linn and most belt drives are host to a myriad time issues. For the Linn, setting the speed is a final setup step. It stays as good or bad as that...at least under indentical conditions and the belt hasn't passed some aging threshold. But if that were not done, it would be hopeless, as the timing depends on the precise angle of the chassis and subchassis, which in turn is determined by the mass on the platter and armboard, for starters. But then in actual use...all these things are still somewhat varying.
It seems to me the LP12, just becuase of the suspended belt and pully and subchassis design, is doomed to a sort of slow varying imprecision. It's only "tuneful" however because it's so slow as to not actually be objectional, just slightly making everything different each time. Other systems like ider and direct drive are more "locked in" by high torque control systems, belt drive is constantly resonating the drive frequency of the platter at the fundamental frequency of the belt system, and possibly others. Imperfect perhaps, but the choice of so many phonograph users for so long...it can't be that bad...and may have some advantages. Which is why I want one, and choice units of other kinds.
4) Now I'm thinking, much as I have before, that a vacuum hold down system is the best of all, and it can be had, though at higher prices than I paid for the Linn, but that's an unfair comparison because I did not buy the Linn Valhalla with Ittok brand new either. On similar terms, the Linn and Sota turntables with vacuum are priced fairly competitively in the USA. On these terms the highest end Sota Millenium is far less expensive the most fully loaded Linn Radikal ($10k vs $20k), with similar differences down the line. This matters if you consider them comparable, which you may not. I'd last heard of Sota in the 1980's and was thinking they were long out of business but no, they are still selling and servicing servicing older turntables too. That's a path I'm still somewhat interested in, as other vacuum clamping turntables are much more expensive.
I might try to trade my SP 10 for a Sota, but the ultimate ultmate would be a fully refurbed SP10 with vacuum holddown added.
4) Anyway, the special characteristic the Linn imparts as a result of drive operation, foremost is non-correlation, where no radial part of the platter has a tendency to raise or lower pitch even slighlty. The pitch may be wavering, for sure there is wow and flutter just as in other premium turntables, but it is non-corrlated. Direct drives have wow correlated with platter position, as shown by graphs published by a Linn lover (who conveniently didn't disclose the scales on the platter rotation dependent wow, making you think if the scales were equal, the better direct drives might be so low anyway the platter dependency shown was a small issue).
As well the Linn has olympian isolation from the environment, mostly.
Direct drives are somewhere in-between, with finer grained platter rotation dependency mostly.
Does this matter? I am beginning to think the rotational constancy IS the most important factor, and it's not perfect in any turntable, the Linn just hides the imperfection better than most.
With regards to the initial transients, it all comes down to effective platter inertia. It's follow through that is determined by the drive system. The belt drive takes it's time to correct, ultimately averaging out. The idler whell corrects immediately and perhaps too abruptly. Direct drives may vary with implementation, but in principle can respond faster than belt drive, but perhaps not as fast as idler wheels.
So, if there is a superiority of idler wheels in the attacks of music, it's all in the follow through, in microscopic terms, though you might not hear it this way, the "follow through" begins microseconds after the initial transient, for which the platter inertia is everything, and the failure to correct begins appearing within the minimum audible time interval.
2) My LP12 Vallhalla with Ittok LVII (does LVII mean 57 ? like Heinz ketchup ???) arm, seems to have a slightly over-brightish quality. I think the largest part of this may come from the quite noticeable metallic resonances of the stainless steel tonearm (with the funny name not coincidentally made to sound like "I Talk" ???). Those resonances could be damped, and otherwise I think the excellent pitch and bass produced by the arm indicates that it has marvelously tight bearings, which is one of the hardest parts to get right in making a tonearm. So this is a good tonearm which could be made even better, I believe, by getting past the designer's religious convictions against damping.
3) My belief remains in harmony with a majority of high end audiophiles that in principle records should be clamped (or otherwise held close to) a highly absorptive mat. The Linn felt mat is only partly absorbtive--but it may or may not be part of some mysterious "synergy" with the rest of the turntable. Clamping on the Linn is made difficult and less useful by many factors : the loose suspension, which quickly bottoms rubbing the aluminum platter on the stainless plinth top when trying to apply the clamp; the low spindle, requiring round-the-platter checking for level balance if the clamp--like the Michell clamp--has no level and doesn't deal well with low spindles...I suspect most if not all clamps would have a problem with it, and clamping it might not do entirely the right things here with the thin felt mat and undamped platter, reducing much of the felts isolation properties between the platter which is ringing from many things, including the bearing and the vinyl, and the record.
At minimum, clamping should be done with a different kind of mat, or combination of mats. And it's too much trouble on the Linn except for the most critical listening or transcription. It is nice how tuneful the turntable sounds without taking such bothersome measures. It could be regarded as a kind of "convenience" turntable, much the way audiophiles thought of CD's when they were introduced.
Update: With NO metal washer, and a 180g pressing of Blood on the Tracks, the clamped version was clearly better. I did the claming in one careful press, not needing to verify the flatness until afterwards, by releasing and spinning, which was much more convenient than the previos pressing down at each slight rotation. Both ways it was flat around the edge, in fact the claming didn't seem to have much direct isolation at that point, but much more isolation through the rest of the record. (A Merrill-Williams type perimeter clamp...Merrill's innovation since the 70's...would be ideal but impossible on most tables, except those designed for clamping or vacuum...I'm now thinking perimeter plus central weights as Merrill does may be better than vacuum--quieter.)
Unclamped it was harsh and edgy, clamped it was cool but highly transient. Clamping was the clear winner in realism, pleasantness, spaciousness, musical interaction.
Unclamped was that old "tuneful" simplification, as Arthur Salvatore says. He doesn't say it comes from clamplessness but I'm thinking the clamplessness, even with old Linn mat being used with the clamp, must account for 80% of the familiar tuneful (de-complexifiying) coloration goes away.
Now at least one would think it wouldn't have much impact on timing. Though, BTW, the Linn and most belt drives are host to a myriad time issues. For the Linn, setting the speed is a final setup step. It stays as good or bad as that...at least under indentical conditions and the belt hasn't passed some aging threshold. But if that were not done, it would be hopeless, as the timing depends on the precise angle of the chassis and subchassis, which in turn is determined by the mass on the platter and armboard, for starters. But then in actual use...all these things are still somewhat varying.
It seems to me the LP12, just becuase of the suspended belt and pully and subchassis design, is doomed to a sort of slow varying imprecision. It's only "tuneful" however because it's so slow as to not actually be objectional, just slightly making everything different each time. Other systems like ider and direct drive are more "locked in" by high torque control systems, belt drive is constantly resonating the drive frequency of the platter at the fundamental frequency of the belt system, and possibly others. Imperfect perhaps, but the choice of so many phonograph users for so long...it can't be that bad...and may have some advantages. Which is why I want one, and choice units of other kinds.
4) Now I'm thinking, much as I have before, that a vacuum hold down system is the best of all, and it can be had, though at higher prices than I paid for the Linn, but that's an unfair comparison because I did not buy the Linn Valhalla with Ittok brand new either. On similar terms, the Linn and Sota turntables with vacuum are priced fairly competitively in the USA. On these terms the highest end Sota Millenium is far less expensive the most fully loaded Linn Radikal ($10k vs $20k), with similar differences down the line. This matters if you consider them comparable, which you may not. I'd last heard of Sota in the 1980's and was thinking they were long out of business but no, they are still selling and servicing servicing older turntables too. That's a path I'm still somewhat interested in, as other vacuum clamping turntables are much more expensive.
I might try to trade my SP 10 for a Sota, but the ultimate ultmate would be a fully refurbed SP10 with vacuum holddown added.
4) Anyway, the special characteristic the Linn imparts as a result of drive operation, foremost is non-correlation, where no radial part of the platter has a tendency to raise or lower pitch even slighlty. The pitch may be wavering, for sure there is wow and flutter just as in other premium turntables, but it is non-corrlated. Direct drives have wow correlated with platter position, as shown by graphs published by a Linn lover (who conveniently didn't disclose the scales on the platter rotation dependent wow, making you think if the scales were equal, the better direct drives might be so low anyway the platter dependency shown was a small issue).
As well the Linn has olympian isolation from the environment, mostly.
Direct drives are somewhere in-between, with finer grained platter rotation dependency mostly.
Does this matter? I am beginning to think the rotational constancy IS the most important factor, and it's not perfect in any turntable, the Linn just hides the imperfection better than most.
With regards to the initial transients, it all comes down to effective platter inertia. It's follow through that is determined by the drive system. The belt drive takes it's time to correct, ultimately averaging out. The idler whell corrects immediately and perhaps too abruptly. Direct drives may vary with implementation, but in principle can respond faster than belt drive, but perhaps not as fast as idler wheels.
So, if there is a superiority of idler wheels in the attacks of music, it's all in the follow through, in microscopic terms, though you might not hear it this way, the "follow through" begins microseconds after the initial transient, for which the platter inertia is everything, and the failure to correct begins appearing within the minimum audible time interval.
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