Products of the Year

Editor's Choice of 1993

Linn Sondek LP12 turntable ($1395–$2745 depending on finish and power-supply option; reviewed by Larry Greenhill, Vol.7 No.2, Spring 1984; Martin Colloms, Vol.13 No.3, March 1990; John Atkinson, Vol.14 No.1, January 1991, & Vol.16 No.11, November 1993; and Corey Greenberg, Vol.16 No.12, December 1993 Review)

I first heard the Linn Sondek in the fall of 1976, having recently given up my musician career (it's probably more accurate to say that it gave me up) and exchanged my Fender bass for a typewriter and the lowly position of copy/news editor at England's Hi-Fi News & Record Review magazine. I was new to the industry, and knew nothing about high fidelity other than what I had gleaned from my listening and reading. So it must have been a kindly Fate that ensured that one of the first rooms I went to at a small hi-fi show at a hotel near London's Heathrow airport was the one shared by Naim Audio and Linn Products.

One of the things I did know in 1976 was that direct-drive was the way for modern turntables to go 'round. So when this bespectacled, T-shirt–wearing Scot with a Scotch in one hand and a filterless Capstan cigarette in the other waved at a hi-tech Technics SL-110 direct-drive turntable and told me what a bunch of "craaaaap" it was compared with the Linn, I was mildly amused. After all, the belt-drive, sprung-suspension Sondek looked like nothing more than a refined version of the Thorens TD-150 I'd purchased back in 1970 to replace my rumble-prone, semiautomatic Garrard. Then Ivor Tiefenbrun, for it was he, told me to shut up and listen.

To say that the big Technics was trounced would be an understatement: it sounded like noise compared with the Sondek, even though it was fitted with an identical arm and cartridge (a Grace 707 and Supex 900E, I seem to remember). All the small troughs and peaks in the music's pitch structure seemed to be filled on the direct-drive turntable, whereas the Sondek allowed you to hear the music breathing.

I would have stayed and listened all afternoon, except that Naim's Julian Vereker spotted my Hi-Fi News & Record Review press badge and proceeded to berate me for a negative review of the Sondek by one Frank Jones in the then-current October 1976 issue of the magazine. Frank had pooh-poohed the idea that the turntable could have any effect on the sound at all other than introducing rumble, wow, and flutter, and had apparently performed listening tests with this in mind. He had accordingly dissed the Linn in favor of a now long-discontinued model, the Fons CQ-30, which featured more than the LP12's one button. I now knew that Mr. Jones was sadly blinkered, but that didn't stop me from being speedily ejected from the room.

Time passed; Linn and Naim became major players in first the UK, then the international high-end scene (not without a certain amount of political infighting and inspired, born-again–type marketing), and Frank Jones became a VP of something-or-other at KLH/Infinity (both brands were owned by the Japanese Kyocera company in those far-off days). I didn't forget the lesson I had learned, and in January 1978 bought—from, ironically enough, Julian Vereker—the first of the three LP12s I have owned.

The LP12 was a pig to tune in the late '70s: for no apparent reason at all, it sounded magnificent on some days, only average on others. Various improvements to springs, grommets, and subchassis stabilized the setup, but the biggest improvements to its already superb performance came with the addition of frequency-synthesized power supplies, reducing the LP12's synchronous motor's dependence on what came out of the wall. Corey Greenberg reports elsewhere in this issue on his experience with the LP12 in its three differently powered guises—Basik, Valhalla, Lingo—but to briefly summarize, the effect of the Valhalla, then the Lingo, is to progressively deepen and tighten the turntable's bass performance and render the silences more silent.

The latest modification—actually more of a rebuild—the Cirkus, is controversial in that it removes the last vestige of character possessed by the Linn: its fat, generous upper-bass region. "It doesn't sound like a Linn anymore," goes the refrain. But that's progress, fella. Once a radical Scottish outsider, Ivor Tiefenbrun now looks comfortable in a business suit, is a pillar of the British business establishment, has been honored by the Queen with an MBE, makes his products in a Richard Rodgers–designed computerized factory, and sits at the wheel of a leather-upholstered, Tom Walkinshaw–tuned Jaguar XJ-S rather than the turbocharged Ford he drove to meltdown in the '70s. Similarly, the mature LP12 now needs to compete with CD rather than other vinyl spinners, and must be judged accordingly. (Many other turntables have been introduced since the LP12's debut in the early '70s, most said to be better in one or more ways. Nearly all have gone the way of all vinyl.)

I applaud Linn Products both for keeping the Sondek's basic design consistent for what is now more than 21 years, and for supporting their LP12 customers with updates, seminars, clinics, and plain good old loyalty. Almost a complete definition of why the Linn Sondek LP12 is the Editor's Choice for 1993.