As promised a while back I have now completed comparisons of another groups of plinths from Chris. The timing coincided with a couple of other ideas for improving the LP12 so I incorporated those to try and make the tests as controlled as possible. First off, the comparisons were made using my LP12 with the Movingui plinth I have reported on, and posted photos of, before. For those who aren’t up on my system the LP12 is 1997 vintage but almost all the parts have been replaced. It has a new inner platter and bearing housing fitted a few years ago, I replaced the suspension bolts with the straightest ones I could find, the outer platter and mat are new from a few months ago and, of course, it has the custom plinth. Installed in my LP12 are a Radikal (standard chassis), Keel, Ekos SE, Akiva and Urika. Connection to the preamp is from factory built Linn Silver interconnects with original style RCAs. It has had all torque adjustments optimized and just before this comparison I redirected the Urika power cable as has been mentioned in that thread and which makes a significant performance improvement. I also optimized the platter by rotating the outer platter in reference to the inner platter to where it produced the most tuneful performance and by using a feeler gauge of .038mm to make sure the outer platter was centered on the inner one. I feel these two adjustments also improve the tune but not to the degree the cabling change does. The mat was oriented with the right side up as well. So basically I’ve done everything I know of to optimize the performance of this turntable.
The other LP12 used in the comparisons belongs to Keith, the owner of the store. It has gone through the same extensive setup and tuning procedure and contains the same components as my LP12 except for the plinth which is a stock Linn Maple and the interconnects which are normally Nordost Valhallas. However, for this test I replaced them with another pair of factory built Linn Silvers although with the newer RCAs. The Akiva is also a fair bit newer production than mine. So, other than the plinths, overall these LP12s were very much the same (yes there is a bit of a musical difference from the RCAs).
The system setup had both LP12s on the decoupled top shelf of a double-wide Quadraspire Sunoko-Vent three shelf stand. On the bottom were the two Radikals and on the middle shelf was a KK/1/D. On a separate Sunoko-Vent amp stand were two Klimax Solos which drove a pair of Sonus faber Cremona Ms through a set of K20 speaker cables with the preamp to amp interconnects also stock Linn Silvers. Radikals and the KK were plugged into one quad outlet and the Solos into another on the same circuit. No power conditioning or filtering was used. The Cremonas were in the optimum positions in one of our listening rooms (likely where cremona first heard the Klimax/Cremona combination) and the equipment shelves were in between the speakers.
The first test was just to compare the stock Maple to the Movingui. While the Movingui was definitely more tuneful and allowed you to hear more of what was going on the Maple was closer than I expected it to be (more about this later). When removed it also had a better tap tone than I have heard from other Linn plinths. Based on what I’ve heard so far I would have to say that this particular Linn Maple plinth is one of the two best I’ve heard and better than the Black Ash, Cherry and Afromosia plinths.
Makore: I then swapped the Linn Maple plinth for a Woodsong Makore. As with all the ChrisH plinths I’ve heard so far, this was a very good sounding plinth and certainly better than the stock Maple. It was not the match of the Movingui as it wasn’t as tuneful and the music didn’t flow as well. There was less texture and nuance to the notes so the intent of the performers was not conveyed as well. It just sounded as if things were smeared a bit compared to the Movingui. Frequency-wise it did have a very good balance with extended frequency extremes and no part of the range sounding emphasized or reduced. Overall quite good and certainly a worthwhile upgrade over stock. It is also very attractive with a mottled appearance that catches the light differently from different angles.
Curly Maple: Next up was the Curly Maple, another wood that does nice tricks with the light depending on the angle you view it from. This plinth is really quite excellent. I still felt that the Movingui was a little better with a little more natural decay to notes, a bit better flow and a bit more tunefulness. Another listener here described it as a more fluid sound. It sounded a touch faster and more detailed than the Movingui but again the differences were small. The seeming additional speed reminded me of the difference between the new and old Linn Silver RCAs – the new ones sound a bit more detailed and Hi-Fi, the original ones sound a bit more tuneful and musical. The differences between these plinths were similar but were greater in degree than that between the cables making me sure that the cables not the major part of the difference I was hearing. The frequency balance also was quite even with an extended, clean bass similar to the Movingui. This is currently the second best plinth I have heard and is close to the best. It is the one that is ending up on Keith’s LP12.
Amazique: The last plinth we listened to was the Amazique (although we put the Curly Maple back on and listened again afterwards). (Like many woods Amazique has several names often being called Amazoque and commonly Shedua.) Amazique has a more linear, striped grain with darker stripes on a kind of brassy background, especially viewed in direct light. I was disappointed to find this my least favorite of the three as another dealer was quite impressed by the sound of one he installed. Although this could be in part because he has experienced different plinths than I have it is also quite possible that his Amazique sounded different than mine. As Chris has mentioned earlier in this thread wood, being a natural material, varies greatly from board to board not only in appearance but also in the sound the wood makes when tapped – which does seem to bear some relation to how good a plinth sounds. Anyway, the sound of the Amazique was similar to me to the Mayan Rosewood I tested previously in that it seemed to push forward the mids and upper midrange. This gave it the kind of “detailed” sound you hear in some cables that emphasize some frequencies over others. It was not as tuneful nor did it have as much of the true inner detail that makes the instruments sound more real and lets you hear the true quality of musicianship on your records. The phrasing was also not as good as the Curly Maple or the Movingui. I would describe the sound as “splashy” in that there was some smearing and harshness to the forward sound. In comparison to what I remember of the Mayan Rosewood I would say that it was maybe a touch less forward but not as smooth. The two would be ranked pretty close. The frequency balance obviously emphasized the mids and upper mids but the bass also seemed a bit less deep and not as powerful as the others. To put this in perspective this was still a more musical plinth than the Linn Maple allowing you to hear more of what is going on musically, although slightly less balanced frequency-wise, and a fair bit better than most other stock plinths I have heard. It is just a bit outclassed by some of the other plinths.
This set of comparisons has had some interesting outcomes that have led me to develop a couple of theories. First off I noticed that the differences I was hearing between the plinths was not as big as I was expecting – they all sounded closer together than plinths had in the past. When I first heard the Movingui plinth compared to the stock Black Ash and Cherry the improvement was big enough that my jaw about hit the floor! This feeling was shared by everyone here who heard the comparisons - the better plinth was a lot better. Think Trampolin 2 level or better improvements. When I compared the Movingui to the stock Maple the difference was nowhere near as big - part, but not all, of which I credit to it being a good Maple plinth. When I started comparing the other custom plinths the differences were again smaller than I remember from when I did the first set of comparisons. At first this seemed counter-intuitive, as the setup on these tables was even more precise, with things like platter orientation taken into account, which should have made it easier to hear the differences. As should the dramatically increased musical performance brought by the Radikal and Urika.
Then I had my own eureka moment! I believe that the Radikal diminishes the musical contribution of the plinth. My theory is this: The AC motor is connected very rigidly to the stainless steel top plate with steel dome washers and bolts that are fastened pretty tightly so that motor vibration gets sunk into the top plate and from there into the plinth it is bolted to. But the DC motor from the Radikal is actually isolated from the top plate. It is fitted into a dense Poron plastic foam sleeve with a bottom pad of the same Poron and that is fitted into an inert machined Acetal plastic outer housing. According to the technology paper from Linn on the Radikal and Urika “The motor is housed within a mounting enclosure specially designed and manufactured by Linn to minimise vibration and dampen acoustic noise. The enclosure de-couples and dampens any mechanical vibrations from the DC motor and prevents them transferring to the top plate. The motor mounting is a composite construction, making use of specially selected non-resonant materials to ensure the highest quality of audio reproduction.” This is pretty much the opposite of the AC motor. So my thought is that the Radikal motor feeds much less energy into the top plate and hence the plinth than the AC motor and therefore the changes to the resonant quality of the plinth have less effect on the musical quality of the LP12. Note that they still have an effect - it is just not as big.
This finding also means that it is hard to compare what I heard in these comparisons with what I heard in the first ones, as the degree of difference is less. I will still provide what my overall ranking is but remember that I don’t consider this definitive (not that with the natural differences in woods I could ever come up with a definitive ranking).
These tests have also lead to a hypothesis although I am a little more tentative on this as I don’t have a huge sample size to base it on. My finding is that the best sounding woods seem to be those with a grain that would be described as mottled, wavy or curvy. These are terms that have a fairly loose definition, even among woodworkers, but they all refer to woods that don’t have the kind of linear grain patterns typical of most Walnut, Afromosia, Cherry, Oak, Maple and many other woods. They instead have patterns that fluctuate more giving a look in the light that can make thus surface seem to undulate. You can see in the photos above what is normally classified as mottled (Makore) and as curly (Curly Maple). The Amazique is representative of the more linear type of grain. If you look at the photos I posted earlier in the thread you will see that the Movingui is probably best described as curly and the Bubinga is somewhat mottled. So far in my listening tests the curly and mottled plinths have come out the best (Movingui, Curly Maple, Makore, Wenge) and the more linear ones have not been quite as good (Black Limba, Amazique, Mayan Rosewood). In addition the Linn Maple plinth that had been on the owner’s table was less linear in grain than most I have seen while not actually being curly.
I think it may be that the mottled or uneven type of grains may break up the resonances more while still having a harmonic sound to them. At least that seems to be the case so far. I have also noted that I have heard enough of the “tap tones” of the different plinths that I can get a reasonable idea of how a plinth will perform from it. The best plinths do have a harmonic tone that has a reasonable spread of frequencies but without an extended ring to it. When tapping the Curly Maple it had a musical sound that had a lowish pitch and good harmonics but not too much ring, the Amazique had a much higher pitch with a touch more ringing but still pretty harmonic, the Makore was pitched closer to the Curly Maple but had a fairly dead ring with little in the way of harmonics. On the plinths tested before the Mayan Rosewood had a very harmonic tone but also a very long ring, the Wenge had a well pitched, musical tone but with not much in the way of harmonics and the Black Limba had a light, high-pitched tone with little low frequency energy. Many, nut not all, of the Linn plinths have had a fairly dead and sometimes hashy tone. So there does seem to be a similarity between the tones and how the plinth sounds once you get an idea of how the two relate.
As to my overall rankings (again with the reservations I have noted above):
Movingui: simply the most musical plinths I have yet heard.
Curly Maple: second only to Movingui and quite good. The only way you’d likely hear the difference is with a tightly controlled direct comparison.
These next four aren’t quite in the league with the top two, all of them being a shade less tuneful than the best, but are still quite good overall. Each has at least one notable, but different, weakness.
Wenge: a step below those two but still quite good, does have a bit of a high-frequency rolloff.
Mayan Rosewood: a bit forward in the mids giving it a bit of artificial detail but still a musical plinth.
Makore: very balanced plinth just hampered by a bit of smearing of the fine nuances of the music.
Amazique: a bit forward mid and upper midrange giving it a touch of a “shouty” quality
I have to say that the relative ranking of the Mayan Rosewood, Makore, and Amazique could change if I heard all three of them in the same exact setups. I would put the Wenge at the top regardless but the other three are all quite close yet different.
Black Limba: still more musical in many ways than most Linn plinths but it has a light, delicate sound with little in the way of bass power. If you had one of the better Linn plinths like the Maple I pulled off the owner’s LP12 or the Rosewood a customer replaced with Movingui the Black Limba would at best be a sideways move.
A question that Fredrik has brought up has to do with how ecological these woods are and it is one I hadn’t thought to ask before he brought it up. I did talk to Chris about it and also did a little reading on the web and found that things certainly aren’t completely clear-cut (pardon the pun). As an example some claim that Santos Rosewood is farm grown and ecologically sound and others claim this isn’t so. There are a couple of things I can tell you with certainty. One is that Chris does not use certified green woods because he doesn’t believe in the honesty of the system and he is not happy with some of the wood that gets into the system as “green” wood when it is comes from forests being cleared out to make room for farming plants to make ethanol (something which many feel to not be a really green fuel). Chris also feels that making a plinth of Mayan Rosewood is a far cry from flooring an entire mansion with the stuff. I have no interest in getting into the politics of all this I just wanted to let you know what I can on it.
Many of the woods that Woodsong plinths are made from are what some would call “rainforest” woods. This likely includes Movingui, Makore, Wenge, Black Limba, any of the Rosewoods, Coconolo, etc. From one of the forestry web sites I looked at it appears that there are very few woods that are considered ecologically safe and those that Linn use are a good percentage of them: American Cherry, Maple, Walnut and Ash. In addition I believe Birch and Beech are normally considered safe. There are a few others but not a whole lot. I am happy that the Curly Maple plinth sounded so good as it is Canadian Maple and would give at least one eco-friendly choice. Chris is also going to make some plinths from American Hard Maple at some time so those could also be good. He does also make plinths from Walnut, Cherry and others as he finds good pieces of wood, I know he is currently working on a Myrtle and a Beech and I may get to hear one or both of them.
So there are the latest findings, it is a good thing it has been a slow day here as I’ve been writing this almost all day! I don’t know how much opportunity I will have in the future to do this kind of testing as it requires that Keith and I donate a few days of our turntable’s lives to it, but I’ll see what I can do.