|
|
Ever since KLH stopped making an all-in-one hi-fi, “respectable” audio manufacturers have pretty much ignored those who want something a little less complicated than a system of separate components. KLH made a bundle selling a turn table, tuner, and amp in a single en closure. And for good reason: The KLH Model Twenty-Four had credibility, despite its single-box topology.
Not everyone wants separate components. There’s a potentially huge market of music lovers who want high-quality sound but don’t want the expense of buying separates. Nor do they want to suffer the pitfalls of component matching and installation, not to mention having to sacrifice the yards of shelf space needed. What they want is a painless way to acquire a music-making machine that produces the right noises.
The KLH Twenty-Four (and the portable Model Eleven) gave every one from impoverished students to space-starved apartment dwellers a compact, all-in-one system of which they didn’t have to be ashamed. In the 30-year interim, we’ve seen the loathsome music centers of the ‘70s, the gimmicky mini and micro systems of the ‘80s and ‘90s, boomboxes with ideas above their station, and as sorted other one-shot wonders. But none of them quite had the right stuff. At the other extreme were, and are, adventurous efforts like the Arch, from Marantz, and myriad systems from Bang & Olufsen and others that either ignore price and size limits or veer too far from the KLH mod el of no-frills simplicity.
Back in the June issue, in “Mondo Audio,” I discussed the re birth of combo units and mentioned that I was especially taken with a new product from Linn, a company not known for a populist approach.
Linn’s Classik struck me as the nearest any company has yet come to producing a KLH Model Twenty-Four for the ‘90s—or, given the date, the next millennium.
To recap for those who missed my column in the June issue, Linn shoe- horned a full- function integrated amp, a CD player, and a clock into a chassis that’s just 3 inches high, 12½ inches wide, and 12¾ inches deep. Blessedly, the basic package doesn’t include speakers, so you have more freedom than was offered by KLH. (However, Linn does make a couple of speakers it would love to see you connect to the Classik, including a new iteration of the Kan.)
While not including speakers might seem to betray the hi-fi-in a-box simplicity of the KLH, a hit of flexibility never goes unappreciated—especially in the United States, which is awash with stupendous loudspeaker bargains. And it would be a shame if those who bought the Classik were denied connecting it to something like Magnepan’s SMG c, Martin-Logan’s Aerius 1, Sonus Faber’s Concertino, or other speakers that ooze elegance. Suffice to say, I tried the Linn Classik with a wide range of speakers, from high-sensitivity minis to watt-hungry Italian two-way boxes to vintage electrostatics, and power wasn’t really an issue.
Although so much has been included in a box smaller than most stand-alone CD players, Linn opted for minimalism in de signing the Classik’s front panel and was able to do so because its remote control is button-filled. In the lower right-hand corner of the front panel are the on/off switch and an LED to indicate power on. Directly above it is the CD tray. Just off center is a ¼-inch headphone jack, Linn bravely assuming that Classik owners would use grown-ups’ headphones instead of some thing pilfered from a personal CD player. The left-hand third of the panel contains the display, the CD transport buttons, and a standby switch. Below them are pushbuttons for muting, cycling forward or back through the available sources, and lowering or raising volume.
At the rear, Linn has provided gold-plated phono jacks for a tuner, an auxiliary source, tape in and out, and tape monitoring (i.e., one tape deck in record/playback mode and another used just as a source). There are also preamp outputs, so the Classik can serve as a preamp or as a CD player feeding a second preamp. And there’s an IEC three-pin socket for the AC cable and two sets of speaker connectors, for running two pairs of speakers or for bi-wiring a single pair.
Although the Classik is fitted with the mandatory-in-Europe CE speaker connectors, this shouldn’t be a problem in the U.S.:
Linn supplies 16½ feet (5 meters) of cable correctly terminated to satisfy the evil bastards in Brussels. I would imagine that all American Linn dealers can terminate what ever cable lengths you require with the correct plugs. (Further, those of you with a smidgen of global awareness will get a taste of what European audiophiles must suffer because of boneheaded bureaucrats.)
Classik’s CD player uses Linn’s own pickup and decoding technology. No function has been omitted because of space considerations; the only thing missing is a digital output. Although the front panel contains just four buttons directly related to player operation—open/close, play/pause, track-select forward, and track-select back—the 56-button remote has (in addition to the basics) controls for search and index functions, display options, intro scan, and repeat, random, and shuffle play. Linn probably could have gotten away with depriving its audience of assorted track read outs but chose in stead to include the lot: track and index number, elapsed track time, remaining track time, total disc time, and total remaining time.
The Classik’s pre amp section can accept four external line-level sources. (What might be nice, given that a tuner from Linn isn’t cheap, would be a version of the Classik with its own AM/FM tuning.) The pre amp drives an amplifier rated at 75 watts per channel into 4 ohms; the Classik is not aimed at what computer guys would call “power users,” so this output should prove adequate for most studies, dens, dorms, and apartments. And if you use the amp section with a multimedia PC, you’re unlikely to need more power unless you want to mate it with speakers demanding triple-figure wattage.
Blissfully for both Linn and its dealers, the Classik need not concern itself too much with purely audiophiic matters. Per haps just as appealing to its target audience are its timer, which will switch the Classik on and off automatically at predetermined times, and its ability to act as one helluva sophisticated alarm clock. Environmentalists will appreciate two signal-sensing standby modes that reduce power consumption when the Classik is on but not playing audio. And it has—are you sitting down?—bass and treble controls, which you may have thought would be as likely to appear on a Linn component as ham in a kosher deli.
On reflection, the simplicity of the Classik is misleading, for it’s loaded with features—enough to justify a 58-page owner’s manual. In addition to all of the usual CD programming options, the device provides full control via its remote of a Linn FM tuner, use of the alarm with any of the sources, adjustable volume presetting, adjustable sleep/timer modes, memory storage of volume and balance settings, and CD play on power-up. But where the Classik re members its raison d’être is in its ability to be used without your having to refer to the owner’s manual; you can take advantage of its many functions or ignore them, which is as it should be.
I found the Classik to be a delight. The infrared sensor is extremely sensitive, so I didn’t have to aim the remote at the unit. All actions took place quickly. The CD tray opened and closed with smooth precision, and the display was easy to read. I’d say the Classik worked in as fuss-free a manner as a microwave oven; it’s almost as if high-end masochism never existed.
But it’s the sound that separates the Classik from the severely compromised, down- market one-box “stereos” that too many assume are the only alternatives to real hi-fi . Obviously, the choice of speakers was crucial, but the Classik delivered real bass— deep, extended, and well-controlled lower octaves with the requisite weight, power, and slam. Best of all, it could convey this weight and extension at low playback levels. The effect is similar to having a dynamic loudness control, as the Classik could ex tract the maximum from even Quad 77-10L speakers without my having to crank the volume way up. This in itself was enough to make the Classik sound “big,” to convey the authority of separates. But the rest of the spectrum was well served, too.
Linn has never paid much attention to what it believes are American audio fetishes. Three-dimensionality, stage depth, and the like were never deemed as important as such Linntangibles as “pace,” “rhythm,” and “timing.” Worry not: The Classik understands stereo playback, and its sound field is large, well defined, and precise. No, its images are not sculpted to the same degree as those produced by an etched-with- a-scalpel, positioned-with-a-ruler, cost- no-object system of the five-figure-plus variety, but they’re convincing enough to make old hands forget Linn’s Isobarik speakers.
Where the Classik most betrays its heritage is in its sweet treble and warm mid-band, light-years away from tube sound yet a far cry from the in-your-face solid-state sound that characterized the company’s electronics for years. The Classik’s sound is non-aggressive, non-edgy—in fact, it’s al most polite, an adjective I never thought I’d apply to a Linn product.
Perhaps, and only perhaps, Linn figured that—even with a $1,700 price tag—the Classik would be treated with less reverence during its installation than one of its more expensive systems would be. And that’s de spite the painstaking setup regimen that Linn insists all of its products must under go. In other words, Classik owners are less likely to indulge in the tweaking that is par for the course with separates. By design or accident, then, the Classik is forgiving of speaker choice and positioning, an ideal state of affairs for a populist product.
There’s one other adjective I never thought I’d apply to a Linn product: desirable. Unashamedly, I adore the Classik for being so right. Its role is clearly defined; its success at fulfilling that role is total. If ever I find myself in a position where I need a system that fits into a limited space, this is what I’ll buy. And if I’m ever approached by a music lover who doesn’t want to enter our arcane world but who wants good sound, this is what I’ll recommend.
You might have wondered what an item like the Linn Classik is doing in the pages of Audio, where the average reader is way be yond the neophyte stage. Most of you are well accustomed to separate components and wouldn’t consider anything else. But offer thanks to Linn for sparing you the agony of ever having to recommend some complex, high-maintenance system to a non-audiophile. The Classik is the answer to all your Dear Abby nightmares. And you can buy it yourself for a secondary system or give one to your kids to keep them away from your own setup.
In three words: I love it.
Adapted from 1998 Audio magazine article. Classic Audio and Audio Engineering magazine issues are available for free download at the Internet Archive (archive.org, aka The Wayback Machine)