Why the Karousel is the best value in Linn’s LP12 catalog

An LP12 outlives other turntables for one reason above all the others: its heart is a part. The main bearing, the piece every other piece depends on, unbolts and can be replaced with a new one, and the new one is better than anything the deck has carried before. That is why a Sondek from 1975 is still a current turntable in 2026, and it is the best argument I know for buying one. Linn thinks so too: the company’s logo is a drawing of this single-point bearing, and by Linn’s own account most of its turntable business today is upgrades to decks it sold years ago, not new ones.

To see why it matters, consider what a bearing is. The platter turns on it, the record sits on the platter, and any roughness, play or wobble at the spindle goes straight into the groove as rumble and smear. Making a bearing that runs truly straight and truly quiet means machining steel to tolerances measured in microns, and that is expensive. Read a review of any turntable in the $100,000 class and you will find that much of the engineering, and much of the writing, is about the main bearing; on decks like that the bearing assembly alone is a multi-thousand-dollar part, and it earns it.

Here is the part nobody mentions at the time of sale. On many high-end turntables the bearing is not a replaceable item. The heart you bought is the heart you keep. Thirty years of daily play, a move across the country, a shipping box that took a knock on its way to you: whatever those years did to the spindle and its housing is now part of that turntable for the rest of its life, and no amount of money spent on arms and cartridges reaches it.

The LP12 is different

On a Sondek LP12 the bearing is a part. Linn has replaced it twice in the deck’s history, with the Cirkus in 1993 and the Karousel in 2020, and Linn makes each one to fit every LP12 ever made, back to 1972. So the owner of a ten-year-old LP12, or a forty-year-old one, can do something the owner of almost no other turntable can: put a brand-new heart in it. Not a rebuilt one, not a serviced one, a new one, with the oil, the thrust pad and the housing all at zero hours.

And it is not merely new. Each of Linn’s three bearings was quieter than the one before, and the Karousel is by far the largest step of the three. Its housing is stainless steel, the thrust pad it turns on carries a diamond-like carbon coating, the liners that guide the spindle are made to tighter tolerances than before, and a substantial lock-nut clamps the whole assembly to the sub-chassis so that bearing, sub-chassis, spindle and platter behave as one piece. Linn says the lower friction extends the bearing’s life as well as lowering the noise floor. The engineering and machining in it are a level above anything that has been in an LP12 before. Owners who move from a Cirkus describe a lower noise floor, firmer bass and more detail, with the deck’s timing intact; owners moving from the original bearing hear more still.

What it costs

The Karousel kit is $1,300, and it includes the current inner platter and a fresh set of springs and grommets, so the suspension is set up new at the same time. It is the upgrade we fit most to older LP12s and the one that changes a deck most, which is a rare combination: usually the biggest change is also the most expensive one. The one condition is Linn’s: the Karousel cannot be fitted to a deck that still has a Valhalla or Wakonda power supply board inside the plinth, so those decks take a current power supply first. On a deck from before 1993 we also look at the sub-chassis before ordering, since some early ones need a current sub-chassis to carry the new bearing.

Put the two facts together and the case makes itself. On many turntables the bearing is the part you can never improve and never renew. On an LP12 it is the part you can improve most, renew completely, and do so for less than the price of a good cartridge. That is why an LP12 bought decades ago is still worth bringing up to date, and why, when one comes through our door, the bearing is the first thing we look at and the first thing we talk about.

Start with a call

If you are wondering whether your deck has a Karousel in it, or what it would take to fit one, call (503) 222-2599 or write to sales@pearlaudio.com with the serial number and a photograph, and we can usually tell you from there. Bringing an older LP12 up to date sets out what comes after the bearing.

— John Loranger, Pearl Audio

See also: The Karousel bearing · Bringing an older LP12 up to date · A 1990s LP12 with a Lingo and an Ekos: three ways forward.