The first time we heard Linn’s Klimax 350A loudspeakers was enough to convince us they should be Tone’s high-end product of the year for 2008. After spending more time with these luxury speakers, I reckon we made a good call.

The Linns are imperious statement products from a company that’s not averse to pushing boundaries. These floorstanders are tall, wide and deep, with six drivers up front and banks of metal heatsinking round the back. Looming on their solid ‘armour grade’ steel stands, they’re not exactly covert operators. If your interior decorator thinks music should be heard and not seen, I guarantee that they’ll despise the 350As but the Linns are actually lovely beasts, shapely enough 
to be elegant and blessed with a finish in keeping with the price.

For 70 big ones, you’d expect extraordinary sonics and the Linns deliver with the ability to kill conversations stone dead; once the music starts, people in the room fall silent and tune in as if listening to a broadcast in their heads. The secret is the classic Linn musicality that originated with the LP12 Sondek turntable (still one of the most tuneful ways to spin a disc). Linn products have always been rhythmic enough to connect directly to the part of the brain that controls foot tapping and the Klimax 350As have this quality in spades, possibly with a dose of mind-altering substances thrown in.

With a Klimax DS digital stream player and Klimax Kontrol preamp upstream, the 350As lived up to expectations. Using an iPhone or wireless laptop to access the extensive library cached on the Linn NZ network hard drives, I found that any genre of music from the easy sultriness of Shelby Lynne and Diana Krall to the rasping of the Rolling Stones back catalogue sounded fabulous, coming from a background of absolute silence, revealing the most insubstantial of hidden details and telling me everything I needed to know about the recordings.

Instruments sound authentic, both texturally and in terms of their physical impact, which is prodigious because vast quantities of air are effortlessly shifted by the bass drivers. For example, the tapping of guitar bodies on ‘Mud in Your Eye’ from Nils Lofgren’s brilliant Acoustic Live album had a weight and hollowness that I hadn’t previously heard (or felt), and bass-heavy tracks from acts such as Ben Harper and Massive Attack pressurized the room like a pile driver.

The low end is supernaturally quick, as is every other part of the frequency range. Forget about power corrupting, this much power dominates and the utter control creates an unforgettably pure and dramatic sound, with the visceral speed and dynamics that make for an entrancing experience.

The only fly in the ointment was a soundstage that didn’t spread out as far to the sides of the room as I felt it should have. But the further back I moved the more it expanded, so I’m confident that properly set up in a bigger space, they’d be just right.

That price tag is scary, perhaps even obscene. And given that the law of diminishing returns is cast in iron, it stands to reason that these speakers can’t be 10 times better than a set of $7000 speakers. But that’s hardly the point. For like a Bentley Continental GT, Patek Philippe watch or a hand-tailored Italian suit, they will appeal to a select minority.

The lucky few with the readies, the space and the good judgment to do more than just lust after them will be ecstatic; this set found a buyer and was scheduled to go out the door directly following my last session with them, so there is a market, despite what the naysayers may think. As happy as I am with my own hi-fi system, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t confess the sin of envy.

BRETT GIDEON

Tech Specs

Klimax 350A
Fully Active
Floorstanding Speakers
$69,999

TYPE: Six-way active floorstanding loudspeaker
SUPERTWEETER: 13mm dome
TWEETER: 25mm dome
MIDRANGE DRIVER:
75mm dome
UPPER BASS: 165mm
BASS DRIVER: 2 x 200mm
servo driven
ONBOARD POWER: 1750W Chakra power amplification
FREQUENCY RESPONSE:
20Hz-33kHz
DIMENSIONS: 1130 x 312 x 430 mm (H/W/D)
WEIGHT: 54kg each
FINISHES: Rosenut, Maple, Cherry, Black Ash, plus optional custom and high-gloss finishes

CONTACT

www.linn.co.nz

This Review is from Tone Issue #77.

What do you think?