Zee9 ..... Coming back to Linn!

[Zee9]

I had the first pair of Linn (Keilidh) speakers and a basic Majik-I integrated amp (35w) back in 1994 and made the mistake of selling it when I moved back to india from Germany.

Fast forward 24 years and I realized how much I enjoyed that sound even on a budget and decided to get back into some linn gear.

Over the last few months although promising the wifey that we won’t spend more than $1000 on s/h linn gear here we are

Linn Majik DSM/1
Linn Unidisk SC
Majik C5100 (4/5 channels for bass and mids)
Akurate C3200 (2/3 channels for the highs)
Silver and black interconnects.
28 year old Kabers in black with some artistic modifications as the black just looked boring. That’s real copper leaf on the speaker surrounds (rubber pierces to hide the Allen bolts holding the woofers in place)

Just received aktiv cards and am hoping to find a second C3200/non Dynamik to have a 3200 for each speaker.

[R-Know]

Nice set up Zee.
I love the upper leaf!
Lot's of luck and joy with it all.
Arno

[Zee9]

So ended up spending some
Money yesterday :(

Got a very good deal on a used target rack. And also found a (new to me) Ak4200/1 that should hopefully arrive by Monday.

I moved the bass aktiv cards to the c3200 and the mids and high cards to the c5100 so i don’t have to pull out the whole system when the Ak4200/1 arrives. I can’t tell if the bass has improved but I can say that I don’t like the Majik level amp on the highs compared to my older c3200/non d.

Here’s a picture for you guys...

[Zee9]

a lot has changed since august 2019..... the whole pandemic made us rethink what we enjoy and i decided to stop riding my motorcycles when the healthcare system was so overburdened and to spend that on our system...... we went thru some major changes..... from the Kabers to 242's to Majik 140's to Exakt Akubariks.......

its only been few weeks since we got our akubariks and I'm still moving them slowly and trying to get them to sound the best we can..... but the setup has become simpler and i must say a lot of fun. We also got to add a TT (not a big enough vinyl collection so we started slow to see if we even want to follow that path).

its been so long that I had forgotten how to add a photo to my post!

[Discodave]

Looks great!!!

Out of interest how do you add a photo? I've only been able to post links in the past.

Cheers

[lejonklou]

When you make a new post, at the bottom there's Options and Attachments. Choose Attachments and add a file.

[Discodave]

Aha, many thanks Fredrik!

[Charlie1]

Or remove the end characters of your photo link and replace with "?raw=1"

Looks good Zee. What else did you get in IKEA? 😉

[Zee9]

Or remove the end characters of your photo link and replace with "?raw=1"

Looks good Zee. What else did you get in IKEA? 😉

Just the gunstigs that are under the apteligs and the apteligs themselves.

[Zee9]

A small change in the system hence the update

We added an lp12 recently
Details are: walnut plinth, karousel, Kore, trampoline 2, Akito arm, akurate radikal/1. Since we are new to the TT hobby we started out with an AT-VM95ML and it’s sounding fantastic compared to the old basik.

[Tendaberry]

Nice looking and a great choice for a first LP12! Enjoy!

[ThomasOK]

Looks like a nice table and the money is in the places that count. Have fun.

[Zee9]

A lot has changed over the last 5 years. This time the change was mainly due to 2 reasons. A. Free up some much needed cash B. After experiencing Lejonklou amplification and also due to reason above, we decided to move back to a passive setup.

The source meanwhile has changed to a selekt dsm katalyst for streaming (will probably get sold soon and hopefully get replaced by a preloved Källa when possible) The lp12 has received some updates. We moved from an akito/1 arm to an Ekos SE/1 (in storage at the moment as a dear friend gifted me an ittok lvIII mk2 with a barely used Kandid.)

The preamp is a recently serviced Akurate Kontrol/0 and the power amp is a preloved tundra 2.5 driving a lovely pair of passive Kabers that have been supplemented with some isoacoustic Gaia III’s on 3 slabs of marble. The first layer of marble helps to get the base almost leveled and the other two slabs help with raising the height of the tweeter on the Kabers.

We’ve also added a RelT7i which helps the Kabers quite a bit. I still have to run some tests between a Linto vs. a Creek Audio OBH-15 mk2 to decide on the phono stage.

Photos to follow soon…..

[Hermann]

Very nice setup and when I think about the upgrade potential waiting to be realized, these are really excellent prospects.

[Zee9]

Photo update:

To my ears the Linto sounds a bit better in the bass section although the creek audio OHB15 mk2 sounds like it has more separation. I’ll leave the Linto in the system for a few days.

[Tony Tune-age]

Nice looking system Zee9...

I had a Linn Linto phono stage for awhile, it sounded really good and was priced nicely as well.

Enjoy!

[Zee9]

It will be replaced with an entity soon enough. Just need to slow down on any new purchases.

Nice looking system Zee9...

I had a Linn Linto phono stage for awhile, it sounded really good and was priced nicely as well.

Enjoy!

[Tony Tune-age]

I get that, seems like there's always something to purchase. And of course the Entity 1.2 sounds fantastic, definitely better than the Linto and Urika phono stages!

It will be replaced with an entity soon enough. Just need to slow down on any new purchases.

Nice looking system Zee9...

I had a Linn Linto phono stage for awhile, it sounded really good and was priced nicely as well.

Enjoy!

[Zee9]

Few changes over the last few weeks. After asking on the forum about speakers that may work with Lejonklou amps I stumbled upon a premixed pair of Jean Marie Reynaud speakers. It’s an older version of the Bliss Silvers so probably from JMR’s time.

Getting the dedicated stands was not an option due to our very uneven suspended wooden floors. The JMR “Magic” stands although mandatory have no spikes for leveling purposes.

I found a pair of solid wood QS&D (never heard of this brand) which are in Rosewood but will eventually get sanded down and painted black to match the Grills.

Before I even moved the Kabers away I wanted to hear what the new (to me) speakers sound like and if they will be kept due to the blind purchase. So they were placed next to the Kabers on the wooden floors with spikes and Linn skeets. For a Kabers user for the first time I felt that’s way too much Bass. Uncontrolled, boomy etc but my wife and I could both see that this bookshelf had a lot of potential.

After a few days of trying them out we moved the Kabers yesterday and they were placed on the double marble slabs I have. (2 slabs) well the uneven floors are so bad that I get 2 levels of possibility to try and level the slabs so that the Isoacoustic Gaia’s short metal stubs don’t fall short at the time of leveling. The whole bass boom was gone but the initial test was with our tundra 2.5

The Linn amps I have in stock reduced the bass boom and I was surprised because I always found the Akurate 4200/1 to sound thin and dry to my ears.

First amp was a 5105 and it sounded good but you could see there is room for improvement. We s paper in the 4200/1 and now you can clearly see the changes with Linn’s newer amps. More detail, better control on the bass.

I was unhappy and concerned that the tundra 2.5 didn’t bring out the best in this speaker but soon got rid of that feeling the moment I realized how the speaker sound changed once they were in the marble slabs.

The tundra 2.5 had not been tried in the bedroom with the Kan II’s so I moved that there while we were testing the main system.

I have never heard my Kan II’s sound as good as they sound with the tundra 2.5. It clearly shows the improvements from the Tundra 2.2 Tarandus.

So we’re gonna leave the 4200/1 running the JMR speakers till we are happy with speaker positioning etc and will bring back the Tundra 2.5 eventually.

[Spannko]

Without a video, your descriptions are very difficult to relate to.

[Zee9]

after w eeek of comparing the 5105 vs the akurate 4200/1 i much prefer the akurate with these speakers. with both amplifiers the subwoofer adds some fun.

today i removed both the linn amps and have brought the tundra 2.5 back into play. with the Tundra i don't fee the need for the subwoofer(for music at least) in fact i also brought the speakers about 3 cos more into the room.

so setup is Selekt into tundra 2.5 via silvers. K400 (split) into JMR Bliss Silvers on Isoacoustic Gaia III which are on the double marble slabs (approximate height is 28' which is what the JMR "Magic" stands are). speaker front baffle is 55cms from the front wall.

i made two videos with the lejonklou amp is it ok to add them here?
PS - can't seem to add videos to the post via attachments

[lejonklou]

Would love to hear your clips, Zee!

You need to store them elsewhere and post a link here.

[Spannko]

Great stuff Zee9! You need to host your videos in the cloud. I use Apples share folder. Others use DropBox, Google etc. Any hosting service will do, as long as you can provide a link to it.

[Spannko]

Argh. Late to the party, as usual!

[Zee9]

Here Goes:

my first two videos on this site so go easy on me but im open to all suggestions

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gztuhoyx ... rrxbr&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4obwqyoj ... uwx0z&dl=0