An LP12 glossary

Linn names its parts with a K where a C would do and a word that means nothing until you have owned one. Fifty years of that has produced a vocabulary, and an owner reading a second-hand listing or an old service invoice meets most of it at once. Here is the whole set, past and present, with the year each arrived where it is known. Current parts link to their pages.

The deck and its structure

Sondek. The name of the turntable, from “sound deck”; LP12 is the model. Linn is the company. The deck has been in production since 1972.

Plinth. The hardwood frame everything sits in. Offered in walnut, oak, cherry, rosenut and black ash today, plain or fluted; a new one is a cosmetic renewal, not a sonic one, except for the Bedrok.

Top plate. The thin stainless sheet screwed to the plinth that carries the motor and the three suspension posts. Its fit to the plinth is the first thing a setup checks.

Sub-chassis. The platform hanging on the three springs that carries the bearing and the arm. Pressed steel until the Cirkus thickened it; aluminum in every current version.

Armboard. The board on the sub-chassis the arm bolts to. Separate wood or laminate on older decks; machined aluminum and bonded or integral on the Kore, Keel and Keel SE.

Bounce. What a correctly set LP12 does when the platter is pressed: a slow, pure vertical movement. The single quickest test of a deck’s health.

Bearings

Single-point bearing. Linn’s original idea: a hardened spindle turning on a single point at the bottom of an oil-filled housing. Linn’s logo is a drawing of it.

Cirkus (1993). The second bearing, sold with a new inner platter and a sub-chassis twice as thick. Standard from serial 90,582 until 2020.

Karousel (2020). The third and current bearing: stainless housing, diamond-like-carbon thrust pad, clamped to the sub-chassis with a substantial nut. Standard on every new deck since serial 150,317; the upgrade we fit most.

Sub-chassis

Nirvana (1981). Not a sub-chassis but a kit of springs, grommets and fixings that was the first serious revision of the suspension.

Majik Sub-Chassis. The aluminum sub-chassis of the Majik LP12, with a separate armboard.

Kore (2013). A bonded aluminum box with a machined armboard and the arm collar bolted straight to it. The Selekt LP12’s sub-chassis.

Keel (2006). Sub-chassis, armboard and arm collar machined from one piece of aluminum. Discontinued in 2025 in favor of the Keel SE.

Keel SE (2025). The Keel redesigned by finite-element analysis, stiffer from bearing to arm and balanced more evenly on the springs. The Klimax LP12’s sub-chassis.

Power supplies and motors

Basik. Also Linn’s word for the original motor control, 1972 to 2002: a switch and the mains. Also the name of a budget arm of the 1980s.

Valhalla (1982 to 2002). The first electronic supply, a board inside the plinth holding 33 rpm by crystal. Linn’s first electronics of any kind. Boards of this age fail or run fast, and the Karousel may not be fitted with one in place.

Lingo (1990). The first external supply; the current Lingo (2018) is the fourth, with speed management that checks the platter every turn, and 33 and 45 at a switch.

Majik LP12 Power Supply (2007). The quiet internal board of the Majik LP12 and the usual replacement for a Valhalla.

Radikal (2009, revised 2021). A DC motor and a supply that reads the platter with an optical sensor; also powers a Urika. The Klimax Radikal (2025) is the same idea in a machined case with the Utopik supply.

Utopik (2023). Linn’s current power-supply technology, used across its electronics and inside the Klimax Radikal.

Tonearms

Ittok (1979). The first arm sold as Linn’s own; many are still in service and worth keeping if the bearings are good.

Ekos (1988). The first arm Linn designed and built itself; the Ekos SE (2006) is its titanium-tubed successor and the Klimax LP12’s arm.

Akito (1989 to 2022). The mid-range arm for 33 years, retired when the Arko arrived.

Krane (2020). The Majik LP12’s arm, built to Linn’s specification; replaced the bought-in arms of earlier Majik decks.

Arko (2022). Linn’s first new in-house arm in sixteen years, gimballed, in 7075 aluminum. The Selekt LP12’s arm.

Cartridges

Asak, Karma, Troika, Klyde, Arkiv, Akiva, Kandid. Linn’s moving coils from about 1980 to the early 2020s, in roughly that order; the K9 and K18 were its moving magnets of the 1980s. All are long out of production, and any still playing is past its stylus life.

Adikt. The current moving magnet, with a stylus assembly that clicks off and on.

Koil (2022), Krystal, Kendo (2022), Ekstatik (2021). The current moving coils, from entry to reference. See Linn’s cartridges, Adikt to Ekstatik.

Phono stages

Linto. Linn’s external moving-coil phono stage of the 1990s and 2000s.

Uphorik (2009). The current external phono stage, moving magnet and moving coil, for any deck.

Urika (2009). A moving-coil phono stage mounted inside the plinth on the Trampolin and powered by the Radikal. The Urika II (2018) converts to digital at the cartridge and sends the signal out over Exakt Link.

Base boards and plinths

Hardboard. The thin fiberboard that closed the plinth until 1991; replace it on sight.

Solid Base (1991; aluminum today). A rigid plate on fixed feet. Standard on the Majik LP12.

Trampolin (1991; aluminum from 2006). The same plate on suspended, damped feet; required under a Urika. See Solid Base or Trampolin.

Bedrok (2025). A plinth of compressed beech layers more than twice the density of hardwood; first seen on the LP12-50 of 2023.

The packages

Majik, Selekt, Klimax. Linn’s three levels, used across its whole range. For the LP12: the Majik LP12 (Krane, Majik supply and sub-chassis, Solid Base, Adikt or Koil); the Selekt LP12 (Arko, Kendo, Lingo, Kore, Trampolin), which replaced the name Akurate LP12 in 2022; and the Klimax LP12 (Ekos SE, Ekstatik, Radikal, Keel SE, Urika, Trampolin), with the Klimax LP12 Bedrok above it. Every one of them has the Karousel.

LP12-50 (2023). The 250-unit fiftieth-anniversary deck designed with LoveFrom. See The LP12-50 and the Bedrok.

Klinik. Linn’s word for an event at a dealer where owners bring their LP12 in to be looked at and advised.

If a name is missing

Send it to sales@pearlaudio.com with a photograph of the part and we will tell you what it is, and add it here.

— John Loranger, Pearl Audio

See also: Which LP12 do you have? A guide by serial number · Bringing an older LP12 up to date.