The sound of LP12 plinths?

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Charlie1
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Post by Charlie1 »

Sorry Tony, I did not make myself clear. I meant in terms of the sound improvement.

I wasn't sure if it was your deck or not, but it could have been someone who'd never had a service from Thomas before and therefore the deck may have benefited in other ways (i.e. torque settings) in addition to the new plinth being fitted.
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Post by Tony Tune-age »

Charlie1 wrote:Sorry Tony, I did not make myself clear. I meant in terms of the sound improvement.

I wasn't sure if it was your deck or not, but it could have been someone who'd never had a service from Thomas before and therefore the deck may have benefited in other ways (i.e. torque settings) in addition to the new plinth being fitted.
Those pictures are my Sondek turntable. And at the time he installed the Movingui plinth, nothing else was changed. He fitted the new plinth in the same fashion as the original Linn Afromosia plinth.

As stated in earlier postings, the sonic improvement was easy to hear. In fact, I was really surprised. The improvement to playing music was along the lines of how my Keel and Radikal made improvements. Only for a lot less money!

Before installing the Woodsong plinth, I didn't think they could make an improvement to the sound. But now I know these exotic wood plinths can improve the sound!
Last edited by Tony Tune-age on 2020-12-09 20:24, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Charlie1 »

Many thanks Tony!
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Post by Tony Tune-age »

Charlie1 wrote:Many thanks Tony!
You're very welcome Charlie1...have a great weekend!
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Post by ThomasOK »

I think I would definitely have to rate one of the more musical plinths I have heard as being a bigger improvement than a Trampolin 2. I don't know if I'd quite put them in the Keel or Radikal range but there is definitely more power and control in the bass and more musical information being recovered top to bottom - better flow, more nuance to notes, etc. To me definitely a very worthwhile upgrade for the money but they do vary quite a bit musically from one to the next depending on the wood. I still haven't found anything that is up with the top three recommendations I have made previously.
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Post by Charlie1 »

Thanks Thomas. I've decided to hold fire this time just in case Linn do something with the top plate in the next couple of years.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Shakedown St. »

What an amazing thread of information, after reading I just had to make an account on here.

I am brining up this old thread because I don’t recall seeing mahogany or walnut being brought up, has anyone had any experience with those woods?

My only choices right now are the black ash, walnut, mahogany or bubinga.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by lejonklou »

Thanks Shakedown St and welcome to the forum!

I've owned a walnut plinth, but that was long before Thomas started properly evaluating the musical performance of plinths. I suspect he might be able to help you, let's see what he says (I know he's really busy at the moment so it might take a couple of days).
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by ChrBea »

I'm interested too in how walnut ranks among the other plinths. I asked Chris about an alternative in the same colour range, but have no answer yet.
SWMBO prefers not to mix too many different woods in the living room. Black ash would be acceptable, but I do not like the look of it :)
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by ThomasOK »

I'm afraid I've never had a chance to test a Harban walnut plinth, nor a true test of a Linn one for that matter. My expectation is that a Harban plinth would be more musical than a Linn one because of the precision of construction and the difference in finishing but that is conjecture. After the initial few batches of plinths I tested Chris got too busy to just send me bunches of plinths to play with and it is a little expensive to buy a number of different plinths just to test their sound. What do you do with the ones you don't like. The fact that his plinths now range from $1000 to $2500 and above compared to the $650 they were when I first started also makes this more difficult. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Defender »

does anybody know at which time Linn moved away from the fluted plinth to non fluted plinths?
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by ThomasOK »

Actually there wasn't a specific year as it varied with the wood used. All afromosia plinths were fluted whereas only early rosewood or black were fluted. Linn realized early on that the fluting took away from the beauty of rosewood and its often dramatic grain and went to the flat style. They did the same for the black leaving the afromosia the only fluted plinth for many years. I believe that the walnut was also fluted when first introduced but was likely changed to flat around the time the cherry and rosenut plinths came in.

The afromosia plinths were made into at least 1996 but were gone by mid-1997 when Linn brought the cherry and rosenut plinths into the line, both also with flat front and sides. So at that point fluted plinths likely stopped to exist from Linn. Rosewood was discontinued sometime before October 1991, the oldest price list I have. Since this is a bit before the Cirkus came out it means that there were no LP12 rosewood with Cirkus made and also that the rosewood Linn plinth with large corner braces I have on my second LP12 is rather uncommon as they started with the large corner braces in 1984.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Defender »

hi Thomas thank you - your answers are helpfull as always.
It is a cherry plinth with a sticker „Lingo power supply unit“ and no checkmarks on the 110V or 240V square
it has a really low serial number on it in the 16000 range which linn helpline came up with probably around 1977 but I suspect it. Could not check the plinth as I dont have the LP12 physically. But all looks in perfect condition thats why I think its rather 90‘s up.

... I see now in your answer cherry came in about 1997 so that could fit as the Ekos II on it is from 1997.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by ThomasOK »

Yes, the serial number doesn't seem to fit with the description. However, Linn will print a new label with the original serial number for those who decide to buy a new plinth, or the original label might be transferred if you are careful. So some of the internals might date from 1977 but most may have been replaced, especially if the Cirkus has been installed. That is one of the things about LP12s is that there are so many upgrades done over the years that they can end up being like Tigger's broom.

My own LP12 is a perfect example of this. I purchased it in 2001 on eBay while I was selling computers. It gave me the opportunity to get an LP12 with Ekos, Arkiv and Lingo as a quite good price. It was set up horribly which might have had to do with why it was sold. However, since then I replaced the Lingo 1 with a Radikal, the Ekos with an Ekos SE/1, the subchassis with a Keel, the bottom board with a Trampolin 2, the plinth with a custom movingui plinth, the Cirkus with a newer Cirkus, the original top plate with the newer top plate with the stud in the motor corner (on which I installed hand picked suspension bolts), the Arkiv with an Akiva and then a Kandid, the outer platter with a newer outer platter, the P-Clip with the newer P-Clip and the dustcover with a new one with new hinges. Can you spot any original parts? Maybe the cable clamp for the motor umbilical cable and possibly the hinge plates (although I'M betting I replaced those as well). Many of the parts listed above have been replaced not once but two or even several times (I just put on the third outer platter last week). But it still has the serial number sticker from the original unit.
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Musical Quality Order Harban Pinths

Post by Tony Tune-age »

I found this thread regarding the musical quality order of Harban plinths (by ThomasOK), to go along with the "Best Sondek Picture" thread. See below...
ThomasOK wrote: 2009-01-10 20:50 I promised to post an update on the ranking of the custom LP12 plinths Chris was sending me a while back. With any number of interruptions slowing things down (delays in plinth availability, the Holidays, the garage across the street burning to the ground in a half hour with a number of explosions a week before Christmas, the water main in our front yard breaking 3 days later, etc.!) it has taken me a while to complete the tests and get the information together.

I’ll relieve the suspense and start out with the musical quality order of the plinths IMHO:

Movingui
Wenge
Mayan Rosewood
Black Limba

I find that all of these plinths sound better than a Linn Black Ash, Cherry or Afromosia plinth (the only ones I have compared so far). I did recently replace a later Linn Rosewood that sounded quite good with a Movingui that both the owner and I found to be noticeably better, and he definitely felt it was worth the $650 plus installation price. That being said I did feel his Rosewood plinth sounded quite good and would likely rank somewhere around the Mayan Rosewwod from Chris. This is interesting because the Linn Rosewood has been said to be one of the less good sounding stock plinths but this one certainly gives the lie to that assumption.

Anyway, here is what I have found so far.

Movingui: A very musical plinth, excellent bass depth and texture, vocal and instrumental inflections and top to bottom balance substantially better than any of the stock Linn plinths I have tried so far except the Rosewood and still clearly enough better than the Rosewood to be a worthwhile upgrade. Also more musical and balanced than any of the other custom plinths I have tried.

Wenge: Next best after the Movingui. It is a little less easy to follow the tune on the Wenge than on the Movingui and the highs seem a bit muted. Some with a bright system might find this politeness or reticence in the highs welcome but I found it made the music a bit constricted and the nuances of vocals, trumpets and cymbals were slightly obscured. Reportedly the head of Naim USA owns a Wenge plinth and really loves it.

Mayan Rosewood: This one gave me a bit of a hard time at first doing my comparisons in the store. It seemed initially to be making it easier to hear the way some instruments were being played or certain vocal inflections but in other ways music seemed to be harder to follow. I had several others, including Debbie, listen to the Mayan Rosewood plinth and the reactions were mixed with different people preferring one or the other (compared to the Movingui). In order to further evaluate it I took this one home and compared it to my Movingui there. It was quite obvious that the Mayan Rosewood, while it did some interesting things, was not as musical or as tuneful as the Movingui and that it would be fatiguing over time. It seems as though the Mayan Rosewood pushes the upper-midrange forward somewhat giving the initial impression of more detail. This is a common effect in many “high-end” audio components and cables that sound very “Hi-Fi” but not very musical. It certainly wasn’t there to the same degree as these items and heard in isolation is still a good sounding plinth, again preferable to stock Linn Black Ash, Cherry and Arfomosia. But this touch of forwardness is the most obvious characteristic, although again one that some preferred – at least in the store system.

Black Limba: While my least favorite of the custom plinths I have heard it is still more tuneful than the Linn Black Ash, Cherry and Arfomosia plinths. Music is easier to follow and it is easier to hear what the musicians are doing and how well they play together. The Black Limba overall gives a lighter presentation than any of the other plinths. It does not have as much power or extension in the bass as any of the other plinths and it seemed to show up surface noise a bit more than the other custom plinths.

Since I started investigating this whole subject of plinth sound I have been hoping to find some characteristic that would allow you to know which wood would give the best sound. So far I have found physical characteristics to be no help in this, at least from my limited knowledge of them. Neither the hardness of the wood nor the weight of it are good predictors of sonic quality. Nor does density seem to be the important factor. And no, the lighter colored woods do not have a lighter tome compared to something like Black Ash.:)

Chris felt that the “tap tone” or the sound it makes when you hold up the plinth by one side and tap it would give the best clue as to the performance and he might be right. But if so more investigation will be needed. He thought that the Mayan Rosewood might be the best, or one of the best, as it has a nice, melodic tone while you tap it. But it turned out to be a bit below the top plinths. While it does have a melodic tone it also has the longest ring of any of the plinths and I think this might contribute to the somewhat forward sound. The Movingui also has a light, melodic tone with a good spread of frequencies but much less of a ring than the Mayan Rosewood. Wenge is melodic but with fewer overtones and the Black Limba has a high, bright tone with little body and a damped ring. By comparison the stock Cherry has a short’ high tone quickly damped and without much spread and Black Ash is a bit more melodic with more spread and a bit more ring than the Cherry. So there is some similarity between the tone they make when tapped and their actual sonic presentation but it is not something I think I could count on to pick out what will be the most musical plinth.

The comparisons were mostly made in the store using my LP12 SE with Movingui plinth compared to the store demo LP12 SE with various plinths. The store demo has a 1.7 meter T.Kable with old style Silver RCAs and my table has a 1.1 meter version of the same. Otherwise the two tables are as identical as they can be made with precision torque settings on all fasteners. A comparison of both tables with Movingui plinths revealed only the slightest difference in clarity of brush strokes on a drum head – the kind of slight difference that would be expected from any two different units of the same piece of equipment - for instance, two different Akivas. Both LP12s were placed on the top shelf of a Quadrispire Sunoko Vent double wide rack and played through Linto, Klimax Kontrol and Klimax Twin Chakra electronics into Sonus Faber Amati Anniversarios properly torqued and running through Nordost Odin cables. As noted above I also compared the Mayan Rosewood to my Movingui at home on my own system.

I have discussed my findings with Chris Harban who was somewhat surprised the Mayan Rosewood didn’t win. In light of my findings he will be checking his wood suppliers for more Movingui wood of high enough quality for plinths. He has promised to keep me posted as to when these become available. He will likely send me some other plinths when he has them ready – possibly Bubinga or Cocobolo. I will update my findings as I have the opportunity to evaluate more units. I have the Black Limba, Mayan Rosewood and Wenge plinths available for sale if anyone is interested.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Hermann »

Rosewood was discontinued sometime before October 1991, the oldest price list I have. Since this is a bit before the Cirkus came out it means that there were no LP12 rosewood with Cirkus made and also that the rosewood Linn plinth with large corner braces I have on my second LP12 is rather uncommon as they started with the large corner braces in 1984.
That seems to be korrect, because I bought my first rosewood around 1990, the second one 1.5 years ago from my Linn dealer. Nevertheless both have large corner braces.

The image shows the old plinth from '90.
20201208_070125.jpg
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by John »

Interesting how the plinth can influence the sound of the LP12. The different wood materials must handle the vibrations from the top plate/motor differently.

This was something that I understood aftermarket top plates did and the reason why I modified my baseboard and feet to allow a path for the plinth vibrations to be sunk to an absorption platform.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Hermann »

I too think about that.

It could be due to the different density of the wood. Rosewood has a density of 800-1,000 kg / m³, Movingui, for example, 600-800 kg / m³. I don't know how that matters, but it does come to mind when I think about deriving vibrations from the LP12.0

I also exchanged the standard feet for very small 3M rubbers, which gives a much better sound.

We experimented with racks for the LP12 very early on and also knocked on them with our knuckles to hear the sound made by the base. An interesting experience. Because the system usually sounds similar to the tone of the base.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Tony Tune-age »

Hermann wrote: 2020-12-08 15:53It could be due to the different density of the wood. Rosewood has a density of 800-1,000 kg / m³, Movingui, for example, 600-800 kg / m³. I don't know how that matters, but it does come to mind when I think about deriving vibrations from the LP12.0
Thomas talks about that in the above article: "Neither hardness of wood nor weight of it are good predictors of sonic quality. And density isn't a major factor either."
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by ThomasOK »

Yes, I really couldn't find any measurement, even a measurement of the resonances picked up by an accelerometer, that correlated with the musical quality of the plinths. Only a tap tone can really tell the story of what would sound good. I thought I had told this story on here but I might not have. Several years ago I traveled to Virginia to setup two LP12s for a customer. He had three plinths. Two were from Chris Harban, a movingui and a catalox (which I had never heard of). The other was a Linn afromosia which had been modified. He told me that he liked the catalox the least and the afromosia the most, which surprised me. I asked if he had tried a tap tone on the catalox and he replied he had and it sounded like a bar of steel! That didn't seem to hold much promise. When I arrived he had two of the plinths removed and then I took the mechanics out of the third one. He was right, the catalox sounded very hard in tap tone and he said it sounded hard on the table so we put it to the side. The afromosia was the most musical but this was for two reasons, both unusual. One is that his movingui was probably the least musical sounding one I have heard. This reinforces what Chris had said about each piece of wood sounding different. While I have in general found movinguis to be quite musical, as several of my customers, including Tony-Tune-Age will attest, this one was not as good as most although still pretty good. On the other hand my personal one is the best I have ever heard and hence is going nowhere. The other extenuating circumstance was that the customer had taken his afromosia plinth to an excellent woodworker who had precisely trued the top, bottom and wood strips and blocks and had refinished it. While I can't prove it I have a feeling that the finish has a significant effect on the sound - look at all the talk of the importance of the finishes used on violins by Stradavari, Guarneri, etc. - so the wiping varnish used by Chris may be part of the secret compared to the lacquer on the Linn plinths. Regardless of why, this particular afromosia plinth had the best tap tome of any I have had my hands on and it was a bit better than that movingui. So the afromosia ended up on his primary LP12 and the movingui on the office one.

I have a question for Hermann as his photos and comments have me confused. The photo of your LP12 looks more like rosenut to me than rosewood, although it is a little hard to tell from the images. Also if you bought a plinth from your dealer 1.5 years ago and it was a new Linn plinth it would have to be rosenut as Linn haven't made rosewood plinths for a couple decades. On the other hand if it was made by somebody else it could certainly be rosewood. Just wondering. My refinished rosewood, and the one shown in the photos of Ron the Mon, which was rebuilt and refinished by Chris, were both very musical. I wasn't able to do direct comparisons with them but I believe they would be in the A category, possibly an A-, just below the movingui and cocobolo I have listened to and possibly a hair above the curly maple. I also believe that the Harban fluted ebony I tap tested and installed would be similarly rated. The others Woodsong plinths I tested would start at B+ with the wenge and mostly reside somewhere in the Bs except the black limba that would be a C.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Emil »

Hermann wrote: 2020-12-08 15:53 I too think about that.

It could be due to the different density of the wood. Rosewood has a density of 800-1,000 kg / m³, Movingui, for example, 600-800 kg / m³. I don't know how that matters, but it does come to mind when I think about deriving vibrations from the LP12.0

I also exchanged the standard feet for very small 3M rubbers, which gives a much better sound.

We experimented with racks for the LP12 very early on and also knocked on them with our knuckles to hear the sound made by the base. An interesting experience. Because the system usually sounds similar to the tone of the base.
My experience, too. Different density shows different sound. This is the case with the musical instruments.

I tried four different plinths to find out the most suitable one. There is no perfect one. One has better bass, another one better decay. I had to give up my favorite color.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by John »

Emil wrote: 2020-12-11 10:42
Hermann wrote: 2020-12-08 15:53 I too think about that.

It could be due to the different density of the wood. Rosewood has a density of 800-1,000 kg / m³, Movingui, for example, 600-800 kg / m³. I don't know how that matters, but it does come to mind when I think about deriving vibrations from the LP12.0

I also exchanged the standard feet for very small 3M rubbers, which gives a much better sound.

We experimented with racks for the LP12 very early on and also knocked on them with our knuckles to hear the sound made by the base. An interesting experience. Because the system usually sounds similar to the tone of the base.
My experience, too. Different density shows different sound. This is the case with the musical instruments.

I tried four different plinths to find out the most suitable one. There is no perfect one. One has better bass, another one better decay. I had to give up my favorite color.
I wonder if some of these differences could be attributed to setup. Changing out plinths is quite labor intensive and introduces many variables regarding fasteners, suspension...

Just one aspect such as how the top plate is tightened to the plinth can greatly affect performance.

Are folks making before/after recordings as I wouldn’t trust what I’m hearing after the amount of time it takes to make the switch.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Emil »

All things equal is mandatory when trying new parts. And I’m using torque driver even for the cartridge bolts, almost 10 years now.

Different plinths could give different results with new upgrades, incl. the latest one. I can guess in what direction they will take the Karousel.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Hermann »

@John
The confidence to bring different LP12 to the point should already be present. Because there is no better measuring instrument than our ears.

I had at the time, of course, no torque wrench, but enough "feeling" to tighten screws, etc. accordingly the same. Especially with the tonearm board with the small short screws. Aro and Ekos were each exchanged with Armboard, springs adjusted and fine work carried out. Since I had two Prefix was only the cartridge to swap, until I had two Troika, which were regularly inspected at Expert Stylus in the UK and retyped if necessary. BTW, I could never pronounce the name of the (patient) gentleman there. :-)

Of course, such a undertaking is not completed into a few days. It was an ongoing task, because the used turntables I had mostly bought at a very good rate, and things that were not necessary went right back into the market.

I had also tested Naim Armageddon against Norten PS and stayed with the latter until about 2 years ago.
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Re: The sound of LP12 plinths?

Post by Charlie1 »

Any thoughts on the stock Linn oak plinth, especially in comparison to black ash or afromosia?
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