@Capetonian: Whichever LP12 you wind up buying, you would be well-advised to have it set up properly on arrival (airfreight agents look with great glee on stickers that say "Fragile").
Peter Wilson of Soundlab (now in Cape Town) handled mine.
This LP12 was picked up second-hand a few years back and had a Linn Basik+ arm and a Valhalla PS. I scored an Ittok from a friendly dealer as a gift, and took both to Peter. This unit is of roughly the same vintage as Jamster's and, after some discussions with Peter, decided to also have the Cirkus upgrade installed at the same time. There was no cartridge on the Basik+ but managed to pick up an AT-OC5. After a few days, Peter popped 'round with the upgraded LP12 and did the final set-up
in situ and everything just clicked into place.
Later, when we moved house and the cantilever of the OC5 had been snapped-off, Peter had already moved to Cape Town, so contacted Wayne of HFX, who kindly popped 'round and replaced the OC5 with a Rondo Red and checked out the adjustments.
Finally, Croak talked me into talking myself into getting a Funk Achromat to replace that bloody-awful felt mat. He popped 'round with samples of both the 3mm and 5mm versions, and - after some experimentation - we settled on the 3mm as the 5mm required the VTA adjustment to be set so high that the lid would not close. After selection, Croak fiddled with the VTA a while and, finally, left me with something I now really enjoy.
One thing that was needed after the move was a mechanism to level the turntable as the spikes on those old stands had rusted solid and no amount of penetrating oil, etc. would loosen them.
Solution: a 16mm rectangle of Supawood fitted with three flanged threaded collars (left-front, right-front & centre-rear) and with Allen bolts screwed in from the top and resting in small hard plastic 'cups'. An old Stanley centre-level and an Allen key are all that is required to adjust.
Result: No need to replace the two stands, a levelling-platform that cost me less than R100.00 to make, and one happy camper (me).
