Linn Owners

Woodooworks plinths

ThomasOK

LP12 Whisperer, Lejonklou importer
Wammer
Oct 19, 2018
2,044
4,166
133
Westland, MI USA
AKA
Thomas O'Keefe
HiFi Trade?
  1. Yes
I was told by a dealer that black ash sounded best. I really don't think any of it makes a difference. I certainly wouldn't change out a plinth thinking that this wood sounds better than that wood.
I wood. I mean I would! And did. I conducted quite a few tests of different wood plinths made by Chris Harban doing A/B comparisons with LP12s that were otherwise as identical as I could make them, both Klimax level. I found significant musical differences and these findings lead to a number of customers going to movingui or cocobolo plinths. Every one of those who had the plinth replaced by itself was quite impressed by the musical improvement. These tests were detailed on the Lejonklou forum and are up there for anyone interested. If I recall correctly i just titled the thread The Sound of Plinths.

As to Linn plinths, current and past. I remember someone at Linn telling me that the black ash was the best sounding of the ones available at the turn of the millennium. I had black ash and compared it to cherry and found the two very close with a slight nod to the black ash. When I compared the black ash to the Chris Harban movingui my jaw about hit the floor. It was quite a bit more musical in every way.

I was also told rosewood was not that good sounding. I found this not to be the case as the Linn rosewood plinths are the best sounding stock plinths I have heard. The owner of the store also noted that a couple of the best LP12s he had heard were rosewood. The Linn rosewood plinth I have on my second LP12 is the only Linn stock type of wood to get into the A rating category of plinth woods (see the thread mentioned above). Availability of rosewood was hit by two different circumstances over time that eliminated its use for many years. First is that the most beautiful and desirable rosewood was Brazilian rosewood. It had beautiful color and very distinct figuring, similar to cocobolo. Brazil came to the conclusion that they were giving away a highly desirable resource and banned the export of Brazilian rosewood except in finished furniture made in Brazil. This dried up most of the world supply very quickly although some Scandinavian firms had stocked a fair amount so it didn't disappear entirely. Later came the concerns over deforestation and rainforest woods. This made most rosewood unavailable. More recently there has been a return of "rosewood" veneers on a number of speakers from various companies. These are generally Santos rosewood which is supposed to be sustainably farmed. While not actually in the same family as a true rosewood the appearance is as close as you can get to actual Brazilian rosewood and is quite beautiful. A red stain is often applied to it so that it looks even more like Brazilian rosewood. Linn stopped using rainforest woods like rosewood and afromosia some time back.

As to the current plinths I haven't had the opportunity to do direct comparisons so my thoughts are based more on tap tones. They are not as scientific as the tests I made earlier so they certainly aren't written in stone. The plinth wood I feel to be best currently is walnut. Rosenut should rank the same as it is walnut stained dark red to appear more like rosewood, there is no such thing as rosenut wood. I wasn't all that thrilled with oak but that is based on the tap tone of only one plinth (the plinth has to be removed from the LP12 to test the tap tone). So it could have been a lesser example. Cherry is pretty good but not up to walnut and black ash is slightly better than cherry but I still feel walnut is better. By the way the black ash plinths were made of black ash in the early days, but that is actually a very blond wood with a fairly straight grain pattern. It is then painted black. However, while black ash was abundant in the US and Canada in the past it is now considered threatened due to infestation by the emerald ash borer which has spread throughout the range of the tree and devastated many of the forests. Black ash is now a pretty generic term, even used a lot on vinyl wrapped speakers, and it is likely Linn are now using a different wood underneath.
 

orthobiz

Newbie
New Wammer
Feb 12, 2022
12
14
8
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
It appears to be about half the price of the Linn offered plinth. I wonder who the target market is. Perhaps those with older unbraced plinths and on a budget?
Exactly. I purchased an estate LP12 and am using the original fluted plinth, but if the corners were split or damaged I might consider something like this. Given how many companies make stuff for the LP12, it seems there's a market for just about anything!!

Paul
 
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