Mike. I love it. It's like a modern updated Micro Seiki 8000 with soul and a linear tracking tonearm.
briliant. It sounds like it's a world class performer as well.
Easy to set up or did you have help?
cheers Shane
hi Shane,
thank you! love it too. and agree there is a lot of Micro Seiki in the CS Port LFT1, as there are with other thread drive high mass turntables such as the AS-2000. separate free standing motor box, no feedback drive system, thread drive, air bearing, high mass plinth and platter. variances in execution and materials. but the same concept. not trying to minimize the unique special design aspects of any of these type turntables, only speaking to what they have in common.
a tried and true approach.
as far as the linear tracking arm; i'm very impressed by how elegant it is put together, and how it works. the alignment jig is a dream, and i mean child's play. for the vinyl novice, this single aspect might make it the right turntable to own......and the removable head-shell. much of the mystery and stress of arm set-up is eliminated. maybe some stressful aspect of this arm might rear it's head, but so far i've not seen that.
the air box for the air bearing and arm tube is dead quiet. you can put you ear up to it and hear zero. my hand feels zero vibration. these things were quite demanding of constant attention on the Rockport. maybe CS Port's heritage of their principle running a successful power supply company has raised the bar of what can be done to solve the engineering problems. really happy and relieved to see this..
i had zero help other than a few pointers over the phone from Mik, mostly related to assembly of the plinth and platter, and how critical the absence of dust between the plinth and platter is.
On the base of the turntable, we use 40 kg of 500 million year old granite (granite).
Random vibrations transmitted from the floor surface will be suppressed by the weight and vibration damping characteristics of granite. Granite is used as a reference for making the mother machine (machine tool) as a stone surface plate. In addition, it is processed to the highest grade, JIS 0 ,grade flatness of 5 microns, and a distance of several microns. While keeping the floating platters are spinning.
it was an easy, but certainly long and methodical, process, to unpack and set up. i would not say it would be easy for someone with no experience, but with an experienced turntable person and one step at a time approach, not daunting. last Friday night i started at 7pm and was listening about midnight. that included changing (and leveling) shelf heights a couple of times as i figured out where to put the air box.
if you are a linear tracking rookie, there would need to be a friendly voice accessible for some coaching.
i did the lifting by my lonesome, which is not what i would recommend. i'm 68 years old and no muscle man. the 40+kg plinth on to my 38" high top shelf was a little much for me, and the 30+kg platter gently set onto the delicate bearing was not easy either. but after my 7-8 month pursuit i was running on adrenaline. the rest not any issue.
and lastly; the manual is not bad, but full of Jinglish (Japanese-English). mostly you can figure it out but again, a rookie would be asking lots of questions. particularly in the area of attaching the air tubes it's pretty vague. once i figured it out i felt it should have been obvious. but nothing that is any big issue.
) , linear tracker tonearm , belt drive!!! It will be great to read about its sound.
