I have had my LP12 for over 20 years already, and have upgraded from a Basik Plus to an Akito, installed a Greenstreet subchassis, have had Cardas and T-Kable on the arm, and had various carts like Sumiko BPS, Shure V15MR, Dynavector 50X, 20X and XXII along the way. Recently, I came across a used Kuzma Stogi and thought that this must be the easiest way to upgrade without spending much. I just want to share my experience installing and using the arm, since I have had trouble finding info regarding this combo when I was contemplating the change. Hopefully, some of you can give me some pointers and advices here and there
Theoretically, the Stogi should be a drop in replacement for Linn arms (maybe off by one mm). However, when I do the installation, I found that the arm collar (which has a short tube extension into the armboard hole vs. the flat Akito piece) was just a touch large for the Greenstreet's hole. Good thing it was off just very little and some minor sanding fixed it. Alignment wasn't much trouble technically, although I do find that my vision is not as good as the last time I put my Dynavector XXII on an arm a few years back. The integral Cardas cable's size is about the T-kable plus mesh cover and seems reasonably soft. Since there is no extra ground cable to the subchassis like the T-Kable, I also added another thin ground cable from the subchassis to pre-amp (clamped together at the P-clip). I am still using the old style P-clip, which easily tightens over the cable because of its thickness. However, after reading some threads about needing to have "heroic" tightness there, I re-did it again as heroically as I can. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
One thing I don't like too much about the arm is that even simple things like VTF and antiskate requires hex-key, which makes initial set-up and ultimate tweaking rather more time consuming. VTA is adjusted by loosening a hex-key on the arm collar just like other Linn arms.
As expected, this is a much heavier arm and springs need to be adjusted. It didn't take too much work to have it bounce "pistonically", but as I looked through threads (and watched videos) here these couple of days, I found that mine was not bouncing too freely and sort of looked as if it was on "sports suspension". More work this morning seem to have fixed it, although it does seem that maybe because of the higher compression at the arm side spring (vs. its Akito days), the bouncing isn't as feathery as before. Also there is a slight squeak when the bounce goes deep (which I hope does not affect regular playback). Should I be able to do better? I don't know, but it doesn't seem so for now, unless gurus here can help me out. It does sound decent on playback.
As the arm bearing housing is much larger than Linn's, there is not enough clearance with the lid. My solution is to add a couple of about 5mm bump pads to the front corners of the lid and slipped tiny strips of card boards into the slit where the lid hinges attach to the table such that it cannot fully drop down when inserted. That did the job.
As for sound, my initial impression was that the Kuzma has better density of sound than the Akito. However, it also seems to lack a little PRAT at the beginning. As I readjusted the springs, the cable and tweaked VTF and VTA, PRAT seems to have returned. Imaging seems nice and solid and bass is a little tighter. I think I am looking for slightly more air than I am hearing now, so I probably need to tweak a touch more. In any case, I do think that it is indeed an upgrade from the Akito I.
My XXII is getting slightly old. Maybe a retip or another cart is in order? Any recommendation for a good matching cart? One limitation is that the MC card in my preamp can only go up to 100 Ohms impedance. I listen to jazz mostly.
That's it for now. Feedback very welcomed. Thanks.
Theoretically, the Stogi should be a drop in replacement for Linn arms (maybe off by one mm). However, when I do the installation, I found that the arm collar (which has a short tube extension into the armboard hole vs. the flat Akito piece) was just a touch large for the Greenstreet's hole. Good thing it was off just very little and some minor sanding fixed it. Alignment wasn't much trouble technically, although I do find that my vision is not as good as the last time I put my Dynavector XXII on an arm a few years back. The integral Cardas cable's size is about the T-kable plus mesh cover and seems reasonably soft. Since there is no extra ground cable to the subchassis like the T-Kable, I also added another thin ground cable from the subchassis to pre-amp (clamped together at the P-clip). I am still using the old style P-clip, which easily tightens over the cable because of its thickness. However, after reading some threads about needing to have "heroic" tightness there, I re-did it again as heroically as I can. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
One thing I don't like too much about the arm is that even simple things like VTF and antiskate requires hex-key, which makes initial set-up and ultimate tweaking rather more time consuming. VTA is adjusted by loosening a hex-key on the arm collar just like other Linn arms.As expected, this is a much heavier arm and springs need to be adjusted. It didn't take too much work to have it bounce "pistonically", but as I looked through threads (and watched videos) here these couple of days, I found that mine was not bouncing too freely and sort of looked as if it was on "sports suspension". More work this morning seem to have fixed it, although it does seem that maybe because of the higher compression at the arm side spring (vs. its Akito days), the bouncing isn't as feathery as before. Also there is a slight squeak when the bounce goes deep (which I hope does not affect regular playback). Should I be able to do better? I don't know, but it doesn't seem so for now, unless gurus here can help me out. It does sound decent on playback.
As the arm bearing housing is much larger than Linn's, there is not enough clearance with the lid. My solution is to add a couple of about 5mm bump pads to the front corners of the lid and slipped tiny strips of card boards into the slit where the lid hinges attach to the table such that it cannot fully drop down when inserted. That did the job.
As for sound, my initial impression was that the Kuzma has better density of sound than the Akito. However, it also seems to lack a little PRAT at the beginning. As I readjusted the springs, the cable and tweaked VTF and VTA, PRAT seems to have returned. Imaging seems nice and solid and bass is a little tighter. I think I am looking for slightly more air than I am hearing now, so I probably need to tweak a touch more. In any case, I do think that it is indeed an upgrade from the Akito I.
My XXII is getting slightly old. Maybe a retip or another cart is in order? Any recommendation for a good matching cart? One limitation is that the MC card in my preamp can only go up to 100 Ohms impedance. I listen to jazz mostly.
That's it for now. Feedback very welcomed. Thanks.
