Peak Week

The blog reached a new record this week.  I know, by Internet standards 595 viewers in a week is paltry, but its still the most so far.

Page Loads - Last 12 Months



Search Engines - Last Week



Visitor Locations - Last Week





Browsers - Last Week



Summary - Last Week

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	114	69	82	35	79	113	103	595	85
Unique Visits	74	57	62	33	51	90	72	439	63
First Time Visits	57	49	57	31	47	87	66	394	56
Returning Visits	17	8	5	2	4	3	6	45	6

Back To The Front (of Centre)

I've pulled my centre speaker forward on my rack.  It still sits about 40-50mm further back than the L and R speakers, but is now only about 25mm from the front of the rack where it was about 75mm.

It's really helped with movie and TV sound, but not in the way I expected.  I suppose I was expecting the voices to be clearer, or louder or something.  But the actual effect has been to make the sound all around the room much more of a whole - more coherent and less like its coming from individual speakers.

Good result.

Latest Pictures Added - All Majik Now

Pictures are posted of the current system set up.  It will stay like this for some time now.

You can find the whole collection of pictures at the end of the images page here.  Scroll to the end of the page for the most up to date system pictures.

The SCALFORD SHOW - 3rd March 2013

Don't miss the Scalford Hi-Fi Show on 3rd March 2013.

NO DEALERS
NO MANUFACTURERS

JUST ENTHUSIASTS PLAYING MUSIC ON THEIR OWN HIFI SYSTEMS FOR OTHER ENTHUSIASTS TO ENJOY




Members of the Hifiwigwam forum invite you to listen to their own systems that they exhibit at Scalford Hall  near Mowbray on 3rd March 2013 - you'll not find a more eclectic set of hifi systems at any other show in the UK.  And there's no dealers and no manufacturers so no pressure to buy anything.  Sit back, enjoy the music and find out which systems best meet your idea of audio heaven.

Starts at 10am - best to get there in good time as there'll be over 45 systems to listen to.  Even at only 10 minutes each, that would still take you 7.5 hours.

Pictures from last year's show.

Linn Majik 140 Update

Quick re-cap: I had active Linn Keilidhs driven by Linn Majik Dynamik amps, then went to listen to secondhand M140s and new (but well used) MIsos, having decided that A242 were too deep for my room, and that my pockets weren't deep enough for A242s. I choose the M140s over the M Isos in the shop demo because I couldn't hear where double the money went - I could hear the deeper and better controlled bass of the Isos, but I didn't like the way they recessed vocals in the mix, and I didn't think they imaged very well.

Majik M140 main left and right speakers in position

So, from brand new the active M140s were rather good, but somehow not quite as good as I remember them in the shop (but remember the shop ones were secondhand not new). I put it down to the room. The dealer and I spend a bit more than an hour on positioning them and strangely enough they ended up with the front panel pretty much in exactly the same place as where the front panel of the Keilidhs had been. They had about 5mm toe-in. My room is 18ft by 14ft and the speakers are on the shorter wall.

Now, given they were a massive step up from the Keilidhs in terms of detail, imaging, dynamics etc, that's where they stayed. But over about 5 months, I gradually liked listening to them less and less, but couldn't figure out why, apart from the bass being much more filled out than when they were new. Then my Naim loving mate came round and he hadn't been for a couple of months and he complained that they were boomy whereas they hadn't been boomy before.

So I've messed about with positioning over the Christmas period. They're now an extra 40mm from the rear wall, they're toed-in 27mm. But, more importantly, I've turned down the amps that drive the lower bass driver (200Hz and below only from this driver) by one click, which I believe is the equivalent of 0.5dB, but I'm not sure, perhaps someone will advise - maybe its 1dB.

The difference all this has made is huge - they now sound way better than they ever have, and I'm really enjoying them again. The tune is back, there's no boom, but the bass is still deep and solid. Imaging is hugely improved now too. A really good result. I'm just hoping they've finished running in as I don't want to have to keep repositioning them! According to Majik Isobarik owners 5 to 6 months is about right for running those in, but I've not seen anyone mentioning this for M140s, my experience is suggesting somewhere between 3 and 5 months.

So very happy with my active M140s, and I'm not sure if I would have been able to properly dial them into the room if they'd been passive as I would not have been able to tweak the bass down a touch. The 140s form part of an AV system supported by an M112 and M109s and they're great for that too.

Cheapest Ever Linn Power Amplifier?

A Knekt Roomamp came up on ebay recently.  It was described as "in very good condition, but not tested".  So I put in a silly bid and left the software to its automated bidding process.

A few days later the amp was mine and just turned up yesterday.  Using the "audio out" sockets as the audio input (as described in a thread on here somewhere) I hooked it up to a source and gave it a whirl.  Well, it works fine and does a reasonably good job.

In a system consisting of:

Squeezebox Touch
Chord Prodac Pro Gold
Musical Fidelity V-DAC
Mission 773e

I used the volume control in the Touch and compared the Roomamp against the power amp sections of an original NAD 3020 and a much more recent Cyrus 6 integrated amp.  My conclusion is that the Roomamp power amp sits roughly mid-way between these products in terms of sound quality.  Sharper and more detailed than the warm NAD, not as solid, refined nor bass deep as either the NAD nor the Cyrus.  However, I did think that it is a touch bright and metallic with cymbals (at least into the Missions) compared to the other amps.  In fact, it was a rather sterile kind of sound - I really found it difficult to decide if it was more or less musical than the NAD - their presentations are very different, but I found myself more inclined to enjoy the NAD's warmth and musicality.  Overall, the Cyrus walked it, but then it should given how recent it is and how much it would cost new.

However, if you're looking for an office / study system driven by (for example) Spotify on your computer, or a bedroom system driven by a Squeezebox then the Roomamp does a pretty good job.

And if you're willing to take a bit of a risk on "untested" then you too can enjoy a Linn power amp for as little as £33.35!

Merry Christmas From An Enthusiast

At last, a long awaited addition to the Linn Brochures collection.  This time it's the "An Enthusiast Explains" edition which features Ivor Tiefenbrun peering around the side of a Keltik loudspeaker.
This brochure is from the time when Linn were essentially in the cut over point between their first gen products (e.g. Isobarik, Kan, Intek etc.) and estabilishing their next generation built around more common drivers across the speaker range and the now well known monolithic, minimalist black box industrial design.

Products featured:

Isobarik (orignal PMS / DMS)
Keltik
Kan
Kaber
Nexus
Helix
Index
LP12 Lingo
LP12 Valhalla
LP12 Basik

Basik
Axis
Ekos
Ittok
Akito
Troika
Asaka
K18
K9
K5
Karik
Numerik
Kremlin
Kairn
Pretek
Intek
Active crossover for Keltik
Active crossover for Isobarik
Active crossover for Kaber
Klout
LK280
LK100
Powertek
Lingo
Dirak
Spark


Find the brochure images here:

Linn Brochures & Ads

Enjoy, and seasons greetings to you all.

Blog Stats

Last week's stats for the blog:

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	65	40	42	95	66	39	51	398	57
Unique Visits	45	31	31	62	55	31	32	287	41
First Time Visits	38	29	26	58	47	26	30	254	36
Returning Visits	7	2	5	4	8	5	2	33	5

HDD Down (And Up)

I have a QNAP TS-209 II running 2 x Seagate Baracuda 1.5TB in RAID 1 (mirrored).

One of the drives failed a few weeks back. As they are about 3 years old I thought I would not be able to find a matching drive. However, found a factory refurbished drive on ebay for a reasonable £100.

It is supposed to be possible to hot-swap a drive in the QNAP and for the RAID 1 to fully rebuild itsself. However, due to where my NAS is located I needed to power the NAS down in order to unplug it from the mains and the network before I could lift it out onto a bench to get good access to the front panel to allow drives to be swapped over.

Now I work in IT, and know that there are many factors that mean things don't always go to plan... or to feature set!

So it was with much trepidation that I opened up the NAS, removed the faulty drive and then slotted in the refurbed drive. Even more trepidation when I plugged it all back in and powered up the NAS. Within the usual couple of minutes the drive was visible again on the network, with file explorer much snappier than it had been in the past few weeks and all files present and correct.

All the indicator lights on the front of the NAS were matching with the sequence in the instruction book that says a RAID 1 config is being rebuilt. We wrote no further files, nor did I use the DS or the Squeezeboxes during this process. In fact, it was allowed to run overnight. I don't know when the RAID rebuild finished, or how long it took, but it was completed sometime in the 7 hour overnight window and that's with 800GB of data (single copy of data = 800GB).

All is now well again, and I can breathe once more.

As its inevitable that hard drives will fail, I went for the dual bay NAS approach, but I still had my doubts about what would happen in the event of a failure. On this occasion it was all good news. This has also cemented my faith in the QNAP NAS - I know many think they are a little on the expensive side, but with this experience I think that is inconsequential compared to the hassle I could've gone through due to hard drive failure.

So a good news IT story. Music was saved!

Amusing Blog From Another Viewpoint

Just been enjoying this blog - penned by an Audiophile's wife.  I'm pretty sure its not my wife, either that or many stories have been added or embelished for maximum effect...

Its a good read!

http://www.theaudiophileswife.com/

Naim Reduces Price Of Its UnitiQute

Naim's all-in-one streamer, internet radio and amplifier has dropped in price dramatically - down from £1450 to £995.

Nice bit of kit at a very sensible price.

What Hifi News Page

Linn Majik 140 Reviews

Stereophile Magazine

Owner Review

Linn Akurate DS/0 Dynamik vs Akurate DS/1 Dynamik With ADS/1 Upgrade Kit

As Scott Wilkinson would say - its time to geek out!
Apologies for the title, but there isn't really an easy way to describe this. Here is the bullet point version:

Linn produced an Akurate DS - we'll call this the ADS.
It was then available with a new power supply so it was they called the ADS Dynamik.
Linn made the power supply available as an upgrade so now it is possible to have and ADS Dynamik from the factory or an ADS with a retro-fitted Dynamik. Both are called ADS Dynamik and sound the same.

Then Linn launched a significantly improved Akurate DS called the ADS/1 which is in the same chassis but has a new front panel and a slightly different display panel.
The ADS/1 comes with a Dynamik power supply as standard, but we don't mention that in the product name - its just an ADS/1.
So after launching the ADS/1, the orignal ADS is now called the ADS/0 or ADS/0 Dynamik if it is a later version of the ADS/0 or an ADS/0 with a retro fitted power supply.

 OK? Try and keep up!

Linn have now decided that the circuit boards from the ADS/1 can be retro fitted to the ADS/0 and ADS/0 Dynamik.
You can then use old circuit boards to go into a new, fairly basic case to create the Akurate DS Renew or ADSR.
All ADSRs and ADS/0s that are upgraded to ADS/1 spec will have Dyanmik power supplies.
If you take this option of an upgrade to your ADS/0 or ADS/0 Dynamik you will effectively end up with exactly the same spec as and ADS/1, but it'll be inside an ADS/0 case.

What do we call an ADS/0 with ADS/1 circuitry inside? There doesn't seem to be a concensus, but I'm going to call it the ADS/0/1 on this blog.

So that's the history and naming nonsense out of the way. If you're still with me, now I'll write something about the sonic differences, which is waaaaay more interesting and important of course.

I heard an Akurate DS/1 in my system last week - we did ABABA comparison using the following tracks:

Blues Company - Cold Rain
Blues Company - Dark Days
Trentmoller - Evil Dub
Yello - Tangier Blue
Tom Baxter - Skybound

Found that the ADS/1 was much more organic, the treble even sweeter than my ADS/0/D and the imaging much more precise and 3 dimensional. A nice upgrade that should satisfy even analogue fans (maybe). The only thing that detracted was that the bass seems a little shy - I think that might be more control? We only spent about 20 mins so didn't get into speaker repositioning or anything.

So that's great, as far as it goes.  Being a skeptic I still wanted to hear an ADS/0 that had been upgraded to an ADS/1 for myself - just to be sure that the upgrade was as effective as a completely new ADS/1. I had the chance to take my ADS/0 Dynamik to my Linn dealer just a couple of days ago to compare with an ADS/0 Dynamik that has had the ADS/1 upgraded boards.

System: Akurate Kontrol/1 pre-amp, 2 x Majik 4100 Dynamik power amps with active crossover cards and Majik Isobariks loudspeakers (in Rosewood, just in case anyone thinks the veneer affects the sound...), Linn Silver interconnects, 2 x Linn K400 speaker cables, Quadraspire racks.

Tracks used: Robben Ford "Mystic Mile" Eagle Eye Cherry "Shooting Up In Vain"

Happily, my earlier notes about the ADS/0 Dynamik vs ADS/1 apply equally to this comparison. The upgrade is not subtle. The feeling and emotions in vocals come through much stronger, the bass guitar on the Ford track seems to be playing many more intricate moves which previously didn't stand out as being something so subtle and intricate, decay is longer but doesn't blur into other instruments so much. Imaging also gets a boost - left to right images are much more stable in space and there's more front to back depth. The keyboard on the intro to Shooting Up has so much more texture to it.

In summary, its worthwhile and very enjoyable to listen to.

Funny isn't it? I was very happy with my ADS/0 Dynamik, until I heard the upgrade. When you go back from the upgrade the original sounds black & white and 2D compared to the colourful textures and 3D of the upgrade. So its just a matter of time to get the cash together now!

It is very pleasing to see that Linn is making improvements in the ADS - and that they offer this improvement as an upgrade for existing customers - reducing the normal obsolecence in our consumer society.

p.s. I didn't listen to the ADS Renew as I don't intend to buy one, but the dealer suggested that it doesn't sound as good as an ADS/0 Dynamik and not that much better than a Majik DS Dynamik. I have no view on this, just passing along the discussion.