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Origin DC Motor in LP12: Marketing or reality?

I have asked this before and gotten NO (zero, nada, zilch, bupkis, null...) response. From what I can tell, there is 10 times (100x?) the amount of promotional material as there is personal experience of this upgrade on the internet. I am starting to wonder if they have ever sold any.

My TT is a Linn LP12, with Linn Basik Plus arm and Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood MkII cartridge, and it is fitted with the Valhalla board. I have a great isolation stand that gives me incredibly musical and natural sound and I love this in my system. I do not want to screw up the sound, but I'm willing to try to improve it without spending big bucks. I can afford about $400-600 for a large upgrade at a time, once or twice a year.

Everyone I know who has added a motor drive (Lingo, Walker, Clearaudio, VPI) reports fantastic results, and I have heard it myself on many of those systems.

I have considered, on and off, trying to upgrade with the Origin Live DC Motor Drive, but I can only find about 2-3 professional reviews, and no individual (amateur) critiques, just comments from people who have read about but haven't actually installed one.

Have any of you actually tried this upgrade? Would I get a great improvement over the Valhalla board? How does it compare to a Lingo? What are the pros and the cons?

p.s. Does anyone else notice that there are certain products that are very heavily promoted in this and other sites (classified and dealer), but rarely see comments about someone who bought the product?
pbowne

Showing 1 response by cakyol

cakyol's avatar
cakyol
112 posts
 
I am late to this forum but here is my take on it.....

Synchronous motors are DESIGNED to be constant speed based on supply FREQUENCY.

DC motors have inherently variable speed based EXTREMELY  sensitively on DC voltage.

To ensure that a DC motor stays on constant speed, the speed has to be sampled many times a second and "CORRECTED" if the voltage drifts.  And, voltage will ALWAYS drift no matter what.

With a sync motor and specially with Valhalla, the frequency is derived from a xtal oscillator and is therefore EXTREMELY STABLE.

Therefore, in conclusion, it is much more difficult and troublesome to adjust speed by continuously correcting it, rather than having a motor which inherently runs at a constant speed by design, especially driven by a xtal oscillator.

The ONLY saving grace of the DC motor may be its quietness.  However, the synchronous motor can be made just as quiet by reducing the applied voltage to it and adjusting its phase shift capacitor to be as close to 90 degrees as possible.  These are still MUCH easier to achieve in practice than to build a speed sampler and correct the voltage.

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