BearPear said:
Mr BP has a Sondek but with Naim.. He keeps suggesting that we should up-grade some part or other.
That's Naim for you! I used Naim for nearly twenty years, it's got a lot going for it, but the problem with it is that it never sounds 'right'. There always seems to be something lacking, something niggling, and the Naim answer is always to upgrade. I feel rather foolish for falling for it for so long!
You go on the Naim forum, it's all anyone ever talks about. Mr BP will never be happy with his system whilst he's using Naim amps. The CD players are OK, just catastrophically expensive for what they actually do.
I liked exposure kit too.
With the benefit of hindsight I wish I'd bought Exposure instead of Naim. I think it provided an ideal balance of the tunefulness of Linn amps and the grip and insight of Naim.
The TD150 was a good beast, put a s/h Linn Basik arm on on it and it sounded ace!
In my opinion decks like the Thorns and Ariston RD11 are every bit as good as an early LP12 and maybe better. Brilliant record players. I strongly disagree about the arm though. I've owned all of Linn's arms except the Ekos and I think the Basik and Basik+ arms are rubbish! They were passable in their day but the RB300 cast a pretty big and fatal shadow on them when it arrived. So much so that Linn had to try to build a budget Ittok to compete, the Akito, and spread the scurrilous rumour that the Rega arms did not work on the LP12.
Faced with a masterpiece like the RB300 though it was farting against thunder. Linn turned their noises up at it whilst every other turntable manufacturer fell over themselves to nail this pocket-money super-arm to their decks. Incidentally, most of the 'incompatibility' issues are down to the arm cable, which is harder to dress properly with a suspended deck.
I used to run it through DNM amplifiers..
I've only heard DNM amps once and they were unbelievably good! Driving mental French Rehdeko speakers they produced some of the most life-like music I've ever heard.
I think the PT was let down by it just not being built well enough. If you looked under a Pink it had a sub-chassis that looked like a five-year-old had cut it out with blunt wood saw with the springs though it held in place by cir-clips shoved through the coils. The dust cover, whilst brave and distinctive, also had a propensity for literally coming apart at the seams! Not good on a top-dollar deck. Linn at least built the LP12 very well so dealers were much more confident about selling it.
I even had a Hadcock unipivot, that was a weird thing, good but finicky.
I actually had one of those but never used it! I sold it to some guy in Germany still in the box. Idiot, I wish I'd tried it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Chromatic, another thing maybe worth considering regarding the Origin Live mods is that are likely to have a big effect on the resale value of your LP12. Modified LP12s are not very popular with buyers. I'm not saying don't go there but take your time, do your homework. Let's chew this out for a while yet.