From David Lin, owner of a Classic Lenco ca. 2006, Australia:
My experience with the Lenco started from 2001. After selling my Linn LP12 that year, I upgraded to the Nantais Lenco which is still used today in my system. It is the fundamental foundation of my analog setup which I currently own, and has been for 12 years now! Time flies … and yet, this modified Lenco never makes me consider a TT upgrade. It has the classic modern look of being gloss piano black, and is able to accommodate just the one arm. One record playing, one arm, one cartridge … kind of makes sense. I suppose once you put multiple arms on a deck, it no longer looks classic 🙂
I have only experienced two arms on this deck – a SME 3012R, and now the DaVinci Grandezza Reference 12″. The SME was great, and it completed the Lenco in every way. The chrome and black matched that of the Lenco so well. I had the Dynavector XV1s and the ZYX Airy 3 on this arm at the time and it was fantastic. Fantastic was put to shame when I got the DaVinci arm. A bit of a contrast with the the looks, but the combined sound is the most musical I have experienced to date. Today, the DaVinci arm remains on my Nantais Lenco with the DaVinci Grandezza Reference cartridge.
Recently, I got the chance to try various platter mats on this deck. The Boston Audio Mat 2 was very quiet, but the sound thinned out and became cold, taking out the life. I stuck with a Garrard mat combined with a Millenium carbon fiber mat on top which gave me musicality and with warmth. I found this seemed to work quite well. A friend loaned me a Goldmund Relief mat. I don’t know if this mat is legal! It was just so good! After hearing the Goldmund, you just cannot listen to the Lenco without it, nor can you accept anything else, and I tried hard to … Goldmund or not, I think the secret is the metacrylate material that it’s made of. This mat, lowered the noise, and breathed a lot of “presence” into the sound. It seemed to bring out more music from the vinyl into the room. This mat, I believe is THE mat for the Lenco … I’m not sure what else I can do to my deck to improve it again, but I’m sure one day, I will find out more secrets 🙂