Linn's Ninka speaker: Anyone heard it??

Psychicanimal, you're right. How could I forget dear old Bozo...er...Bose. But I wasn't thinking of dimestore brands at the time.

Deven8, your point is well taken. I have long argued that we should listen a lot and buy what we like that we can afford.

Alas, very many in the high end have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the notion that Really Good Equipment has to cost a lot of money and be Hand Built. They should only be available in Small Numbers and priced so high that only Serious Audiophiles can own them.

Anything sold for a modest price or produced in large quantities is, by advertising-taught definition, mid-fi at best. Then there are the matters of conspicuous consumption, pride of ownership, and needs for ego gratification. All these conspire with clever marketers to create an environment in which people will pay $50,000 for speakers shown to contain $500 worth of components.

Someone posted to a thread the other day an anecdote about walking into a Salon with $5,000 to spend on a system and being told that with that much money he could buy one component. And we wonder why we remain a niche market.

Sorry for getting a bit off-thread. These opinions, like all of mine, are worth precisely what you paid for them.

will

I admit to being a bit of a Linnie (Linnie's Anonymous, anyone?), but I also have never thought much of their speakers. The best one I've heard is the 5140, which is open and dynamic and punchier than the typical Linn speaker. I would add that their best gear, LP12 excepted, is the less expensive stuff. To me the only overrated aspect of Linn is the Komri-tri-amped with Klouts/Klimax. The Classik, on the other hand, is amazingly good for the price, and I love my little Majik. Their gear is generally very musical, bullet-proof, upgradable and not bad to look at either. I have a lot of brands ahead of them on my overrated list!

Well I came to Linn very lately, coming from Triangle, YBA, Acoustic Energy, Reference 3a Supreme II (list price was more than $10000) .... and to my surprise, after listening to the Ninkas for about 2 or 3 weeks, I dumbed my mutli thousand dollars speakers for a pair of Ninka. I have had Linn amplifiers, a Linn LP12 and I can assure you the Ninka was the most musical speaker among the one I had in the recent pasts. Only Triangle comes very close, but with different electronics. I must say that I got sick and tired of looking for the best amp-speaker match, the best pre amp, the best cables match ... Linn offers a no brainer: for a given budget you get a very musical system. And the more you spend, the more transparent the system becomes, the better is the soundstage .... but Linn never sacrifices musicality for soundstage or other sound "artifacts" .... my 2 cents.

...I owned Keilidhs (Ninka predecessor) previously and took them active and thought it vastly improved the performance. Much better control and dynamics, down low especially, but the speaker never satisfied me entirely in the bass department. I listened to the updated Ninkas and thought that were an improvement, but not enough to warrant the upgrade.

I really like the bang-for-buck of the active configuration and I like the "Linn Sound", so I opted for a used set of 5140s and I run them active. MUCH better. And for the money, I think the 5140s used (1700$ or so) offer a better value than new (well, that's goes for most all audio) Ninkas (or Espeks for that matter).

Maybe not the end of the rainbow in soundstaging, but they are very engaging and musical, and I can't get enough of the music these things produce!

here is the deal with Linn, they are polite speakers so using proper amplification is important. I bought a used pair of Ninkas on here last year and I am very happy with them-keep in mind I am driving them with a near 5K Thule amp. Also, I use very good cables. I heard a Ninka set up once with a simaudio amp and Nordost cables and it was great. So, what you feed the speakers matters. IMOP they are among the most acurate and musical speakers around with the right equipment. As a contrast you could try a pair of Focals with their berrylium tweeter, very dynamic. FYI the cables I am using are from Purist Audio design and they work well in my set-up. Hope this helps.