Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hey, I missed the four-year anniversary of the beginning of the Idler-Wheel War!! We've come a LONG way baby, and actually affected the industry and brought to light the phenomena of stylus bforce drag, and the connected issue of speed stability and drive systems!!

Those who deny themselves the Glories of the Idler - the incredible transients, bass SLAM, reach and detail and natural presentation of detail - literally don't know what they're missing. But, thankfully, the Ship of Lenco - and other idlers and associated experiments and discussions with DDs and so forth - sails on, thanks for that Mario and all other participants!

I simply had to post and say that Lenco's are indeed awesome tables, able to spar toe to toe with many current offerings out there, including bleeding edge gear. I've been reading about the Ship of Lenco for a few years now, I finally had to break down and try one, so I built a relatively modified version of an L-75. I used a similar arm to my existing table for the Lenco and my same cartridge to keep all things equal. After a 3 month build, I was a bit apprehensive about what the modified Lenco would sound like-

To say I'm impressed about the sonics would be an understatement. I'm very impressed. All the usual descriptions apply here, frequency extension, air, soundstaging, prat, and above all... MUSIC ! Lots of foot tapping, albums and covers flying everywhere as old favorites are ripped out and rediscovered, playing air guitar, playing real guitar, me suddenly bursting into song, it's all there.

I'm not sure exactly how to describe the sonics, but something is just plain right. So many pieces don't have that quality that it becomes difficult to verbalize why the sound is just plain better, but it is. I'm not foolish enough to say that they will better any top tier (and top budget) tables out there, but they won't be embarrassed, and that much I'm pretty confident about.

Thanks to Mario, Jean, etc for carrying the flame about these wonderful tables. It would indeed be sad if these gems got lost to the hands of time and weren't enjoyed as they should be. It's a testament to a great and somewhat timeless design.

RFG

I made a post recently on Lenco Lovers about my fancy new CD player having sonically bypassed my Lenco (in my vintage living room system). Well over the weekend, I finally rewired my Sonus arm with the Cardas wire and purple sattelite wire (Thanks Jean and Mario) - and as you probably already expect, the Lenco is comfortably back in front.

What I did not expect was that rewiring would make the music more accessible. As happenstance would have it, I had a few uncleaned second hand records close to the table when I got the arm finished and put back on. I put on Ray Charles "Genius + Jazz = Soul". This sonically OK sounding record (Impulse) not only sounded great but for the first time I was able to understand what Ray Charles intended using the Hammond organ on this record. I must have heard this record for the first time 25 or 30 years ago in the college library, and it always sounded to me like a vaguely lame attempt by Ray Charles to use the B3 just because it was popular. However, after rewiring the Sonus and using a Ortofon VMS20Super MM, I realize now that Ray was not trying to copy the popular B3 sound of other famous players - to my mind, he was going for the same type of mildly distorted staccato sound he eventually got from the Fender Rhodes electric piano.

Cool, no?

Hi Grant - who knew? Will try LP records presently.

Mike

My ode to the great bulk degausser was its possible role in curing my Rega 300 of mistracking a year or so back. After removing the hematite slug from the Rega’s anti-skate enclosure, I exposed the entire stub end to lengthy zaps from my demagger. Because I had fiddled with a couple of other variables at the time (including readjusting the Cardas wire at the downturn), I can’t say for certain that the degausser negated some magnetic charge that this Rega might have picked up from some improper storage somewhere (next to some huge speaker magnet?). But I’m open to the possibility that it might have taken care of the problem.

A few words in remembrance of the passing of the Athena AS series speakers, a modern design “budget” speaker that dared to move air with the “Big Boys” costing four times as much. They are gone - vanished from just about every supplier. Athena Technologies, along with a two other Canadian speaker manufacturers under the API umbrella were taken over by the Klipsh Group some 15 months ago. The AS line (Audition Series) was allowed to deplete without replenishment. The “replacement” for Athena’s top-of-the line AS-F2 floorstanders is the LS-500 (LS=Lower Standards?). Here are the specs for comparison:
AS-F2: 1” Teteron dome tweeter; Dual 8" Injection Molded Polypropylene with Rubber Surround; Front-firing bass reflex port; Sensitivity @ 93dbs; Frequency Response 35Hz-20kHz. Weight 51 lbs.
LS-500: 1” aluminum dome tweeter; Dual 6 1/2" Composite Fiberglas™ Cones; Sensitivity @ 90dbs: Frequency Response 30Hz-20kHz. Weight 32 lbs.

When an old established speaker company, buys up a young upstart and eviscerates its flagship product line, it can be said to be uncompetitive, if not predatory. To be fair, I have not auditioned the new LS-500, and so I cannot lay these pejorative claims at Klipsh’s doorstep. However, the specs do raise an eyebrow, and I would encourage folks to audition Klipsh’s replacement offerings and write to the company with their views. This goes for fans of Mirage and Energy speakers as well. Canada has earned too great a reputation in speaker manufacturing to watch it begin to go asunder without comment.

- Mario

Hi RFG, thanks for the input!! Haven't read a discovery post like this one for a long time now, I remember when the original thread was punctuated with just such regular reports from new converts, ah those were the days when nobody but an intrepid few dared try or believe! Kudos to you for giving it a go! Of course, being an "extremist" ;-), I will continue to say that the Lenco, maximized (there are Lencos and there are LENCOS), will outperform the best currently available, especially in that sense of rightness you write about, and if it ain't about rightness, then what is it about?!? Great post.

One recipient of one of my Giant Direct Coupled Glass-Reinforced Lencos has recently reported a big improvement in sound by substituting Stillpoints for my usual cheap-but-effective 3/8"/16 carriage bolts solution. Will have to see just how much more we can continue to squeeze out of these Mighty Machines!!

On the budget front, great news ot report: my Satin M-117 removeable-stylus HO MC (yes!!!! weird cartridge!), from which I always heard the potential for Great Things (about $200 when available, no longer made, rare as hen's teeth), when matched to my own rewired $200 Sonus tonearm (usual Cardas/Petra mix), has matched, or close to, the Mighty JMW 10.5/Ortofon Jubilee combo!! The Satin, though plastic, is extremely heavy, and who knew that this Beast would sound so great on an ultra low-mass unipivot?!? But, FINALLY, bass to match that of the Denon (Satin always being fuzzy in the bass before), allied to close to the detail of the Ortofon (and this with a conical tip!!), and with a HUGE dose of Magic. Obviously the Satin was also a high-compliance cartridge, what an oddball. But its sound is SO magical, even before when the bass was weak (on heavier tonearms), that I always thought it might have the legendary alnico magnets in its engine. If anyone knows anything about the Satin range of cartridges, please report to this thread!! Anyway, the point being, that at the budget/vintage point, it is possible by fortuitous matching to find combos that can duke it out with the current extreme/$$$ High End. Tonight I try out the MAS 282/Grado Reference Master to see how that works out, the MAS itself being one ingredient in the lost lamented days of the Kundfalini Effect in my living room.

On another budget front, I just picked up the Big Brothers to the fab Yamaha 625s I used to rave about back in the days of the Kundalini Effect (along with the MAS/Grado Platinum), the Yamaha NS-690s. These speakers also have the ability to raise the hairs on the body, and I sense soon a return to the Kundalini Effect. The 600 line of Yamaha speakers belonged to the famed NS-1000 line, and are extremely well-built, with the heftiest drivers I've so far encountered (with massive magnets and massive die-cast metal face plates and baskets, and extensive bracing and HUGE crossover components), and the 690 was the top model before the NS-1000 and variants, and in fact has more bass, going down to 40 Hz vs only 55 Hz for the NS-1000s (studio monitors), so some might prefer the greater richness of the NS-690s. The NS-690 has a large dome midrange driver, and a 12" paper woofer in massive basket, being an acoustic suspension design. Gawd these speakers are musical!! And I'm STILL astounded that the little shoe-box Sony amps from the '60s can drive these difficult acoustic suspension designs so easily, while today it takes the likes of Bryston and so on to do the same thing, but with less swing!!!

And speaking of musical/magical speakers, I had written a while back about the Klipsch takeover of the Athena line of fabulously musical speakers. So Mario, they've begun to water down their inherent Musical Greatness have they?!? AND the truly great Mirage line, BOO-HOO. As a testimonial I'll dig out my Athena SP-3s and set them up again and write them up. I also know where to find a lingering pair of new RT-5s and RT-9s, should haste me over there soon and get them, as the RTS-5s were SO musical I rarely hit the sack before 1 am, unable to leave the soundroom!! The RTS-5 were just one model up from the famed RRTS-3s which Harry Pearson fell in love with and regularly wrote up back in the day.

Anyway, have fun all, and don't hesitate to join the growing Lenco Army, which marches with such perfect rhythm and timing and POWER :-). I can't believe that after years of successes, conversions, and such a deep effect on the analogue industry and the analogue landscape, that the cost of Lencos still remains extremely low relative to the pricier Garrards and EMTS!! But good news to all the budding and potential Lenco-philes, as economic conditions are about the same as they were back four years ago (except the days of $25 Decca tonearms are over) when I threw down the gauntlet and dared the world to take the Lenco Challenge (but now we know much more about how to maximize these beasts and extract much more!!!), back when the Lenco was considered the WORST turntable in the world and I was considered insane (this, at least, hasn't changed ;-))! Vive la Lenco, Vive la Idler Wheel, Endless Rightness (thanks RFG)!!