(It’s interesting to note that that’s roughly $18,000 in today’s money, which would make that Goldmund a relative bottom-feeder in today’s ultra-high-end world.) But through it all, Linn has kept pressing forward, ever refining its original concept, as well as morphing into the soup-to-nuts audio manufacturer we know today. Soon the LP12’s supremacy would be challenged by the likes of SOTA, Oracle, Pink Triangle, and others, with the original Goldmund Studio taking the crown for a while-and at $5k the direct-drive Goldmund also shattered the era’s price ceiling. Of course, this only anointed the Linn with an even greater air of mystery and desirability. Tuning its relatively primitive, three-point sprung suspension so that the platter would bounce smoothly and uniformly straight up and down with no lateral wiggle required both a magician’s touch and the patience of a saint something the store’s owner possessed but that I, and most of the staff, never quite mastered.
It might be a Denon direct-drive or one of Rega’s early Planar belt-drives, but after a few backs-and forths with the same musical selection, the Linn invariably won the contest due to its famous ability to communicate the emotion of the music-or put simply, that famous “toe-tap-ability.” I even recall some after-hours listening sessions spinning a vulgar English comedy LP and sure enough, what might have seemed merely crude and offensive on other players was rendered much funnier (if still filthy) on the LP12.īut getting an LP12 to perform to its fullest potential wasn’t an easy task.
Our shop had multiple turntable setups, allowing customers to compare various brands equipped with the same cartridges. My then job’s greatest fun came from demonstrating Ivor’s point to customers. (Tiefenbrun is an inductee to this magazine’s High-End Hall of Fame.) And though Ivor wasn’t the only one fighting the fight, his was arguably the loudest and most passionate voice, and for that and the revolution in LP playback that continues to this day we owe him our gratitude. Today this simplistic notion seems ludicrous, as ever since that time the turntable’s paramount role in an analog-based audio system has been considered obvious. In other words, as long as they spun records more or less accurately, they all sounded the same cartridge choice notwithstanding. Tiefenbrun’s gauntlet throw-down was directed at people-and back in the Seventies there were plenty of them-who insisted that, as long as a turntable had no discernable wow, flutter, or other measurably operational flaws, record players made no real contribution to the sound of an audio system. I was a mere pup, barely 20, who’d landed a job at one of the Bay Area’s best high-end audio shops, and Ivor was touring the States conducting dealer training and proselytizing all things Linn. Or far saltier words to that effect were among the first I heard from Ivor Tiefenbrun, the take-no-prisoners-or-BS founder of Scotland’s Linn Products, Ltd. Once the bubble is centered in the level, you can move on to the tonearm.“I f you haven’t heard it, then you don’t have a bleepin’ opinion!” The next step is to place the included bubble level onto the plinth to check whether the feet need adjustment. Drop the platter onto the spindle before threading the belt around the platter and pulley. U-turn keeps setup as simple as possible for a high-end turntable, and the included guide comes with clearly written directions and plenty of pictures. Setting it up the U-turn Orbit Theory turntable The turntable also comes with a spirit level, a tool that comes into play because the user can adjust the height of the aluminum feet with Sorbothane cushions to absorb vibrations. A lighter tonearm means less tracking force, which means less wear-and-tear on your vinyl. The tonearm is fabricated from magnesium, which is 33 percent lighter than the aluminum that U-Turn uses in its other models. The U-Turn Orbit Theory counterweight clicks into place to let you know it’s in the right position to balance the tonearm.
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