Hi-Fi Honesty

[Simon Hickie]

Well, FWIW, both Karatestu and I are beavering away on 12 inch bass plus cube 1 (or 2 or 3) plans. Stu is well ahead of me, but at least I now have some drivers to play with in a few weeks time. The TV system will be getting a 160mm unit plus tweeter offering - probably first. I've a suitable Mission paper driver that I've already doped and just need a tweeter. I'm vacillating between the very thing SteveTheShadow is proposing (a semi omni with 12 inch bass driver positioned the Allison way) and the two box Karatestu setup. Either way it will not be a P&S offering.

Perhaps it's the definition of HiFi that's found wanting.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It should be what is best for you, and given the opportunity to choose it is surprising how there is consensus. Closed minds, closed ears, brainwash, ego. Forum politics and knob head owners. How can AoS call itself a hi-fi forum when they block and ban discussion about a part of it, same for PFM. Is censorship honesty, not in my book.

[karatestu]

I am surprised that there is a consensus that my prototype speakers are not domestically acceptable

Seriously, they do sound good but need a new box design to make them aesthetically acceptable. I need to work on bass box bracing and steel additions to judge what improvements they bring. I can then form a judgement on how crap 19mm chipboard enclosures are. Mdf is worse though apparently.

It would seem that the only way to get box volume down with doc's 12 incher is to go isobaric. What will two of the doc's 12 inchers in clamshell isobaric alignment sound like ? Only one way to find out i suppose. Has anyone done isobaric with 12" before for the domestic setting ? Will it make my house fall down ?

Sorry for off topic ramblings.

[Lurcher300b]

I am getting quite good at judging his body language.

Just as well I don't play poker then

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It is when you spot something interesting and have to work / listen it out. It is a oh! whats that, it is like Sauron in his tower and the beam of light zooms in, but instead of an eye it is an ear then you work it out, then the Hmm! and often make a comment. This happened when the Cubes went on as the differences made you focus, and you came to the same conclusion as me about the bass in the room.

[CN211276]

Lindsayt said
The Rega Planar 3 was not the most tuneful £200ish turntable in the early 1980's.
There were multiple middle of the range turntables from the Japanese corporates from that era that were more tuneful.
The bottom of the range plasticky Japanese turntables were untuneful. Avoid them at all costs. But when you started moving into the more metallic, or wood and metal turntables from Japan, you started getting pleasantly tuneful performance for the money.

The Rega Planar 3 may have been the most tuneful budget turntable in Rega dealers in the UK at that time.
But, worldwide, there were more tuneful turntables in that market segment.

Reflecting on this, I would say that my view of Japanese middle of the range turntables may be based on me listening to cherry picked examples. The pick of the crop in terms of make and exact model. And some of them tweaked to get higher performance from them by their owners, through choice of arm / cartridge / modifications / phono amplification etc.

Lejonklou said
Never experienced this even once during my 5 years in retail. Had all kinds of turntables in all price ranges brought into the store by customers (we actively encouraged a comparison with what they already had) and they were all beaten by a Rega Planar 3 with an AT-95E cartridge.

The only turntables that were better were the Linns (Basik, Axis and LP12).

tpetsch wrote
We never got on with the Basik or the Axis FWIW although I'd probably agree that the Axis was ultimately the more musical deck but that was so long ago. And like you mention these 3 always beat pretty much anything a customer brought into the shop to A/B, actually can't recall any other deck other then an LP12 once you lock into the tune as your fundamental 1st requirement to judge things by.. The Planar 3 was better built then the Basik and the RB300 -introduced in 83'- was simply a lot of tonearm for the money at that time.

ThomasOK said
This is my experience as well. I still get many of these to work on and had in the past too. Kenwood KD-500, JVC TT-81, Sony 2251 (one of which currently resides in my garage because it likes to spin at about 200RPM and I haven't had time to fix it yet), Revox straight line tracking, Nakamichi Dragon CT, even the Denons which we carried back in the day and felt to be the best of the direct drives. None of them were as musical and enjoyable as the Rega Planar 3.

Indeed the running joke at the store was that none of the "Better than an LP12" turntables that reviewers lauded were actually as good as the Planar 3. So when somebody came in with something they were trying to sell us, like an Oracle or top Thorens, we would always compare to the Rega 3 first. This continues as a fully rebuilt Thorens TD124 is still musically short of a Rega Planar 3 and some Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference tables I rebuilt, while pretty good, still weren't quite as musical. A twice as expensive Nottingham Analogue SpaceDeck was one which a few years ago garnered us a long term customer as he found the Planar 25, and even the third of the price Planar 3, were musically superior. There are others, both vintage and modern, but you get the idea.

John said
Our shop did A/B comparisons for all new customers who entered the store. The point was to demonstrate the tune dem and inform them that when we said one component was better than another, they would know what we meant.

I recall a customer who had been in before and went through all the A/B’s who eventually brought in his Sota Saphire, a much touted turntable in its day. Out of respect to the customer, it was first compared with the LP12. Once he got comfortable and realized the LP12 was more tuneful we brought in our Rega Planar 2 which outperformed the Sota as well. He ended up purchasing a top LP12 from us and later electronics and loudspeakers.

Source: https://www.lejonklou.com/forum/viewtop ... a&start=50

[karatestu]

There is only one person being honest here I suspect.

[CN211276]

A thread well worth reviving and I stand by my comments on pages 2 and 7. As the Rega Planar 3 and Linn Axis feature prominently in the discussion there is something I can add.

In the 1980s I worked with someone who owned the Axis I provided him with tapes to record some of his albums for me. The quality of his recordings was no where near the quality of mine from my original Rega Planar 3 with S shaped arm. Although other factors would have come into play I'm sure the Axis contributed.

[TheRealAleman]

Dealers favourite turntables are the ones that ring the till the most often. Dealers will usually stock what people are asking to listen to. Pre internet, the main driver for that was magazine reviews. When Linn combined best reviews with clever marketing and the ability to sell upgrades and servicing, they and their dealers were on to a financial winner.

I reckon that most people who went into dealers were already mentally invested in the Linn because all the mags said that it was the one to have. If you couldn't afford the Linn, the Rega was sold as the next best. The dealer wasn't going to talk anyone off of either.

When I bought a Linn I thought it sounded a lot better than my Rega, but it was the only comparison I had made. Japanese DD decks were widely described as either plastic junk or overpriced and bettered by the Linn, and Idlers were considered an anachronism, plagued by rumble. Very few people were asking to hear either.

An honest dealer is one who says that they stock what people ask to buy.

[Lindsayt]

I've just posted the following on the Lejonklou forum. As I am genuinely interested in finding out their honest opinions as to why my reported experience of the Rega Planar, LP12 et al is so different to theirs.

In 1983, when I was buying my first system, I demoed a Linn LP12 with Basik LVX against a Rega Planar 3 with both having the A&R P77 cartridge. To my ears the LP12 was well ahead of the Rega.

I also demoed an Ittok against the LVX. The Ittok was another step up. But too much in price for me at that time. So I bought my LP12 with the LVX.

Over the years, as I could afford it, I upgraded my LP12 to late Ittok, Lingo 2, Cirkus, Troika. Getting it to a level above the 1983 Valhalla, early Ittok, Asak.

In c2008 Richard Dunn hosted a bake-off via the PFM forum where some inexpensive, middle of the range when new, Japanese 1970's to 1980's direct drives were compared against Zener's LP12 (similar spec to the LP12 I had at that time). The LP12 lost. Zener sold it shortly thereafter. I decided that I would check out for myself whether that bake-off was representative or not.

Since then I have conducted quite a few listening tests.
I have also looked at the under the bonnet engineering of various turntables with my Mechanical Engineering hat on.

My conclusions: my 2008 Linn LP12 wasn't all that. It was quite beatable from a tunedem point of view by plenty of (cherry picked) turntable, arm, cartridge combinations - dating from the 1960's to 1980's. Making the top level LP12 from 1983 even more beatable by it's peers. And a Basik LVX equipped LP12 even more beatable than that. And a Rega Planar 3 pretty much no contest to beat. To the extent that I would call any vinyl source that couldn't out tunedem a Rega Planar 3 as either broken or a pile of rubbish.

A big question I would like to ask you guys is:
Why do you think my reported experience of the Linn LP12 and Rega Planar 3 vs Cherry Picked A N Other (including Japanese direct drives) differs so much to yours?
What do you think is going on here?
Feel free to be very open and honest here. Give me both barrels, if you want. Or alternatively, feel free to do a brainstorm of possible reasons that explain the gulf in this matter.