Interesting thought- Linn &

It is not that I think the Linn is not a good table, far from it.  Not sure about the price tag.  I cannot imagine what is possible with the scout.  Maybe an SDS and an hrs isolation platform.  I bet it would sound pretty quiet and impressive but again hrs 1500 and SDS 1000, well you are at 4 grand.  I bet the prime with the added mass, hrs and SDS would be pretty amazing.  The thing with VPI is that the arm is very hard to set up and get right.  Table has to be perfectly level.  After listening to the prime and the lp 12, even though there was some setup issues with the prime, I think I am leaning towards the prime.  It is the best value in turntables.  If I already had a Linn, I would probably keep it.  They do sound great.  

Most VPI users so not use an hrs.  Depending on location many use nothing special or use a heavy ($50) cutting board underneath, sometimes with soft footers of some kind underneath, sometimes not. In lieu of $1200 SDS many are using $525 Phoenix Eagle.  Leveling the platter needs only a $5 level.  (Shouldn't all platters be level?) Prime arm is outstanding 3D arm.  Why do you think arm is hard to set up?  Set up is like all other arms with added advantage of very easy SRA/VTA.

No hrs for me, the Timbernation racks of mine are solid as is.  I had two 3" butcher blocks for amps stands and have recycled them under my tables but can't hear a difference.  They do look cool though!

I have found ime the the arm is difficult to set up for optimum performance.  If a lower end cartridge is used, it may not be as difficult.  I have a glider and a denon 103 that was fairly easy and tracked particularly well with the jmw.  However, I have found that the higher end cartridges are much tougher to set up.  It can be done, but it takes a lot of patience.  I have never had a problem with mm cartridges with this arm.  I am currently using a Benz ref s and it is a bear to set up.  Even hearing it on the ekos arm on the Linn told me that this cartridge is much more demanding and finicky with set up.  It did not sound very good on the Linn.  The dealer had a klyde installed that sounded much better on the Linn than the Benz.  So much so that I could not believe it.  I brought the Benz home and put it back on the VPI and the magic returned after careful setup.  Unless it is set up correctly, the ref s is very siblant and can distort during demanding passages.  When set up correctly,this. Cartridge can sound amazing on the scout.  I do not think there is a better value in turntables that found in the scout.  I have tried the butcher block and did not like it very much.  I had an hrs for audition once and it was amazing what it did.  Incredible actually.  I did not have an SDS.  I am curious of what is possible with the scout.  Overall, as I said, the Linn was better that the scout but I thought the scout was better at making me want to listen to music.  I felt the scout took me to the venue better than the Linn.  The Linn brought the venue to me.  The instruments sounded more realistic on the VPI to my ears but the Linn provided more inner detail, blacker background.  Some of the things I did not like about the Linn may have been system related.  It did have a very solid image of the music.  It makes me wonder if I had the scout on a stable platform and a better motor controller could it outperform the Linn at less than half the cost?

thz21y, I use a Benz SL on my Classic 3. What aspect of the setup did you find most critical to the issues you described?