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While Ivor was away, Hamish changed the ball bearing to a single point bearing. In 1971 Ivor made a prototype turntable with a ball bearing, and then went to Israel. In 1970 Jack's son Ivor formed a friendship with Hamish. Hamish Robertson had a company called Thermac in 1967, which became Ariston in 1970, and Ariston Audio in 1973. Jack Tiefenbrun had formed Castle Precision Engineering (Glasgow) Ltd some 15 years earlier. Further grounds of opposition were that the invention had been 'obtained' from Hamish Robertson, and was his original idea rather than that of Jack Tiefenbrun. The patent was opposed on various grounds, including that 'what was being claimed as new, was in fact old', and that the idea was 'lacking in inventive step' over what was already known. The similarities between the LP12 and the Ariston RD11 resulted in a patent case: Ariston vs. The XA was created by renowned audio pioneer Edgar Villchur. The design was identical to the Ariston RD11 and similar to the Thorens TD150, both in turn based on the Acoustic Research XA turntable that was launched in 1961.
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The LP12 has evolved since its introduction, but its basic suspended sub-chassis design has remained.
![linn ekos arm linn ekos arm](https://simplyhifi.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/linn2-1024x768.jpg)
The Sondek LP12 turntable, introduced in 1972, uses a suspended sub-chassis design and a patented tightly toleranced single-point bearing. 2 Partnered tonearms and power supplies.