Linn’s tonearms for the LP12, from the Ittok to the Ekos SE, and one Naim

More makes of tonearm have been fitted to the Sondek LP12 than to almost any other turntable. This guide keeps to the ones Linn made, because those are the arms we know best and the ones we fit new, with one exception at the end that is too interesting to leave out.

How to tell what you have

Linn arms nearly always carry their name, so look closely at the arm before anything else. If the name has worn away, the years and the details below narrow it down. Dates are from Linn’s own product histories.

Arm	Years	What it is
Basik LVV, Basik LVX, Basik Plus	LVX 1980 to 1989	Linn’s first affordable arms. The Basik Plus has a fixed headshell
Ittok LVII	1979 to 1993	Designed by Linn and made in Japan, with a separate arm rest. Revised as the LVIII in 1989 and the LVIII/2 in 1991
Ekos	1988 to 2006	The first arm Linn designed and built in its own factory. Headshell machined from solid and bonded to the tube
Akito	1989 to 2022	The arm that replaced the Basik. Akito/2 from December 1994, built in Scotland with better bearings; Akito/3 from June 2015 with a new arm tube
Ekos SE	2006 on	Titanium arm tube and a stainless steel bearing housing
Majik arm	to 2020	The arm supplied on the Majik LP12 of those years, made for Linn
Krane	2020 on	The arm of today’s Majik LP12
Arko	June 2022 on	Designed and made by Linn in Glasgow. The arm of the Selekt LP12

If your arm is not on this list, it is one of the many other makes that have found their way onto LP12s, and we will happily look at a photograph.

How Linn’s arms developed

The LP12 arrived in 1972 without an arm of its own. Linn’s answer, in 1979, was the Ittok LVII: a rigid arm designed in Glasgow and built in Japan, with bearing friction Linn put at under 20 milligrams. It stayed in production until September 1993, and a well-kept Ittok is still a fine arm.

Around it Linn built a ladder. The Basik arms sat below, replaced in 1989 by the Akito, which was itself rebuilt twice in a life of more than thirty years. Above came the Ekos in 1988, the first arm Linn made entirely in its own factory, with bearings matched to a micron. Linn improved those bearings in 1991 and changed the arm lead in 2002, and in 2006 the Ekos SE took its place with a titanium tube.

The current range has three arms. The Krane arrived in 2020, the Arko in 2022, and the Ekos SE continues at the top.

How a tonearm wears, and the signs

A tonearm has two jobs that pull against each other: to move with almost no friction, and to hold the cartridge with no play at all. Both depend on its bearings, which are small, precise and easy to hurt. A Linn arm that is treated well lasts for decades. These are the things that shorten that life.

• Years of heavy use. Every side played is a long run of tiny movements. Over decades the bearings lose some of their freedom or some of their tightness, and the arm lead, which flexes every time the arm moves, ages with them.
• Cartridge bolts done up too hard. A cartridge has to sit tight in the headshell. But when its bolts are forced, or tightened with the arm unsupported, that force travels down the arm tube and into the bearings.
• Travel with the arm unsecured. A deck that is shipped with its arm free to move, instead of held firmly or packed on its own in its own box, lets the arm knock against its bearings for the whole journey.
• Travel with the counterweight on. The counterweight is the heaviest part of the arm, and it hangs out behind the pivot. Left in place while the arm is on the deck, it turns every jolt to the box into a blow to the bearings. It comes off before an LP12 goes anywhere.
• Knocks. A slip of the hand, a caught sleeve or a house move can do in a second what years of playing would not.

A worn arm still plays records, so the signs are easy to live with for a long time. At home you may hear sibilance or distortion that a clean stylus and a fresh set-up do not cure, mistracking when the music gets loud, an image that will not settle between the speakers, or a channel that comes and goes. On the bench we look for any play in the bearings, an arm that does not move as freely as it should in either direction, and a lead that has stiffened or become intermittent.

None of this shows in a photograph, and it is not something to test by rocking the arm with your fingers. We check the arm whenever a deck is with us, and our guide to moving an LP12 covers how to pack one so that it arrives as it left.

Upgrading

Before recommending a new arm, we check the one you have. A good older arm, set up well on a sound deck, can stay. When a new arm is the right step, these are the three:

• Krane, $2,050. The natural replacement for a Basik, an early Akito or a tired arm of another make.
• Arko, $4,965. Designed and made by Linn. For most owners of an Ittok or an Ekos, this is the arm I would point to first.
• Ekos SE, $6,725. The arm of the Klimax LP12, and the natural progression from an original Ekos if you want the best tonearm Linn makes.

An arm is only as good as what it stands on. If your deck still has its original armboard, read our guide to the sub-chassis and armboard first; the two are often best done together, and the armboard has to match the arm. Fitting any arm means setting up the cartridge again, which is part of the work.

And one Naim: the Aro

For years Linn and Naim were sold side by side, and for many British listeners the LP12 fed a Naim amplifier as a matter of course. In the late 1980s, as the two companies went their own ways, Naim introduced a tonearm of its own for the LP12: the Aro, designed by Guy Lamotte.

Every Linn arm holds its tube in gimbal bearings. The Aro is a unipivot. The whole arm balances on a single point, like a hat on a pin, free to move in any direction. It has no cueing lever, so you lower it onto the record by hand. It is said to have been designed around Linn’s own Troika cartridge.

Owners loved it, and many still do. Naim stopped making it years ago, and then brought the name back as the Aro II on its own Solstice turntable. So the originals are no longer made, and the people who have one tend to keep it.

If you are one of them, your Aro does not hold your deck back. The Kore and the Majik sub-chassis are both made in a version for Naim arms, and Linn’s own service documents include instructions for wiring an Aro to a Urika phono stage. The one thing an Aro cannot have is the Keel SE, which takes Linn arms only.

Start with a call

Call (503) 222-2599 or write to sales@pearlaudio.com. Tell us which arm you have, or send a photograph, and Russ Sherrell, our LP12 master, or I will tell you what we would do.

— John Loranger, Pearl Audio

See also: Krane · Arko · Ekos SE · The sub-chassis and armboard · Moving an LP12 · Solid Base or Trampolin.