It was never great, the main reason for buying it being that it was a little tighter and more detailed sounding, with slightly more solid and tuneful bass. the counterweight, etc.), although it was apparently done to Linn specifications.Īctually, the LV X was a good little arm, but that’s all it was. Funnily enough, it bore a family resemblance to ADC ALT1 clone fitted to the ADC 1700 turntable, minus the ‘ultra low mass’ fixtures and fittings (i.e. It was basically a re-tubed LV V sporting a (then fashionable) long and thin, satin black-painted alloy armtube and better bearings. The first LV X arrived in 1984 and sold for £96 in the UK, complete with the aforementioned cartridge. What Linn needed was a sort of turbo-charged Basik LV V, something that didn’t sound as vague and flat but which was still highly affordable and felt slightly nicer to use. The result was the Basik LV V, a £50 S-shaped design looking remarkably similar to the arm that appeared in the £ turntable, and coming with a Linn Basik cartridge as standard – effectively an Audio Technica AT-93E with a glued-in stylus! The magazines raved about it of course, but in truth it wasn’t as good as the Rega R200, and the R200 wasn’t as good as it should have been to sit in an LP12. Understandably, the Glasgow company felt it was missing a trick, and off it trotted to Tokyo to do a deal for a Linn-badged tonearm. Instead, large amounts of sales were going to Rega its £46 Japanese built, Acos-derived R200 arm worked a treat in the Sondek. The trouble was that the £298 Sondek LP12 turntable was truly taking off – sales were going through the roof – but not everyone could afford the company’s new Ittok LV II tonearm, which cost a cool £253. By 1979 Linn had a problem, although admittedly it was a nice problem to have.