Linn
Amplifiers
DACs
Speakers
Turntable Cartridges
Website
Best Known For
Turntables
/
Used Products
342
 Available
Average Price
$10,001-$20,000
Brand Popularity
17
 of 900+
Products Listed
20
Review Count
74
Founding Year
1972
Headquarters
United Kingdom
Linn
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What's unique about the brand

Linn is a hifi brand known for its modular designs, particularly the Sondek LP12 turntable where users can upgrade virtually every component over time to maintain performance across decades. The brand stands out for developing its own technologies in-house, including the Organik DAC with FPGA processing and Space Optimisation, which models room acoustics without needing microphone measurements.

What reviewers are saying

We read all the reviews. Here's what reviewers feel most strongly about:

  • Linn emphasizes its in-house engineering expertise rather than relying on off-the-shelf components, showcasing its commitment to innovative design and integrated system performance.
  • The brand stands out for its fully integrated systems, offering a complete solution from source to speaker, designed to work harmoniously together for optimal sonic results.
  • Linn's products, particularly loudspeakers, can be upgraded with "Exakt" technology, allowing for digital crossovers and individual amplification of each driver, significantly enhancing performance.
  • They offer their "Space Optimization" technology to account for and correct room acoustics, demonstrating a commitment to adapting to diverse listening environments.

Our favorite reviewer quotes:

  • "With over a decade of reviewing audio gear, I've never heard one component make such a profound difference in the way music sounds in my room. The most obvious improvement was how vast the soundstage now sounded." (https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1124-linn-klimax-dsm-av-dac-preamplifier)
  • "The definition in the Klimax DSM's rendering of Jones, her piano, and Kenny Wollesen's taps of the drum created the best impression of three-dimensional instruments and vocals I have heard in my room." (https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1124-linn-klimax-dsm-av-dac-preamplifier)
  • "Listening to "Untitled" gave me goosebumps and caused me to giggle in amazement. A few expletives also came out of my mouth." (https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/linn-next-generation-klimax-dsm-review-r1082)
  • "The sensation of 'performance' and 'togetherness' this amplification conjures is remarkable - music is presented as a tightly unified whole, as a singular event much more than as a disparate collection of individual occurrences. The Klimax Solo 800 ties together every element of a recording, at every point of the frequency range, in the most unforced, naturalistic and, yes, musical way." (https://www.sound-advice.online/product-reviews/linn-klimax-solo-800)
  • "Regardless of what you choose to listen to, or the format from which you source it, the Majik DSM is never less than an entirely engaging and periodically thrilling listen. Its authority is unquestionable, its understanding of music on an almost molecular level is never in doubt, and the realism and positivity of its sound is startling." (https://www.sound-advice.online/product-reviews/linn-majik-dsm-network-player)
Want to report a correction? Please contact us. We'd love to hear from you. Note that much of the data, recommendations, and summaries on ExtremeHiFi are researched after thousands of hours of loving labor. We archive our site's data and its pages on Archive.org and monitor for those repurposing the data. We also fingerprint data to know when text and numbers came from us.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

From Julian's interview with
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Products

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Lineup comparison

We think it's helpful to understand how their products compare. To learn more about each, scroll to the section above to click through to individual product pages.

119

  • Positioning: The entry-level compact bookshelf speaker in Linn's lineup.
  • Description: Offers linear performance with premium drive units, making it suitable for small spaces or as part of a versatile system. Features a rear-ported design for enhanced bass performance, and its passive crossover can be bypassed for Exakt operation, providing flexibility for future upgrades.

150

  • Positioning: A passive floorstanding speaker in the mid-range of Linn's offerings.
  • Description: Designed for refined and sophisticated sound with excellent linear performance. Features a down-ported design for omnidirectional bass, setting it apart from the bookshelf 119, and includes a high-quality passive crossover that can be bypassed for Exakt upgrades.

Series 5

  • Positioning: A stylish and customizable speaker series offering a balance of performance and design.
  • Description: Integrates Exakt technology and an Isobarik bass system, providing powerful and accurate bass in a compact form. Unlike the 150 and 119, allows for extensive customization with various Fabrik covers and finishes.

360

  • Positioning: Linn's flagship loudspeaker, representing the pinnacle of their speaker technology.
  • Description: Features ultra-low distortion drive units and groundbreaking dispersion characteristics, delivering a soundstage with unprecedented clarity and realism. Stands out from the Series 5, 150, and 119 with its advanced Adaptive Bias Control and Power DAC technology.
Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi Writer

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About the brand

AVID Hifi is a brand known for its turntables featuring unique engineering like sapphire bearings and dual-stage clamping systems that improve bass grip and soundstage projection. The brand's design philosophy involves developing technology in their high-end models and then adapting it for more affordable products, with their components made from solid aluminum and speakers weighing 100kg for exceptional build quality.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
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J.Sikora stands out for being the only hifi brand to use Kevlar in their tonearm tubes, combining this unique material choice with a unipivot bearing design for optimal sound performance. Their tonearms feature a distinctive VTA adjustment mechanism modeled after a photographic lens, allowing precise adjustments during playback, while incorporating a mix of aluminum, bronze, and brass to enhance sound quality.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$10,001-$20,000
Used Products
0
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Brand Popularity
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Headquarters
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About the brand

TW Acustic is renowned for its meticulous engineering, particularly in their turntables which feature unique materials like jet-black compound plinths and copper-dust-enriched polyoxymethylene, developed over years of research. Their turntables use proprietary composite platters filled with special gel and capped with copper plates, while their power supplies are often battery-based to minimize interference from the power grid.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$20,001-$40,000
Used Products
55
 Available
Brand Popularity
110
 of 900+
Headquarters
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About the brand

SME is a premium turntable brand known for its unique integration of precision engineering and traditional craftsmanship, exemplified by their Model 60 turntable with its advanced polymer resin tonearm that significantly reduces resonance. The brand stands out for its bespoke 'One of One' concept, offering 75 custom anodized colors developed by their in-house chemist, and for their distinctive DSP-driven speed control systems that ensure precise audio reproduction.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$5,001-$10,000
Used Products
38
 Available
Brand Popularity
82
 of 900+
Headquarters
Italy

About the brand

Gold Note is an Italian hifi brand that manufactures all components in-house, with their DS-10 DAC offering 192 setup options to adapt to different music genres and listener preferences. Their products, including the IS-10 and IS-1000 integrated amplifiers, combine multiple functions like streaming, DAC, and phono stages in single units, delivering a rich, tube-like sound signature.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

The design of our turntables in the mid and high range relies on a very unique geometry that’s mathematically defined as the catenary curve, a shape that is found across nature (from spider webs to rope statistics) and firstly described by Galileo Galilei in the 17th century. The curve was first leveraged to design load-bearing structures such as arches and bridges since it offers the best rigidity/mass ratio. For turntables, it's an optimal as it provides really high rigidity with minimal mass giving the turntable great stability and resilience while minimising the amount of mass that could store potential energy (such as vibration). As a side effect, it creates a beautiful shape that elevates the design — this is a very Italian approach, developing creative solutions that serve boh performance and aesthetics. 

Another key feature is the electric control of the motor leveraging a built-in power conditioning stage with a triple AC-DC-AC conversion to feed the motor with ultra-clean current, which is crucial as our turntables feature synchronous motors (calibrated on the AC).

Lastly, the design of the bearing/spindle is developed to achieve the strictest of tolerance with higher quality materials, and you won’t find similar designs on any turntables in the same price range since it’s extremely expensive to manufacture — it’s a core feature of our turntables that enables superior sound quality even though it’s completely hidden from the eye.  

What's your approach to customer support?

We have a dedicated inbox for customer support [email protected] that is monitored 24/7 and a response time of around 24h. Customer should always contact Gold Note directly, our customer support will then manage their enquiry appropriately and put them in touch with the relevant contacts (such as our local distributor) if needed. 

We used to rely primarily on our local partners in the past to provide quick support, however we have recently moved to a more centralised approach since we wish to establish a direct contact with our customers and ensure they get all the information directly from the source. 

Today we can in fact guarantee fast response time and - since we are the manufacturer - more precise information to determine whether the product needs a simple firmware update, a hardware fix or a replacement.

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

Since we manufacture all sorts of sources — from turntable to streamers — we usually to suggest a mix of genres and it’s really hard to narrow it down to just three tracks:

For classical, we love "Dance of the Tumblers" from the Snow Maiden by the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Eiji Oue (Reference Recordings,1998).

For electronic, our go to is "The Expert" by Yello (Polydor, 2021).

For jazz and vocals, it’s hard to pick between Cassandra Wilson’s "Strange Fruit" (Blue Note, 1995) and "Blues in My Heart” by Fiona Boyes (Reference Recordings, 2020).

What other products pair best with yours?

As a system manufacturer, we design our products to be part of a Gold Note system and therefore that’s the highest degree of synergy you can reach. The idea of designing full systems is generally frowned upon as the main objection inevitably is: if you design all sorts of products, how can you beat a specialist that only makes amplifiers?

The answer is somewhat counterintuitive and I believe it’s not fully understood by the public yet so I’ll briefly summarise it here — engineering audio systems is fundamentally to design ways to manage signals, whether digital or analogue. The knowledge compounds by researching all areas of signal transmission and amplification, and can then be used to improve on designing electronics, loudspeakers or tonearms. 

For example: researching and designing a cable leads to gaining insights that can then be deployed when designing PCBs; R&D on phono stages where dealing with low voltage signals and ultra-low noise components will inform the design of amplifiers. This positive loop goes on affecting all areas and increasing the knowhow of the team, leading to better products.

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page
Known For
Turntables
/
Average Price
$20,001-$40,000
Used Products
0
 Available
Brand Popularity
293
 of 900+
Headquarters
Canada

About the brand

Kronos Audio's turntables feature a unique counter-rotating dual-platter system that cancels out rotational forces and minimizes vibrations, setting them apart in the industry. Their turntables also use supercapacitors to operate off-grid for reduced electrical noise, while their Discovery RS tonearm employs a proprietary bearing system for precise playback.

Our interview with the brand

What are two key technological innovations or strong opinions that differ you from other brands?

What's your approach to customer support?

What are your favorite tracks for showcasing the strength of your products?

What other products pair best with yours?

Website author headshot
Julian Shapiro
ExtremeHiFi
Brand Page

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