Just announced is the Linn Akubarik speaker, a £15,600/pr active – or Aktiv in Linnspeak – floostanding design.
Launched as Linn begins its 40th anniversary celebrations is a five-way design based around the company's familiar Isobarik bass working, and using six channels of onboard amplification (two channels bridged for the isobaric system), combining the company's Chakra technology and Dynamik power supply.
The isobaric system uses two 20.3cm bass drivers with woven glass fibre cones, mounted face to face on the underside of the enclosure, these drivers and the bass ports firing down into the top of the integral stand.
Linn says that 'By doubling the driving force, the moving mass and the stiffness of the suspensions (i.e. two cones, two motors and two voice coils), Akubarik delivers the rich, deep and detailed bass extension normally reserved for much larger speakers, and all from a relatively slim, stylish and compact cabinet,' adding that this section of the speaker gives a bass response flat between 28Hz and 100Hz.
Dedicated bass controls are provided on top of the amp module, providing a choice of three roll-on frequencies and seven bass shelf options, allowing the sound to be tailored to the room in which the speakers are used.
Upper bass is provided by a 15cm treated paper cone in its own sealed enclosure for better transients, and above this is Linn's 3K driver array, combining a polyurethane 7.5cm midrange driver, a 25mm high frequency dome and an 12.5mm supertweeter in a die-cast aluminium chassis.
The upper bass driver is mounted an optimum distance from the 3K array, to help preserve the 'point source' effect of the 'three drivers in one' assembly.
The speaker's Aktiv filtering is carried out in the analogue domain, with special attention having been paid to the 'handover' between the upper bass and midrange driver, and the filters and Chakra 'silent power' amps are mounted on one board to keep signal paths as short as possible.
A 'chimney' is built into the amp module to draw heat away, meaning that no fan cooling is required, while LEDs on the top of the amp module indicate status, with blue for 'on' and red when in sleep mode, the speaker then only consuming 3.5W.
The electronics are isolated from the cabinet using rubber mounts tuned to match the resonance of the bass port, thus minimising energy transfer to the amp, and the cabinet is made from steam-moulded layers of wood veneer and MDF.
The speakers are hand-finished in a choice of six real wood veneers in standard or high-gloss, with 200 further high-gloss colours available. Buyers can also choose a black or polished finish for the 3K array chassis.
The Linn Akubarik speakers will be available from May.
Written by Andrew Everard
