6moons audio reviews: Lenco L75


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	Somewhere during his annual trek to the Med, apparently in transit between the Turkish Riviera around Marmaris and an Egyptian snorkeling resort, Jean had managed to hook up with a Cypriot vinylista. The starts were aligning to bless this strange adventure and connect the many necessary dots. The following e-mail updated his progress: "It turns out there is a very active analog audio scene on Cyprus. George has just informed me that if I want a Rega tonearm, I should buy one soon as they are flying off the shelves. This bodes well of course for finding a larger vinyl collection for the review. As to chronicling the setup procedure, to a point, as there are some secrets I protect as having spoon-fed the world, basically, the secrets of the idler at great expense in time and money, and with much criticism for it, I insist followers use their heads to figure out the next logical step for themselves and do at least some of the mental and design work. Also, of course, I have to protect some secrets in the interest of my growing business. Just so we're clear, the Lenco I shipped is assembled and fully functional already (just needs the inescapable seed adjustments and the tonearm/cartridges), but I prefer to disassemble it and reassemble it with a European motor in order to be able to simply plug it into the wall. "A taste of the wonders awaiting us at George's room in Limassol according to what he told me: "I have all the tools you might need, up to and including a Hameg test set which can test for both wow and flutter and total harmonic distortion plus noise, and the appropriate test records. We can use various components within my system for the sound test, including my current reference turntable which is the best I've managed to set up so far: Heybrook TT2 with slightly modified SME 3009 Series II arm. My current reference cartridge is an Ortofon SPU-T/GM but I have several other cartridges available including a Denon DL103 modified by van den Hul, an Ortofon MC3000 modified by van den Hul, an original Ortofon MC5000, a Shure V15 Type III and a Shure V15 Type VxMR. We can also borrow my partner's Thorens TD124 with SME3009 Series II for comparison purposes. Loudspeakers available in my digs are original Quad Electrostatic with units rebuilt by Wayne Pickquet, original Quad PRO-63 in good condition and BBC LS3/5a built by Stirling Broadcast. Electronics available include some classic Harman Kardon solid state (Citation 12 preamp, Citation 11 power amp), a Radford STA 25 Series III classic valve power amp, an Onix OA24 preamp with SOAP power supply, an Audio by Van Alstine Transcendence Eight valve preamplifier plus other equipment.""
		Then a more general Jean-mail followed a bit later: "Since I have some time left over on my Internet connection here on Rhodos, I'll throw some info your way. The Lenco is the nearest thing to a plug'n'play record player in my experience. Unlike belt drives, the belt/wheel (in this case) never wears out, never stretches and never, after initial setup, needs adjustment. The Lenco in a heavy plinth needs only a solid platform (the more solid the better, favoring stone/acrylic or stone/Corian combos) and since, as I make them and many do with approximations of simple Tiptoe footers (adjustable to level the 'able), there are no complications such as are involved with pneumatic feet, springs and so forth which require constant attention. The Lenco motor seems to be utterly immune to various

electronic band aids such as are resorted to by various pricey belt drives and so the Lenco owner does not worry about this either. The motor is very much more powerful than those used in belt drives and also seem to last forever, with only a cleaning and relubing needed every few decades. While the Lenco responds to aftermarket mats in various ways (but does very well with the original mat glued on), this is not a night and day thing unless going to the negative relative to the original. The Lenco does not respond well to clamps and so the owner is again relieved of yet another complication. Since the Lenco -- as I make them -- is simply a very large and inert CLD construction, there is nothing here which will warp or go out of adjustment over time. It simply sits there looking massive. "To sum up, once the speed has been adjusted to the local voltage (a very simple operation which I will demonstrate, and easy too as the Lenco has infinitely adjustable speed) and been leveled via the footers, with the tonearm and cartridge attended to (a change perhaps every year or two, if at all, the tonearm mounted and the cartridge as well), one need only take one record off and place the next, for years on end without adjustment, drifting, complications or worries. It is the simplest, most reliable and longest-lasting record player 'on the market' as it were. Of course, if one wants to play, the tonearms boards are removable, different tonearms can be mounted and of course cartridges too, the sky is the limit. But the platform, the Lenco, will play with no complications for decades." By the time a RS LAbs tone arm arrived from Canada and Rudi Korosec's ESE Labs cartridge and phono stage from Slovenia, with the review table's vessel Zimhaifa spotted in Greece bound for Limassol, Jean had arrived in Cyprus from Rhodes. He was planning a short stint to Jerusalem and would set up the table on his return lest it'd turn up sooner. To provide me some reading material in the meantime, he referred me to a new thread on AudiogoN in which he recapitulated the core of the since deleted original monster thread. To wit: 09-03-06: Johnnantais "...as a case study on someone who could hear some Lenco strengths (bass) but dismissed it due to the general consensus at the time over on VA - which still largely (a few honorable exceptions) dismisses the Lenco, sound unheard (the exact same prejudice I was fighting in the very first days) as not a serious table. Reading Da Thread (then a new pipsqueak) and catching my reference to him (I did not name him to protect his identity but he recognized his posting, another loss with the deletion of Da Thread), he bravely took up the Lenco Challenge. He was then running a Thorens TD-125/SME 3009/Van den Hul combination if I recall, which he loved, and displayed the very quality I was hoping to address: don't dismiss claims (that idler-wheel-drive drives was a categorically superior system to belt drive and the Lenco proved it) due to prejudice, but test to find out the truth of the matter. "Many could still learn this lesson (just go sift through the VA postings) such as those who continue to dismiss and criticize the Lenco sound unheard due to the same old problem I had (and still have) with belt drivers: since I own 'table A, then it has to be better than 'table B (blind prejudice knee-jerk reaction) except if 'table B is much more expensive or has a tremendous following, which assuages my ego. Ah, the good old days when only an intrepid few were willing to test my claims for the Lenco and the whole world was against us, and we could feel the momentum gaining as they first tried it with the then-cheap Decca International tonearm (25 euros!!) which I had been forced to track down. "I had remembered from my days in Helsinki from an old issue of Hi Fi News & Record Reviews that some company in Europe had tripped over a stash of these and was selling them for 25 euros. This was the trick to get people to try any better tonearm at all on the Lenco (they weren't yet willing to invest any serious money even to the extent of a Rega), and as the reports came in of Lenco convert after Lenco convert due to the Lenco/Decca pairing, I finally got them to mount Rega tonearms (though I consider the Deccas musically superior to the Regas while the Regas are definitely more neutral and extract much more information, especially with MCs which also boost their musicality), which on the Lencos undergo a transformation into true gobsmacking detail: dynamics-, bass-, highs- and imaging meisters. With the addition of the Regas to the Lencos, the ball truly got rolling and more and more joined in, came up with ideas, shared their experiences, to create together (the resources and time of the many is superior to that of the few) the now-ruling Giant Direct-Coupled Lenco. "It's time once again to remind everyone of my rationale then,and my own internal thinking which led me not only by comparison (the very early primitive Lenco -- not a patch on its current version -- wiped the floor with every belt drive I tested it against before I ever started Da Thread) but by logic to believe idlers were superior to belts in drive systems. To wit, given the Law of Diminishing Returns, one truly high-end turntable -- which meant beltdrive back then -- should not crush another turntable but instead, according to the price-tag seriousness of the design (amount of materials, engineering), offer only certain refinements over the lesser turntable. But here was the Lenco (even set up balanced on bricks with no plinth, with a Rega popped into the original arm-hole) crushing highly regarded belt drives (at the time I was running a Maplenoll Ariadne and an Audiomeca and had pit it against Linns and etc). My logic was as follows and it applies every bit now as well as we are still in the same old fight (criticism without experience of the aural reality): the humble Lenco with all its faults (as indeed this is the heart of the matter which so many have forgotten, or never knew due to the enormity of the now-deceased thread); its cheaper construction (as compared with the classically well-built Garrard 301/401 and the Thorens TD-124 and of course EMTs and of course the high-end belt-drives it was being pitted against); its so-so main bearing; its relatively unspectacular platter (as compared with many of the belt-drive monsters); crushed belt drives (of course the belt-drivers refused to acknowledge the possibility I was speaking truth, which is why I sneakily seduced many into joining me in the experiment by presenting them with a fun project in order to begin to accumulate my evidence). Why? It couldn't be because of its build quality. "To overcome all the minuses there had to be a big plus and that had to be the drive system since there was nothing else. Hold in your minds the immortal words of Daniel R. von Recklinghausen, former Chief Research Engineer, H.H. Scott: "If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad; if it measures bad and sounds good, you have measured the wrong thing." This embodies the spirit of the scientific process I was always going on about in Da Late, Lamented Thread: experience/experiment trumps theories, period (this, in a nutshell, is science and we are all qualified to judge for ourselves given enough information). Not complicated but increasingly in the scientific community -- and among the general population of course -- prejudice/belief/theory trumps results, which are swept under the carpet to favour the favoured theory (which, for instance, is why the belt drive ruled so long). "Now, at the time I believed, due to its inferior construction, that if the Lenco was this good (and it was) then the much better built Garrard must really be something else, which would only go to show how much superior the idler-wheel system was to the belt/tape/string drives. I had discovered the whole idler-wheel principle when, just moved to Helsinki with my new Finnish girlfriend, I was putting together a good little budget system (NAD 3020i/Boston A40 MKII), and picked up a turntable cheap at a flea market for two bucks. It was a Garrard SP25. It was non-functional and so I opened it up to repair it and was amazed at the Baroque complexities of the underlying mechanisms (an auto-changer with hundreds of springs, widgets, levers) and puzzled by the wheel and motor arrangement, which I had never heard of (the black-out on idler info was that effective back then). "So, being practical and knowing I could never repair whatever was wrong with it, not understanding it one whit, I simplified the task: I simply removed everything which did not have to do with driving the platter directly, all the automatic mechanisms linked to the tonearm, and cleaned and re-lubed it. It worked. So, curious, I soldered a better cable to it and bought a decent cartridge for it (a superb Glanz). I could not believe the sound which was emanating from that system (even the little SP25s when modded retrieve an astonishing amount of information and have astonishing dynamics and bass) and immediately understood that this drive system was better than the belt-drive system (due to the above rationale and because I already owned a legendary Maplenoll and an Audiomeca). I grew angry. Why had I never heard of this system? Was belt drive not touted as the best of all? Now aware of "idler-wheel drive" (I even had to look up the term by sifting through countless magazines in Helsinki libraries before the internet), I began to dig for information. I found, eventually, the Garrard 301/401s, which a few small companies were restoring and replinthing in the back pages of British magazines. "There being no internet yet and my living in Finland, it was impossible for me to find any Garrards so I married the internal drive system of an SP-25 to the platter of a Connoisseur BD2 in a two-level plinth similar to the Cain & Cain plinths being made today and even with separate acrylic armboard to be able to hear what a more serious version could sound like. It was glorious. Finally, one day, again in a flea market, I tripped over a large idler-wheel drive (it was evident to me) with Lenco badge. I thought to myself, "It isn't a Garrard but it is a heavier/better idler, let's play with that!" I bought it, had my Rega tonearm and Kiseki cartridge sent to me from Canada (this is all in '92-'93) and set it up on metal stilts (no plinth at all), and heard such utter perfection (against a context of belt drives) that I was once again overwhelmed and angered. I knew that this system had been unfairly assassinated by a concerted effort of the press and industry (as the LP very nearly was by the Digital Parade). A friend who was by now wealthy heard it ("the hairs are going up on my arms") and invested in its development as he was toying with the idea of manufacturing. So I researched the issues and came up with the "Lenco L75 Prototype rebuild 1992" as it appears under my "system" on AudiogoN. "The plinth approximated the open architecture of the Oracles (and the brief Meitner) by being solid and in two tiers to dissipate noise into the atmosphere and not store energy. The top plinth was extremely low mass (a single small layer of Finnish Birch ply) not to store energy and was isolated from the lower by lossy silicone grommets not to communicate the mass of the massive lower plinth on which the motor -- in order to minimize/eliminate noise/vibration -- was mounted since I had cut off the motor mounts on the top plate, and made new ones on the lower massive plinth in the same orientation as the upper (as it had to be), thus using only three of the springs on which the motor sits, and some rubber shims on the new towers to hold it in place. This was to be the prototype of the new turntable which was to be manufactured out of brass and white marble (I was in love with Greece back then as now). But, this was the time when all companies were ceasing production of both turntables (Thorens for instance) and cartridges (Shure), and it looked like the analog thing was finally going to be dead. My backer backed out I got on with my life (drifting around the world back then, Lenco in mothballs) and didn't return to Canada until years later. I had my Lenco shipped to Canada where it was my main source, made some for friends but never forgot my anger at a lying system (press, industry, scientists, engineers, experts). Then, one day, in my new work, I was forced to get on the 'Net which I had resisted,and tripped over AudiogoN, being new to the whole concept of internet forums. "I first tried to gather any other idler-wheel fans out there -- flop -- and then, seeing there was absolutely no interest, devised my sneaky "Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot" thread to gather followers and amass a body of evidence. In order to make the project/plan work, it was necessary for me to simplify the plans (a single plinth) and make the project simple and so encourage people -- amateurs and woodworkers alike -- to give it a try and have some fun. Make some discoveries (that idler-wheel drive was superior to belt drive) and report on it. From this sprang the various Lenco websites which dot the internet today and battles (often vicious and personal) waging across the forums led to others discovering idler wheels (rather than the select few enjoying hem but keeping their heads low) and eventually open discussions with no further attacks - sort of. "Here was a delicate balancing act: I had to keep the design simple on Da Thread because if any newbies had come onto the thread in the middle of discussions on oil baths and secret chambers and metal work, they would not have given the project a second thought and the whole thing would have died in its infancy, Da Thread and the project -- to have idlers recognized as the truly great system it is (not that it wouldn't perhaps have done so eventually but the thread was growing and gaining steam already) -- disappearing like all the others into obscurity. But Da Thread was a learning experience for me as it was for the participants because, in the course of simplifying the design down to one plinth and the Lenco simply bolted to it, I discovered that rumble and motor noise was after all not an issue and that it was not necessary to go to the enormous lengths I did on the Prototype (I was worried about this for a long time) to produce a quiet and incredibly dynamic and refined Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove. I learned to respect and admire the Lenco as it had been designed the more so the more the design evolved: it is elegant and, after all, ranks with the best in the world due to the implementation of the design. "Another issue is that of overdamping: with too much effort directed to eliminating the non-existent (inaudible) noise issue, the baby (dynamics, bass and PraT out the yin-yang, which is the character of the idler-wheel drive system while stunning detail, frequency extension and imaging are the quality) risks being thrown out with the bathwater and everyone comes to the erroneous conclusion that the idler-wheel drive system is at fault. Then there is the common sense aspect: how can one even know about the success of these innovations in the absence of the experience of the normal reality (i.e. Lenco in simple heavy plinth or even on bricks with a better tonearm)? One must have context for any such experimentation to have meaning or to be even directed in the right direction. In the case of the Lencos/idler-wheel drives, the context is belt drives (most of us have that context) and direct drives, both of which I experienced with to a serious degree. In other words, if you compare it to nothing, then your judgments are meaningless and you are committing the very same error I spoke about at the beginning and which I fought against so bitterly: you are placing theory/prejudice (all in your head) ahead of the facts/empirical reality (experience of the simple Lenco). "Anyway, these are the various balls I had to juggle over time and I learned many things, prompted by issues and ideas to various experiments. I have now come to the Giant Direct-Coupled Lenco and also learned that various weaknesses of the Lenco can be made to work to its advantage. If the Lenco, like the Garrard 301/401 and Thorens TD-124 and various others, had the superior cast and ribbed top plate, the Direct Coupling -- which is a big step on the evolutionary ladder -- could not be implemented nearly so effectively. Those who try high mass on these other 'superior' cast idlers come to conclusions which are apples to oranges and so meaningless. From this, if I were to design a new idler-wheel drive, I would make the top plate better, yes, by greater thickness and so more structural rigidity, but I would make it flat and not ribbed to allow for effective direct coupling - which, incidentally, proves that high-mass is an effective neutral sink for noise like a CLD wooden plinth (I would steer clear of sand and lead shot as too damaging to the life and dynamics, from endless similar experiments on my Maplenoll). This is an extremely effective way to go as there are no musical penalties ( PraT and dynamics out the proverbial) and a huge improvement in detail, imaging, frequency extension and bass, dynamics and speed. "As to the problematic motor, I direct everyone again to Recklinghausen. In itself (actually listening to records), it has proven quite a bit better than theory (examination and knowledge devoid of listening tests) suggests. Yes, it's a 'mere' shaded-pole motor but results argue it is not so mere. It has hidden springs and a structure designed to eliminate noise (Dr. Lenco's genius at work). It is mounted horizontally and not vertically, thus resulting in less stress on the main bearing and more speed stability (i.e. the platter is not pushed to one side introducing instabilities like rim and belt drives). And the Lenco engineers/Dr. Lenco did indeed understand motor issues as this type of motor had an advantage explained in the Lenco company literature: "The 4-pole constant-velocity motor limits changes in turntable speed to less than 1% for up to 13% change in line voltage. Rumble and hum are negligible. Maximum wow and flutter is 0.2%." Now, I am not saying it can't be improved upon, everything can. What I am saying,is that given the results (its track record so far andit has been deemed superior to the 'vastly superior' top-of-the-line idler and direct-drive EMTs by someone who actually owns rebuilt and replinthed Lencos, Garrards 301/401s and Thorens TD-124s), not too much can be made of its weaknesses to dismiss the Greatness of the totality. "This is why the Lenco is a work of genius: elegance. Where EMTs, Garrards and Thorenses are better built and use 'better' motors, the Lenco simply uses what is necessary. As some have pointed out, the towers from which the motor is suspended are cheap tacked-on affairs. Yes, but given that the Lenco motor is hanging from and isolated by springs, a stronger arrangement is not necessary (as simply mounting the Lenco on bricks and attaching a Rega tonearm demonstrates). The motor cannot be divorced from the flywheel platter as the idler-wheel makes of the whole an extremel effective system: the platter has much of its mass concentrated on the rim (as opposed at least to the Thorens and the Garrards) and is balanced due to its very secure coupling (idler-wheel) regulating the motor speed. The superb motor spinning at 1800RPM and balanced to produce pretty well spot-on speed all on its own via simple momentum regulates in its turn via torque (wheel) the platter to create an extremely refined and yet powerful end result. The main bearing certainly doesn't look like much (though it is very nice and obviously made of very high-quality steel) compared to both these other vintage offerings and modern high-end turntables but given the horizontal mounting of the motor and reduced stress (proven by the fact that almost all Lenco main bearings are still in superb condition), more truly is not necessary. The Lenco motor's sloping spindle means also, that such tricks as the magnetic brake on the Garrard, which is often criticized for introducing stresses, is not necessary. The Lenco motor simply spins at full tilt all the time, open and free, and the wheel is simply slid along the length of the sloping motor spindle to achieve perfect and accurate speed . "Again, I am not against improving the idler-wheel system (as I have often been charged with doing), but I am warning against being too dismissive of the Lenco design especially in the absence of experience. The Lenco is far more than the totality of its parts. It is a finely judged common-sense real-world design (producable back in the day at a common-sense price as it would be today) and a brilliant contender for The Best, due to the elegance of its design. Wuality of its parts aside, it is likely the most highly-evolved idler-wheel drive ever built."


			Lenco Heaven website Jean Nantais e-mail