Zen and the art of setting up the Sondek One of the regular requests we get from readers is for an article on setting up the Linn Sondek. An April Earsay piece by AG on a poorly set up Linn he came across in his travels with an Alfasud (make that a Rover from now -- Ed) seems to have raised this question yet again.
If you have ever, like yours truly, got involved with this Question you will know it can be a weighty and ponderous one. Like the question of whether God exists if you are religious, or whether other people see the same colours as you if you are a painter, it is one which can rest heavy on the heart and eat
at your soul (if you didn't sell it to get the hi-fi) and make life a misery for yourself, your nearest and dearest, and Linn's Iain Tennant who has to field your questions.
Like those other questions it is ultimately a fruitless one to ponder. But unlike them it has an easy solution. In fact it has been answered before in HFA by erstwhile editor Paul Benson - put it on the back seat and drive along to your nearest Linn dealer.
In any case, there should not in the vast majority of cases be any grounds for interrogating your Linn about the meaning of life. If you bought it as we recommend it the Query pages from a dealer who demmed it for you. you in a system similar if not identical to the one you have, and who then set it up for you, you can appreciate instantly whether the music plays tunes as it should. No problem if you bought it, as we recommend in the Query pages, from a dealer who demonstrated it too. But to bend an epigram of Gurdjieffs, the infinite care taken by Linn Products in getting the LP12 to you in prime condition is exceeded only by people's capacity to do stupid things to it. The temptation exists to 'do it yourself if you're changing the arm or cartridge, or if it has been disturbed in transit, or if it's an elderly second hand one, or if you've got itchy fingers, or if (heaven forbid) you bought it 'in a sealed box', or if you're bored with music. Some of these reasons are more understandable than are others, but the message is the same - let someone who knows what they're doing do it for you.
I must admit that in fulfilling the obligations of my contract with Haymarket I have more than once succumbed to temptation, so I've first hand experience of some of the things that can go wrong, and what the consequences are. My advice is to not even consider the possibility of doing it yourself. The Linn as set up by the dealer is like a cone poised on its point: the more you do to it not knowing what you're doing, the more it will fall out of equilibrium, and the harder will it be to get it back to its optimum performance.
The most serious danger however is of damaging one of the internal parts. This may render the deck impossible to set up without replacing the offending item(s) and will involve you in unnecessary expense. I am aware that certain Linn owners have a love/hate relationship with their turntables, and being taken in by the essential simplicity of the design, may construe these remarks as a challenge to their manhood. These people are advised to seek medical help first.
(I'm also aware that a contributory factor is the hobbyist attitude to hi-fi which, like with cars, treats the means as an end in itself, and encourages customising your equipment, souping it up, tuning, etc. It's difficult to bring about changes in attitudes, which are reinforced by so many things outside hi-fi or music. So can I remind you again that the purpose of hi-fi is reproducing music in the home, and simply that)?
It's recognised by many that the Linn's performance is peerless among hi-fi turntables when set up in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions -- which are the instructions to follow to get the best from the LP12. If these are not complied with, its performance may be greatly reduced, and it may be difficult on auditioning to hear any superiority over other turntables. Its benefits can be put simply as enabling the music (ie the pitch and duration of notes) to be grasped with less difficulty and mental strain than from other turntables.
This is the crux of deciding whether a deck needs attention to extract its optimum performance, and the objective of the `setting up' procedure.
As a music lover pure and simple faced perhaps with some problem with your Linn, consider what you'd do if you were ill. You don't know how your body works, what makes it go wrong, what things can go wrong inside, or how to put it right. People would think you were mad if you announced that you were going to operate on yourself. But when the same thing happens to your Linn, no'hi-fi expert' bats an eyelid. Draw your own conclusion ...If there's a difference it's that illnesses have symptoms, and that merely to feel or complain of being dissatisfied with your Linn is going to produce the same quizzical response as if you had said the same about your body to the doctor. In general, this will hardly ever justify a complete transplant. I'm not saying that serious things may not start from a vague malaise. However, the point is that we learn as we grow up that there are such things as symptoms, and we learn to watch out for things that can go wrong with our bodies.
So to fill a hiatus it might be useful to point out some symptoms of a Linn's deterioration in performance. The list I give which follows isn't comprehensive, but drawn from limited personal experience. Use it in the same sensible way you would if it were your corporeal person that had deteriorated. In other words, don't go ape -- a cure is just a phone call (and wallet's reach -- they don't do Linns on the NHS) away. And finally, if the specialist dealer network in this country collapses under the stress of coping, half the nation's Sondek owners -- gentlemen, you went into this game with your eyes open.
As a Linn owner you may feel some special affinity for its sound. It may be its capacity for tingling the spine, firing the blood, stirring the viscera, or reminding you of your long lost childhood belief in magic. If so, the sound should evince some such personal response every time you turn the deck on. If it doesn't it could mean rigor mortis is setting in. But equally it could be something to do with the rest of your system, or with the Linn.
2) Long notes show wow and/or flutter as they decay (onomatopoeic description). This is especially noticeable on piano music, but you can hear it on any music where a loud note or chord is followed by a quiet bit. The Linn may Wow! But in normal circumstances it should not wow.
3) The bass is less tuneful than other instruments, you can't catch the tune, and deep bass notes are a nondescript thud. With this effect it could be the speakers, amp, and tonearm, and you have to rule them out first before blaming the deck.
4) Cymbals sound rounded off, rather than sharp and brisk, and musically seem to lag behind the beat. Again it could be other components giving the trouble. The rounded sound is often considered more realistic and accurate' and less coloured'. But anyone who has heard real instruments close up (which is how they are usually recorded) will be in no doubt about what's right and wrong here. If you haven't, you're in for a surprise and a shock.
5) Groove tracing seems more sensitive to external shocks than you noticed before.
Those are some aural symptoms of a decline in turntable performance. You can check some further points by a simple visual inspection which takes half a minute and doesn't involve you in delving into the innards.
6) Armboard height. Although I have had my deck for several years and in this period the armboard stayed pretty much at the same height, I have come across the odd case of the armboard dropping as much as a quarter of an inch below the level of the plinth. If the suspension is adjusted properly in the first place this should not happen, but if badly adjusted the springs may singly or severally collapse a short distance. The correct height is a whisker above the plinth - a millimetre is too much.
I'm reminded of the true story of one Linn owner (this can serve as a timely warning) who brought his already set up deck home, and shortly after phoned the dealer to complain that the subchassis had collapsed when he tried to undo the transit screws. There are no transit screws.
The armboard height should be the same all round the plinth, except on the side adjacent the top-plate. Here a sag in the top plate should be obvious. That is intentional: it's an integral part of the design. 7) The armboard should be level also. As the subchassis doesn't extend under the armboard all the way to the other side, if the armboard isn't level it could mean it's not properly secured to the subchassis. Equally it could mean the bearing housing isn't vertical if the platter is level with the top plate. 8) The armboard shouldn't be skewed in its cutout. If it is, it's strongly likely there's something else wrong (see further below) which needs attending to. Occasionally some decks are skewed because the armboard fixing holes aren't quite in the right place, while everything else is correct. There's no need to worry about this. If it's leaning close to the plinth or top plate or touching either, this is incorrect.
9) The platter should be level with the plinth.
There are also some simple operational checks you can do.
10) Lift off the outer platter and put it back on the inner one inverted. When you switch the deck on the belt should slip downwards and then come up the pulley to rest with its lower edge just on the part of the pulley where it starts to taper. Replace the outer platter properly.
The belt incidentally should also run between the guides fixed on the top plate near the motor. It should not contact either guide, although if it does you will soon be aware of the scraping noises, the smell of burning rubber, and the sound of gnashing of teeth which ensues.
11) Put a record on and the stylus down on the groove with the cartridge tracking at the manufacturer's recommended force. With it playing, tap the record label strongly enough to bounce the suspension. The stylus should keep on playing the record. If it gets thrown out of the groove the suspension is not correctly set up.
12) With the deck stationary, grip the centre spindle and move it back and forth and from side to side. You can see from the armboard how it moves, and the suspension should allow movement of a clear quarter inch each way. Also the motion should be a smooth one and unobstructed, and should not glitch half
way.
13) Tap the platter to excite the suspension vertically. Two things to watch for here that shouldn't happen. First, motion of the system should be confined to the vertical. The armboard should not show any tendency to twisting in a horizontal plane (an arm-cable and/or spring fault).
Second, the suspension should bounce as a unit. If the bounce seems peculiarly wobbly and skewed, check further by tapping first on the front of the armboard, then on the back, then on the opposite side of the platter. In each case the bounce should take about the same time to settle down (this is difficult to time, but it's obvious when one bounce is a lot less than the other two).
Properly set up Linns will pass all these tests without much shadow of doubt. If yours appears to fail the odd one, it's more likely that you've misunderstood something I've said than because of any failing on the part of your deck. If it fails many of them, and there's fair doubt about how it's doing on the others, you should take it to a dealer.
Finally address any further queries you have to your dealer or to Linn Products, not to 11R.Adrien Orlowsky
HI-FI ANSWERS AUGUST 1982
Pages 17, 19 & 21