The LP12 as you’ve never seen heard or used.
Set it up from the top
Hear your records as never before
“20/20” GL – The Isolation Bubble and LP12
“The Isolation Bubble”
Funk’s new Isolation Bubble concept is the greatest leap forward in analogue for decades.
We’ve applied it to LP12,and made it the best it has ever been.
Love your LP12? However good you think it is, more musical pleasure is waiting to be discovered...
In 40-years, LP12 has repeatedly gone under the knife:
The original sub-chassis lost to Keel.
For decades, Pink Triangle’s DC motor was derided, rejected. Then, mysteriously, as if by magic, it was “discovered”.
Linn’s patented, oil-filled bearing is all that remains.
Is LP12 now perfect?
Sadly, no. Glaring limitations still remain, but you still keep it.
Our singular aim is to do the job properly; to create one of the very best decks ever and thus catapult your LP12 into super-deck territory.
Forget tampering at the edges,“20/20” GL with FX3 is the total, holistic transformation.
Motor Position: Fact 1: A top-plate mounted motor is problem enough. But to keep it on left-rear? Put it politely, it is the absolute, worst place for any motor, on any deck! (Radikal included). It’s just plain nuts.
The sound is permanently affected, not in just one way, but two ways:
First, the suspension. In order to isolate, LP12’s chassis must move relative to the top plate and the motor. Relative motion means belt tension varies. The speed can’t ever be stable.
“Isn’t “cable dressing” meant to stop this?” Only partially and only by shorting out the suspension!
Now things get worse. Accept the suspension is perfect, 20 Hz upwards. External vibrations (up to, say, 500 Hz) still and continuouslyreach your stylus & mess up the sound! How? Via the belt. It links LF vibrations from motor to the platter and obediently the platter moves in response. Opposite the motor, the cartridge-and-arm move freely side-to-side. This movement generates unwanted LF junksignals. It muddles the sound and you hear it.
30 Years ago Pink Triangle invented and offered a “quick-fix”: They moved the motor from rear... to front.
That’s it!
Can something so simple really work? Yes! Because the direction of vibration from the motor is no longer side-to-side, wobbling the cartridge. Now it’s pushing against rigid cartridge-arm-bearings, reducing cartridge-wobble.
How clever! Sadly for you guys, like Achromat, (LP12: 5mm) it fell foul of “Not invented here”.
it wasn’t adopted. You’ve been losing out ever since. (Just whose side is Linn on? Not yours, clearly)
“20/20” GL– The ultimate.
For us even that’s not good enough. The ultimate solution (there is only one): the motor leaves the top plate. Its new home: The sub-chassis. “Motor-Record-Stylus”, all move “as one”. NO LF junk. This places real demands on motor and PSU quality for smoothness. K-Drive is: Pure Class A, single-ended. It can’t be bettered: Hold the motor. Is it on or off? It is so smooth even the stylus can’t detect it!
...Funk’s 3-pulley Vector Drive: LP12’s bearing works because of its oil-gap...but this carries a down-side. Belt tension pulls the platter towards the motor in the gap. Rotating, it must constantly re-position itself in the gap resulting in uneven rotation.
The bearing scrubs. Hence LP12’s (in)famous bearing wear.
“20/20”’s GL’s solution: One motor but 3 pulleys around the platter balances the pull. The platter now rotates more evenly about a point.
Using Vector drive, German “Audio” measured:
“the lowest wow flutter and rumble ever measured”
Now your LP12 can too to give cut-crystal, rock-solid image stability.
...Supporting the record correctly:
Fact: Stylus vibrations enter the record and colour the sound.
Sitting under the record, the mat is the ONLY component able to deal with them (What else is there?)
The mat’s role is as critical as it gets. Achromat’s complex structure dissipates stylus-vibration energy as heat.
So, why haven’t Linn (and Rega) adopted it? Commercially, admitting someone else’s product improves yours? That’s a BIG “No-No”. It too has fallen afoul of: “Not designed here”.
...The sub-chassis. As cars become more capable, manufacturers design better chassis. It’s no different for turntables. Vector Link “20/20” GL’s chassis is not a single piece. It combines 10 individual disparate elements, each performing a different task, supporting the motor, the suspension, Vector Drive pulleys & maintaining the arm-record relationship: Take the arm-bearing plate: With a Young’s modulus (stiffness) double that of aluminium, it accurately maintains the critical arm-disc relationship.
With so much rigidity, the energy has to go “somewhere”: Housed within the chassis is another energy sink that prevents reflections to keep the sound pure – This is an example of entropy in action.
...The arm: What’s the point going to all this trouble in the tt if the arm sings along with the music?
Review after review arms are criticised; quite simply, arms are the weakest link.
Given fair A-B comparisons (they’re not always), the differences are all too easily heard, and price provides little in the way of assurance to performance.
With arm resonance peaks typically reaching 20-30dB(!), Funk’s FX3 with F·X technology returns a meagre 6dB. A sweet, open, natural resolution with tactile low frequencies.
“Tonearm of the year 2019”. FX3 is a perfect match for Vector Link “20/20” GL.
Just listen and hear why they keep winning awards. Even more users are delighted, see the letter.
…Houdini
As if this wasn’t enough heresy, in 2020, Funk introduced Houdini and with it a new approach to getting more from your records was born:
“The Isolation Bubble.”
Simply put, it acknowledges that the cartridge, is THE music maker, not the deck and further, rigidly bolting the cartridge to arm has been responsible for all the problems we’ve faced in improving audio.
Throwing away decades of “Bolt your cartridge more tightly to the arm, even using not just 2 but 3-screws”, Houdini, is Funk’s greatest invention:
It actually decouples the arm’s negative influences from the cartridge.
HiFi Plus: “After using Houdini, I can’t see a way back”.
An end user: “Oh my…”
Doesn’t that say it all?
...You: All this design and technology tells you purity of sound is paramount to “20/20” GL.
Lift the platter. You are in for a final shock - One final altogether radical, innovation:
“20/20” GL sports a totally new hanging suspension!
With it, “20/20” GL now also looks after you.
“20/20” GL‘s suspension is “Set-&-forget”:
“You set”. Then, “You forget”.
The original bounce? It’s still there, only now, it’s stable. All adjustments are carried out from above.
No jigs. No tools. No getting underneath. A couple of minutes is all it all takes. Re-adjust your deck anytime you choose.
Inherent stability means it won’t go out of tune. Other than auditioning a new cartridge, expensive, inconvenient dealer visits are a dim and distant memory.
After 40 years, just how civilised is that?
Cartridges:
As for cartridge choice, with Funk’s new Akutrak, phono stage, MMs are making a striking come-back. Delivering dynamic performance whilst saving you more money on expensive stylus replacements.
State of the Art.
Enfunkated, LP12 with “20/20” GL, you’ll have an ultimate spinning machine.
Contact us for a no-obligation demo...Hear what “Enfunkation of an LP12” actually sounds like.
Apart from junk, what do you have to lose?
You retain your original bearing and arm and plinth.
LP12 20/20 is a single piece assembly
Fit bearing and arm to LP12 20/20 and then simply drop it into place.
Connect the PSU, adjust the suspension and you’re good to go.
