klong@WILKINS.bcm.tmc.edu (Kevin Long) (08/06/90)
As I entered the audio dealer after traversing a ridiculously circuitious route having agreed to let my wife keep our final destination secret (it was my birthday), I began persuing the purchase of a Linn turntable. I'm glad to see they still have a place for the equipment on the shelf, for I rather had surmised that sales of turntables were quite slow, since on an earlier visit the dealer had alerted that they kept nothing of Linn's turntable line in stock any longer. I gravitated to the Linn LP-12 for the base, but I found myself having a bit more difficulty with the cartridge and tonearm, so I'd like to garner a few technical opinions, and some rules of thumb for the proper proportion of an investment one should make on each of these three components. * Linn upgrades their LP-12 Sondek table every so often, and when buying a used table, it's important to ensure that it's up to the current revision. The local dealer sells used equipment on behalf of their clients who've traded up, and they have one deck on consigment for $600 (new is $1300). The deck was new in 1985, is in like-new operating condition, and is up to the latest revision. Q: Is there any reason not to purchase a used Sondek versus a new one? * To accompany the table are two tonearms in the competition, ranging from the new EKOS, a $1300 arm using a spring-tension method of main- taining a constant weight on the LP (more detailed technical information has not arrived yet), to the $500 ITTOK III, which until the EKOS was Linn's top arm (right arm?). The dealer is ordering both for me to preview, but was unaware of any fundamental difference in technology between the two, except that the EKOS was manufactured with more stringent tolerances and standards, achievable through Linn's ever-more automated manufacturing process. Q: Can anyone offer something more substantial technically (or subjectively) that would inform me better to the added value of the EKOS? Q: Should I be investigating other makes of tonearms? * Finally, there is a range of cartridges, from the moving coil to moving magnet. The Troika is a moving-coil cartridge, with a recommended 1.7g tracking weight, 3 mounting holes (to provide a tripod to help eliminate any vertical movement in the cartridge body) each of which is raised 0.2 mm from the cartridge's top (to prevent any rattling coming from irregular contact between the headshell and cartridge). Also the leadout wire and signal contact coils are soldered together on a gold insert, removing one of the connection points from the signal path. It's nearly $1000. The Karma appears to employ a rather sophisticated magnet system (it is also a moving coil cartridge), requiring (or facilitating) a lengthy adjustment and modification process at the factory. Its cost is as I recall $400. Below that is the Asaka, a descendent of the Asak, Linn's first moving coil cartridge (employing the same magnet and coil system), but improved with a metal body and teh affixing of the cartridge magnet assembly to the body with an aluminum-based aircraft adhesive. Linn's strong suit is clearly in moving coil designs. Their moving magnet cartridges are less expensive, and less highly-touted by the manufacturer. All diamonds are pressed into their cantilevers, not glued. Q: Overload! I've gone down the marketing path of moving coil versus moving magnet before, but have let a decade pass without keeping up with the latest thinking. Would someone care to make a speech on the merits and dangers of each type? Q: What can people recommend about Linn's cartridges in general? I hope this isn't too much of an example of a walk down memory lane, but with my increasing investment in used LPs coupled with the disappearance of vinyl rereleases, I feel I need to solidify an investment before the turntables also disappear. Regards, Kevin --- Kevin Long Baylor College of Medicine klong@bcm.tmc.edu and KTRU-FM, Rice Univ.