LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

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anachronid
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LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by anachronid »

There is now a bewildering variety of third-party alternatives to the standard LP12 wooden plinth and stainless steel top-plate.

For the plinth there are different materials (types of wood, or alternatives to wood such as bamboo or aluminium), and different methods of construction (‘picture frame’ joined, or machined from solid, or bolted together).

Or you can replace just the top-plate (either instead of or in addition to the plinth), or the plinth and top-plate together in one-piece designs such as Tangerine Audio Stiletto.

There’s little doubt that such modifications result in a different sound, but is it better in Tune Dem terms?

I’m interested in the experience of anyone who has heard, or bought, such products.
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by ThomasOK »

I have had the opportunity to audition a few of the mentioned alternatives in controlled comparisons. In all cases they were played for other people who work in the Hi-Fi store I work full time at (Overture Audio in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) and for any interested customers in the time I had them. There has been full agreement by all who listened as to which were the more tuneful and musical pieces.

I did not care for the Khan nor the Karmen top plates. They gave an artificially detailed sound to the music while compressing the music, damaging the flow and not allowing you to hear as far into the mix. With the Khan I also found emphasized surface noise. The Karmen was better than the Khan but that just means it was less bad compared to the stock stainless steel top plate. I have not heard the aluminum plinth/top plate combos, but considering my findings on top plates and plinths (more below), and the fact that Linn built a prototype for such a thing a decade or so ago and didn't feel it was worth bringing to market, I don't honestly have a lot of interest in them. But I would certainly evaluate one if the possibility presented itself.

Plinths are a different story and are actually the only third party piece for the turntable I felt made an improvement in the tune (I don't include cartridges or arms in this). But this is also an area fraught with complication. I have had a Booplinth here and did not find it to be a musical improvement. It wasn't bad but was less tuneful than a stock Linn plinth. The other plinths I have evaluated are all solid hardwood plinths built by Chris Harban of Woodsong Audio or supplied by Linn. I have found in general that the Woodsong Audio plinths are musically superior to most stock Linn plinths, especially current Linn plinth woods. Indeed the best sounding plinths I have heard have all been made by Chris, but there are defintiely differences in musical perfromance of different woods, and also there are differences even between plinths of the same species of wood. Although I have found that you can generally expect a certain level of performance form a specific wood made by the same craftsperson, there can be some exceptions. After all, wood is not a precision material with completely consistent characteristics so there is always going to be some variation.

In my experience the Woodsong movingui plinths have been the most musical with cocobolo a close second and curly maple and wenge not far behind. I believe that Macassar ebony is probably up with cocobolo and movingui but I was not able to do a direct comparison. An original Linn Rosewood plinth with large corner braces, refinished using the same wiping varnish Woodsong uses would also be somewhere in the top group - I believe better than wenge or maple but not quite up to movingui. Other plinth woods from Linn would generally be below those mentioned above. I have sold a fair number of movingui and cocobolo plinths as well as a few curly maple and wenge and a few others that are still good but rate a bit behind the top ones. All the purchasers have been quite happy with the improvement to the tune and musical quality the plinth brought to their LP12, not to mention the quite stunning looks of most Woodsong plinths.

I spent a lot of time evaluating a number of plinths and trying to find something that correlated to musical perfromance: weight, density, hardness, even measured resonance characteristics, but none of them helped. In the end the only reliable way to know a top range musical plinth is the musical quality of the tone it makes when it is tapped. The problem here is that you need to have tapped a bunch of them and heard the variations to get a good idea of what works (this is why I am pretty sure about where the Macassar ebony would fit as it had a beautiful tap tone). In general what you want to hear is a tone that is musical with a good range of tone and a little ring but not too much. A lot of ring translates into a forward upper midrange that sounds artificially more detailed but can be a little fatiguing, a tone with weak bass will sound that way in the system (black limba), a tone that rolls off a bit in the highs sounds like a subtle high filter in the system (wenge) and a dead or hashy tone is not good at all. You can find a great deal more about this in the topic I created about the sound of LP12 plinths here: https://www.lejonklou.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=294

The biggest problems are getting a Woodsong plinth as he is way behind in supplying them, and also there is the occasional outlier. An example: I have a customer who paid me to drive to Virginia and do complete strip downs and setups on a couple of LP12s for him. (I ended up setting up a fair bit more after he heard the improvement the precision torques made to his Radikal PS unit. He also ended up buying a set of Sagatun Monos after hearing what they did to his Klimax Kontrol!) He had three plinths we needed to check out to decide what to put on his primary and secondary LP12s. Two were from Woodsong Audio, a movingui and one I hadn't heard of before, a catalox. He had tried the catalox himself and didn't like it, finding it hard and bright. I asked if he had done a tap tone test. He had and reported it sounded like a bar of steel! Not good. I did some checking and found it was a quite hard wood that could be used as a substitute for ebony. His third plinth was a fine-tuned Linn afromosia. When I went out there I tap tested all three. Catalox was as described, rather hard sounding. The movingui was good but not as good as most movngui I had tested and the afromosia, which I had generally not been happy with previously, was the best of the three. However, this customer worked with highly skilled woodworkers and he had one very precisely true up the afromosia plinth and refinish it. I believe this is why it performed so well. So the afromosia went onto his best LP12, the movingui on the other and the catalox went way somewhere.

Hopefully this gives you something to go on as a start.
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by anachronid »

Thanks Thomas OK for this information, and for the link to the earlier discussion.

As you imply, what is new is the availability of integrated plinth/top-plates machined from solid billets of aluminium. (It would be interesting to know the part played by cost in Linn's decision not to develop their prototype - assuming truth of such rumours).

While it's easy to see how increased rigidity and the absence of joins might aid information retrieval, intuition suggests that metal cannot be as musical as wood.

I guess there's only one way to find out ...
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by David Neel »

Over a period of more than ten years, I've heard a number of 3rd party LP12 "upgrades", including Funk Firm, Inspire Vivid, Tiger Paw. To begin with I was looking for alternatives to buying a Keel (I bought the Keel) then later on to enhance my (by then) maxxed-out deck. In all cases bar one, the result to my ears has been a loss of musicality compared to the standard LP12. In particular I agree with ThomasOK about the effects of an aluminium top-plate. In a quick A/B they will sound impressive, until you clock the side effects and realise what is being lost.

And the one where I got an improvement in tunedem/musical understanding? That's the Booplinth. Here I disagree with ThomasOK, as for me the significant reduction in noise floor leads to musical nuance being easier to understand and follow, and gives a more natural perspective, i.e. nothing is artificially highlighted. I'll admit to being surprised, and heard the comparison several times before placing the order - but couldn't find any downsides.
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by anachronid »

David Neel wrote: 2018-11-16 15:35 In all cases bar one, the result to my ears has been a loss of musicality compared to the standard LP12.

And the one where I got an improvement in tunedem/musical understanding? That's the Booplinth.
Have you heard Tiger Paw Stratos, or Tangerine Audio Stiletto/Skorpion? These integrated plinth/top plate designs seem to have been quite well received, even by some who did not like the Khan/Karmen.
Like Booplinth they are machined from solid rather than joined.

Are you using the standard stainless steel top plate with the Booplinth?
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by David Neel »

anachronid wrote: 2018-11-16 17:35 Have you heard Tiger Paw Stratos, or Tangerine Audio Stiletto/Skorpion?

Are you using the standard stainless steel top plate with the Booplinth?
No, and yes, respectively. The LP12 is Radikal/Keel/Cirkus (new)/Ekos SE/Kandid/Urika 1. The top-plate is the only original 1983 part.
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by ThomasOK »

The Linn one piece aluminum top plate/plinth is a little more than rumored. Here is a photo that used to reside on the 4c Design website where they talked about helping Linn prototype products for the Special Edition LP12. It looks like Linn had them take the original post down and now talks about their help in developing the Keel.

Image

I was told by our Linn rep that Linn were developing a Klimax LP12 that would use a one piece aluminum top plate/plinth some time before the SE upgrades came out. When the Keel, Ekos SE and Trampolin 2 were announced, but no plinth, I asked him about it. He said that Linn had tried it but the official word was that "There is not enough improvement to justify the cost of making it." That could mean exactly what it says but the way it was told to me made me think they didn't actually find it to be an upgrade. Then again, there is a rumor that one of them ended up on Ivor's LP12 so who knows the real story? David Williamson also said on the Linn Forum (RIP) that he remembered Linn having a couple laying around somewhere and that he might dig one up and play with it again after the third party pieces came out. I'm sure they have a different sound but, as we say in the store "It is easy to make something that sounds different, it is much more difficult to make something that actually sounds better." You can take it that I am somewhat skeptical.

I wouldn't put the idea of the Booplinth being good completely out of the realm of possibility, as I obviously have found plinths can make musical differences that are worthwhile. I know Colin at WYSAH feels it is the only third party piece he has heard that he thought was worthwhile, and we agree on much in our assessments. I was only able to hear one example of it which I bought myself to give it a listen and had to pay for the shipping to send it back. I did perform a torque test on it and found a slightly different setting on one bolt. But it just didn't do it for us here musically and I did compare it against an identically configured Klimax LP12 with a $1000 Woodsong plinth and briefly with Linn walnut plinth. If you do a search here you will find a Booplinth thread with different people's findings including my detailed writeup on it.
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by David Neel »

I don't want to discount ThomasOK's experience with Booplinth. I'm very interested in why we have differed on this one, as for the most part I agree with Thomas' assessments, yet here there is a gulf between our perceptions.

Interestingly, I have recently bought Quadraspire SVT Bamboo to replace my Isoblue, after the appropriate comparative tests. I'm just loving the improvement they bring to my Lejonklou boxes, which is along the same lines as the improvement Booplinth makes for me. Is this related to overtone/undertone listening - see https://lejonklou.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... &start=100?
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

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ThomasOK wrote: 2018-11-16 21:03 The Linn one piece aluminum top plate/plinth is a little more than rumored. Here is a photo that used to reside on the 4c Design website where they talked about helping Linn prototype products for the Special Edition LP12. It looks like Linn had them take the original post down and now talks about their help in developing the Keel.
Very interesting. The Tangerine Audio version looks quite different, externally and internally. Also it has an optional base (Skorpion) which complements the Stiletto and can be used in place of Tramp.
Stiletto-fluted-sq.jpg
skorpion_orig-sq.jpg
I was told by our Linn rep that ... Linn had tried it but the official word was that "There is not enough improvement to justify the cost of making it." That could mean exactly what it says but the way it was told to me made me think they didn't actually find it to be an upgrade.
Certainly the TA version is expensive (£4900 for the Stiletto, £1500 for the Skorpion - the Tiger Paw is half this). It would have to be unambiguously better, and by a margin justifying the cost. On the other hand, as a proportion of the total expenditure on a top system with little scope for other improvement ...
I'm sure they have a different sound but, as we say in the store "It is easy to make something that sounds different, it is much more difficult to make something that actually sounds better."
Absolutely - and the reason, for me, it would have to be a home dem, with time for proper evaluation, and under no pressure.
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by anachronid »

The Tune Method typically stipulates something along the lines of: “Play component A while following or singing along to the main tune of the music; repeat the 10-20 seconds on component A (because it is usually is a little easier to follow the tune the second time you hear it); then play the 10-20 seconds on component B.”
https://www.lejonklou.com/wp-content/up ... Method.pdf

Any thoughts on how best to evaluate different plinths/top plates - or other components where A/B comparison as above is not possible - according to the Tune Method?

There are methodological and practical difficulties with all ‘listening’ options.

1) Dealer demonstration: A/B comparison of LP12s of identical spec to customer’s apart from the plinths. The dealer’s system (amplifiers, loudspeakers etc) are unlikely to be the same or even similar to the customer’s. There may be distractions in the showroom environment, and insufficient time for proper evaluation. And differences may due to variations in the performance of components other than the plinths (tonearms, cartridges etc).

2) Home demonstration of ‘clone’ deck, identical to customer’s apart from the plinths. This has the advantage of being in the customer’s home in his/her own system. A/B comparison of some sort may also be possible. Again however, differences may be due to variations between the ‘clone’ and customer LP12 components. Also the time frame is likely to be limited unless the dealer is prepared to leave the LP12 with the customer.

3) Home demonstration of customer’s own LP12 built into the trial plinth. Obviously direct A/B comparison is not possible, so the customer has to rely on memory of previous performance. Improvement might be due simply to rebuilding, having nothing to do with the plinth. On the other hand, there is likely to be more time to evaluate assuming that the dealer is prepared to leave the plinth for a week or so.
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Re: LP12 - alternative plinths and top-plates

Post by anachronid »

ThomasOK wrote: 2018-11-15 23:11
I did not care for the Khan nor the Karmen top plates. They gave an artificially detailed sound to the music while compressing the music, damaging the flow and not allowing you to hear as far into the mix. With the Khan I also found emphasized surface noise. The Karmen was better than the Khan but that just means it was less bad compared to the stock stainless steel top plate.

Plinths are a different story and are actually the only third party piece for the turntable I felt made an improvement in the tune (I don't include cartridges or arms in this).

I spent a lot of time evaluating a number of plinths and trying to find something that correlated to musical perfromance: weight, density, hardness, even measured resonance characteristics, but none of them helped. In the end the only reliable way to know a top range musical plinth is the musical quality of the tone it makes when it is tapped.
Hi again ThomasOK

Following our discussion under the 'When is an LP12 not an LP12' thread, I'd forgotten about this post, which I've only just re-read.

In response, I would say that the Stratos machined aluminium plinth/top-plate is certainly more detailed than the standard plinth with Khan. But I don't think that this detail is 'artificial' (I have found instruments and vocals more natural), or that the music is 'compressed' in any way. And the effect IMO is undoubtedly to enable the listener to 'hear further into the mix'.

I'm not sure the Stratos makes a very nice sound when tapped though! (Incidentally, I had been expecting brass to sound harsher and more metallic - not the case I'm pleased to say!)
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