HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

Pioneer PL12AC - 'cos it is cheap as chips, very simple to use, sounds better than it should, in fact sounds bloody good (Guy / now guydaryyl heard it earlier today). Perfect for my workbench and test. Sitting in reserve if I ever need to impress people at a show or something (not likely now I am banned from all of them - scared shitless, don't you know) is my Steve the Shadow's young lads Lenco G99 rebuild with Neat G36 broadcast arm. Really must sort out the hum

Currently, I use a BTE designs reworked Lenco L75 with Rega R200 arm and Goldring E3 cartridge.
I started off in 1975 with a BSR McDonald MP60 which did the biz until 1983 when a Dual CS505 took over, I was never sure
with this thing. After the BSR, with its low background rumble, the Dual was very quiet, but there was now a pitch vagueness and subjective slowness which carried on in one form or another, with every turntable right up to me getting the Lenco

After the Dual came my entry into the lower reaches of the Flat Earth, with a Rega Planar 2 RB250, with lime green bias cartridge.
It was OK, nothing spectacular and vagely irritating in the treble.

What you need said the dealer is a better turntable, so a Linn Axis mk1 with Basik Plus and yellow stylus K9 cartridge was procured.
This was a spectacular sounding turntable - for about a fortnight, but after that it drove me up the wall with its crash, bang, wallop BAM BAM! fizz. There was a character being imposed on all my records such that they all sounded alike ie unpleasant.

Ah you see, said the dealer, it's showing up all the faults in your records, most stuff is pretty bad you know and it's telling you that. You need to be a lot more discerning about what records you buy. Now that you have a turntable as capable as the Linn, you can't just feed it any old bit of pop stuff.

So a few months later I "upgraded " to an LP12 Akito K18 with red stylus. Now we were talking! spectacular wasn't the word - BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! The excitment this thing generated was off the scale and it made my pop stuff sound even worse than the Axis had done, so I guessed my records must have been really bad like the dealer had said....

So...I narrowed my musical taste right down to Larry Carlton "Alone but Never Alone" Acoustic Alchemy "Blue Chip", Dire Straits "Love Over Gold", Ben Sidran "The Cat and the Hat", Dave Grusin "Mountain Dance", The Crusaders "Standing Tall" Joe Cocker " Sheffield Steel", Earl Klugh "Soda Fountain Shuffle" Yellowjackets "Politics" ....you get the picture.

Occasionally I tried briefly to go more mainstream or play some of my treasured 60s/70s soul records, but the ear shredding cacophony that ensued, more than convinced me that I'd done the right thing leaving them on the shelves for posterity. The LP12 sure was "revealing"

Eventually however I got bored with my limited collection of "Audiophile quality" records and bought a CD player. The LP12 was consigned to the loft.

Fast forward to 2006 and I started building valve amplifiers. Hearing a Garrard 401 with a home made wooden unipivot arm and Denon DL103 play some of my old soul records with a gorgeousness I had never heard from vinyl, had my jaw hitting the floor, and almost in the same instant a red mist forming in front of my eyes - the anger was palpable as the scales fell from my eyes and the realisation hit that I'd been had. The brainwash had been total.

Soon after I decided to give vinyl another try and bought a second hand Roksan Radius 5, clear acrylic TT with Nima Unipivot and budget MM cart. This was a lovely turntable, both in looks and sound, and it played virtually all of my records beautifully.

I ran into a bit of financial trouble and sold the Roksan. Once the trouble had cleared I got a second hand JVC QL Y3F off Ebay.
By that time I had built a World Audio Designs valve phono stage with MC input, so fitted an Ortofon Rondo Blue to its arm, this was a great turntable with rock solid pitch, timing and sounded smooth as silk.

This was replaced a few years later by the BTE reworked Lenco I have now.
Through an NVA Phono 1 phono stage, it does excellent justice to the vinyl I have left.
Vinyl is my second source now as I've embraced the world of streaming music, but I now have a turntable that I can listen to without feeling I'm missing something.

People bought lp12 because they heard nothing better. The fact they heard nothing better was because they didn't try very hard or at all

Daniel Quinn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:01 pm People bought lp12 because they heard nothing better. The fact they heard nothing better was because they didn't try very hard or at all

That is total of the first order! Sure, a number of people ordered blind, but there were enough shops out there with alternatives on dem from Systemdek, Logic, Oracle and the Rock2 and PT in later years and not forgetting Roksan to keep punters happy. Of them all, the Roksan was the most troubling for Linn in the UK I suspect, as Chris Frankland liked it and raved about it in his little magazine which all the fanboys bought and wet themselves over... The Sound Organisation were the first big Linn dealer to offer the Roksan as an alternative. We had the Rock and a few staff (secretly, so as not to annoy the Linn/Naim blinkered sales director,) bought one for their own use. I couldn't stand the paddle and damping trough concept so stayed with my LP12's until 1988 and I had regular exposure to the Roksan when I heard Jimmy Hughes' Brueur equipped example several times a year - the LP12's had been sidelined mostly by this time. ...

I have only ever had one belt drive suspended subchassis deck that I wish I still had. I tried loads ( i mean loads!), lp12, td 150 and 160, ( 4 or 5 of these) leak truspeed pioneer pl12 and a systemdek.

The only one ever to come close was a yamaha pf 800.

It was absolutely lovely.

FFS Dave you are at it again, you just refuse to recognise the amount of bullshit and brainwash that dominated the industry INCLUDING YOU!!

The MINIMUM of choice was given just to give some credibility to the brainwash. Yes more alternatives appeared later which is what you are referring to but the damage had already been done and if they showed any REAL threat HIS reps knew how to deal with it, HE owned the industry, we all know who HE is, so he could fuck it up as much as he wanted, and he did.

_D_S_J_R_ wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:27 pm

Daniel Quinn wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:01 pm People bought lp12 because they heard nothing better. The fact they heard nothing better was because they didn't try very hard or at all

That is total of the first order! Sure, a number of people ordered blind, but there were enough shops out there with alternatives on dem from Systemdek, Logic, Oracle and the Rock2 and PT in later years and not forgetting Roksan to keep punters happy. Of them all, the Roksan was the most troubling for Linn in the UK I suspect, as Chris Frankland liked it and raved about it in his little magazine which all the fanboys bought and wet themselves over... The Sound Organisation were the first big Linn dealer to offer the Roksan as an alternative. We had the Rock and a few staff (secretly, so as not to annoy the Linn/Naim blinkered sales director,) bought one for their own use. I couldn't stand the paddle and damping trough concept so stayed with my LP12's until 1988 and I had regular exposure to the Roksan when I heard Jimmy Hughes' Brueur equipped example several times a year - the LP12's had been sidelined mostly by this time. ...

Look closely you find the bollocks. Here's a clue it is usually written by dsjr

Also ,dems can be rigged.

Dems WERE rigged, and still are, never trust a slurping dealer, they only want your money.

The brain washing would have you believe that the LP12 wiped the floor with everything else even through amps and speakers costing less than £200. I put this to the test and found out that it was a lie. I have never said that the fruit box would not sound better than a mid priced TT through a high end amp and speakers. But I had no intention of buying a high end amp and speakers. My regret is that I did not audition one of the many high end decks superior to the fruit box. This shows i was taken in by the brain washing to some extent.