Linn sondek vs sme

Interesting thread. I would not substitute an opinion of a dealer who doesn't sell Linn for an actual audition. 

Am am I biased? Sure, I have and love my LP12. It's far from a bare bones entry level table but it's not top deck either. And it does the whole musical thing very well. Is it a detail master? Thankfully not. 

Is is it noisy! No more so than the record I'm playing. So there you go- go listen, and truly, I have no clue how listening to a record player via a you tube video can be instructive. 

If I were starting over, I would consider an SME 15 as well as a VPI Prime, in addition to the LP12. The Prime impressed me a great deal btw. 


Enjoy the music! 

Speaking of YouTube,  I just saw a couple of lp12s that seemed to sound amazing.  I know it is YouTube but I am pretty excited about listening tomorrow.

Excellent post, casaross. Only thing that I would comment on is the the RB300 arm is not in the league of the Triplanar V11iii. One of the only drawbacks to the Linn, IMHO, is the fact that one is so very limited to which arm you can mount on it ( at present). The Ekos SE, while good, really isn't in the same league as the Triplanar either. I think that the basic design of the Ekos- and frankly the Naim Aro also, has long been surpassed. Note to Linn...PLEASE bing out an arm that will work on the table and yet can compete with some of the higher end designs of today. ( Like the aforementioned Triplanar, or the new Graham's--having the ability to adjust VTA on the fly and azimuth would be a great start)---and NO the Ekos SE isn't it! The basic platform deserves this, IMO.

Hi daveyf. I agree with you regarding tone arms. The LP12 suspension limits the tone arm selection and the RB300 is not in the league of a Triplanar; provided, however, that the RB300 is really, really good for the money. 

I am sure that Linn would love to produce an arm that is even better than the Ekos SE but who can tell when that may occur? And I am sure that Linn will have concerns with the mechanical integrity and rigidity of any arm that provides for adjustable VTA and azimuth. They have the resources to try and to test such designs so we will hope that they may succeed.

I have been able to discern differences in turntables on Youtube-at least those differences I'm interested in.  I'm not really listening for the sound, but the overall ability to convey the song to me.  I would listen to Pasinee for the LP12 SE, but be careful, as, at least on his channel, at times he used a Khan instead of Linn's top-plate.  The LP12 SE uses Radikal, Keel, Ekos SE, and Akiva(or Kandid).