What follows is entirely hearsay, subjective opinions and comment. This is purely for your information and entertainment. There is NOTHING scientific or authoritative in what follows...
Yesterday I attended a Linn demo of the Akurate DS and Klimax DS. I had 60 minutes in the room alone (apart from the Linn chap and one of the shop staff who I know very well). They ripped 3 of my CD's using Ripstation to a ahrd drive on the shop network - that took a few minutes. Then we listened to some music. Firstly they played a track from one of the actual CD's I had brought (J. Geils Band - Live! Full House - track 1: First I Look At The Purse) on a Linn Majik CD player (£2k). The rest of the system was a Linn Klimax solo 500 and a pair of Akurate Speakers. This track is (IMHO) digitally hard to reproduce with the energy, sense of drive and "fun" that the vinyl had. The CD sounded "OK" - certainly didn't sound as good as my home system which (albeit active) is on paper at least somewhat inferior. Then we played the same track from the rip through the Akurate DS (£3.5k). Much better. The crowd applause sounds like real hands, the harmonica is less piercing/glaring, the complex interplay between guitars and organ is easier to follow. Definitely a step up and much closer to my home system. Also much easier to have a conversation over the music without having to shout. Back to the CD...that sounds really bad now!. Back to the Akurate DS (still good) ...and then the Klimax (to coin a phrase). Uh-oh. A bad feeling. £9.5k. I really didn't want to hear this "blow away" what I'd just heard from the Akurate DS... and it didn't. But it was audibly better. Hard to explain exactly why - there was a general improvement of "musicality" for lack of a better term. Foot-tapping was now body bouncing on the sofa. Time for the next track... Bells of Berlin by Lone Star. This is a beast of a track - and I was the only one in the room who'd heard it before. This was going to be fun. First off, the CD. "Turn it loud" I asked...so they did. About a minute into the track, as all hell is breaking loose, the Linn guy shouts "It's too loud, and the vocals are painful". We endure a bit more pain and then go the Akurate DS. Big improvement - really noticeable. Everything is better controlled, the vocalist now sounds like he can actually sing (which he can!) and the drums and bass are locked on the tricky stop/start rhythms - the track is starting to make sense and be fun to listen to...and so for the Klimax: Damn. Damn. Damn. It's good - very good. No actually it's great. Linn guy starts noting down the details of the CD. We all agree that this track is a real test and that the Klimax is a big leap from the Akurate (and the CD is pretty much unlistenable except as background music). (blah blah blah) So how do these boxes compare to my system? - well, I went home and listened to the tracks again, just to give me a point of reference. The results were: 1) I wouldn't buy the CD player - my SB+DAC "blows it away" :o) 2) Akurate DS is broadly similar to my system (can't say how it would stack up against a TP though) at twice the cost. 3) I am arranging a home dem of the Klimax. I need to hear it at home compared to the SB setup. The deal-breaker for me on this is not the cost. It's that I can't use my TACT since the Linn has no digital loop-through. I can't live without the TACT (in the same way I couldn't go back to passive speakers). So I guess the outcome is going to be that I need to try a TP in my system! I'd urge anyone who gets the chance to have a listen to the Klimax. I think it is a very special piece of kit - albeit very very expensive. I said in a previous post that I don't promote Linn...and this is really nothing to do with it being Linn. If anyone came out with a bit of kit like this I'd say the same. So there you go. All usual caveats apply. Please don't mention level matching, DBT etc. These are my personal opinions - and they must be taken with a very large grain of salt. I hope I haven't bored anyone... Phil -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal...SB3+Stontronics PSU - Altmann JISCO/UPCI - TACT RCS 2.2X with Good Vibrations S/W - MF X-DAC V3/X-PSU/X-10 buffer (Audiocomm full mods)- Linn 5103 - Linn Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Townsend Supertweeters, Kimber & Chord cables ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38815
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