What tonearms $1500 work well with the Linn?

With a Linn and $1500 to spend you should look for a used Ekos.

The Linn does not like either Regas or SMEs, so they're out. The Linn does love the Aro unipivot by Naim, a very common pairing, though it's only available used, now. So I assume it works well with unipivots generally, but check a little bit on this. I have a unipivot on a similar 3-point suspension which works great, an old Mayware in a modded AR-XA, fantastic. I use a Black Widow tonearm on aother similar 3-point suspension 'table, an Ariston (very close to the Linn in terms of mass and design) which is a great arm and a great match if you use MMs like the Grados and so forth. Of course the Ekos is a synergistic pairing. You have quite a lot of choice, with the two exceptions above. The classic 3-point suspension designs sure do boogey!

I agree completely with Johnnantais assessment of the Linn/Aro combo: about 2 1/2 years ago I put an Aro on my 20-year old Linn, and I've been very, very happy with it. Single most significant upgrade I have made since I bought the Linn LP-12 in '83. If you can find a minty one used for $1500. - buy it.

One caveat - there's no cuing device supplied with the Aro. I bought an "Aromatic" cue from Naim to mate with the Aro -- works great. I'm not sure you can still find the Aromatic, as Naim quit making them some years back - - mine was NOS from Naim USA in Chicago.

If the Linn does not like Regas, does that mean it also does not like Origin Live arms? I've got an Ittok LVII on my Linn and have wondered if I can improve upon on it but without spending as much as $1500. Some of the raved-upon OL arms are in the $750 range, for example.

Drubin, unfortunately, it does mean that the Origin Live arms will not work well, as they are all based in the same design. This was part of the reason there was such a hubbub about whether the Regas were as good as some said when they were first released. The Linn LP12 being the premier high-end 'table in the world at the time, the Linnies universally condemned the Regas as not true high-end, and they were partially correct, as the bass suffered terribly in this combo. I personally think you can improve qute a lot on the Ittok by buying a unipipvot, as this field is rich right now. Even my old Mayware - re-wired - beat my modded RB300 on two suspended decks, the Audiomeca I have and the AR-XA (modded). The unipivots are "tippy", but once in the groove this is not a problem. Someone did a review of the Clearaudio unipivot (I think in the neighborhood of $1000) on this website who owned an OL RB250, and came to the conclusion that the Unify was superior sonically. Unipivots have the closest thing to a perfect bearing in this world (since it balances on a point, and so is frictionless) and Clearaudio do their usual flawless finishing/machining work on it. There are also unipivots by Audiomeca (apparently quite something), Bluenote, Morch UP-4, the Hadcock 242SE and Kuzma which are all reasonably-priced and all have specific design features. Since captive-bearing tonearms are expensive to execute to unipivot levels, they are expensive unless you can find them used - this is the raison-d'etre of the Regas. If you are a fan of high-end MMs, then I suggest a low-mass tonearm used, such as the Black Widow (knife-edge bearing), which is killer on my Ariston with a Grado Woody - audibly superior to the Woody on the Rega, on my Linn-like Ariston. MMs take a leap in detail, 3-d information and dynamics when mated to low-mass tonearms. There are probably other designs I haven't thought of. But if "tippy" unipivots don't intimidate/piss you off, then go this way, I say. You'll find lots of reviews of unipivots on www.ecoustics.com, in the editorial review phono section.