Linn ekos se
This marks the conquest of a new summit of performance, at the top of the industry-leading Sondek LP12 range. Additionally, this turntable scales new heights of fidelity thanks to extensive experimentation in material science – culminating in the breakthrough that is the all-new flagship cartridge, Ekstatik. Klimax LP12 now features new Radikal, comprising hyper-accurate speed management technology, a whisper-quiet power supply, and state-of-the-art motor design. It will make its public debut at the Dutch Audio Event, Eindhoven, this Saturday 30th October. An excellent new moving-coil.Glasgow, Scotland: Linn announces the latest iteration of their flagship turntable, Klimax LP12. Recordings appear in pin-sharp focus, yet the cartridge seems to ‘enjoy itself immensely’ while doing so. The new Kandid betters Linn’s Akiva across the board, bringing greater insight and grip while improving still further on its musicality. And what it is brilliant at is locating instruments in space: as Chick Corea’s Return To Forever showed, they might as well be nailed to the back of your listening room wall. But wherever it finds itself, the bass sounds taut and tuneful, without any hint of overhang midband is transparent and three-dimensional, and the treble crisp, delicate and detailed almost to a fault.
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You’d never call this cartridge sumptuous: it isn’t tonally rich in a euphonic way, although placement in the still ever-so-slightly-warm Sondek does invest it with a little more body in the upper bass and lower midband. Yet it all fitted together in a natural, believable way. Even though the track plods along at only a moderate pace, the Kandid was a veritable energy rush – digging deep and throwing out masses of detail. The tightly syncopated drum and bass guitar work of Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth was gripping stuff. Our copy of Tom Tom Club’s eponymous LP has stood the test of time better, and the beautiful but bonkers ‘Genius Of Love’ sounded just that. Yet no sooner had the lead-in groove run its natural course the cacophony of surface noise melted away as the Kandid began to sing like a bird. Our ‘well campaigned’ original issue of Deodato’s Midnight Cruiser sounds as if it has been to one too many parties, and the Linn doesn’t mask this. This said, one could never claim that it delights in dog-eared discs.
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Yet this doesn’t come from any jarring tonal brightness, rather, it ‘sparkles up’ duller recordings, breathing life into them without making brighter ones in any way unpalatable. Whatever you choose to play, the Kandid shows the same basic instinct to push the song along, as if on a mission to drive the musical point home. Suffice to say that the new transducer isn’t a radical departure, inasmuch as it doesn’t attempt to seduce the listener with a silky suaveness – rather, it gets right into the groove and pulls out the music with breathtaking insight. Linn pick-ups have historically been on the incisive side. While the Kandid is a far less attractive looking affair than the svelte, black-bodied Akiva, it shows every sign of being as meticulously hand-built. Recommended tracking force is 1.72-1.77g (we found the cartridge worked at its best at 1.75g). A plastic front yoke screw is fitted (metal might interfere magnetically with the pick-up coils) and this allows the arm counterweight to be set closer to the bearings.
LINN EKOS SE GENERATOR
Out of the generator assembly protrudes a boron cantilever tipped with a 3x70µm nude line contact stylus the angle at which this sits has been changed from the Akiva’s 23° to 20°, so as to bring the front and rear magnets inside the generator into perfect alignment when the correct tracking weight is applied. The chassis is aircraft-grade aluminium, and sports the three-point mounting hole system first seen in the Troika a quarter of a century ago (you can use just the main two holes if not fitting it to a Linn or Naim arm). Potentially, this makes installation hazardous but the Kandid’s clever stylus guard is more like a ‘body guard’, which makes fitting it a relatively easy process.
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So designers have periodically experimented with all sorts of housing materials, but the Kandid dispenses with a conventional body altogether. It has long been known that cartridge bodies induce coloration.
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The Kandid differs in several significant ways, the most visually conspicuous of which is its new ‘naked’ generator assembly. It replaces the Akiva, which has flown the marque’s flag for MCs for a good few years now. The Kandid is a device purposed to work hand-in-glove with the Sondek LP12 turntable and Ekos SE tonearm combination.