Which cables for my Linn set-up?

Yes, you need to double your cables.

In a non-biamped system, the same cable carries highs and lows. With the active crossovers, you have a separation of the highs and lows, with each being amplified separately. You need a separate cable for the highs and the lows.

K20 is for single wiring. You need to double it.

I would suggest one of two alternatives in terms of appropriate quality and cost effectiveness.

The first is to buy another set of K20s to go with what you have. So you would have two K20 cables going to each of the five speakers. (You said that you already have your rear Keilidhs biwired. So you may not need to buy another set for these.)

The second alternative is to sell the K20 and use K400 cable. it's basically two K20 cables put together in a single jacket. A little less clutter. With this, you would have one K400 cable going to each of the five speakers. K400 is pretty good cable at a reasonable price and is made to match with Linn.

I would be very happy to have your set-up.

Redling,

Running aktiv, your Espeks need three channels of amplification and three pairs of speaker cables running to each one because they are three way speakers. Your Ekwal is a two way speaker, and therefore requires two channels of amplification and two pairs of speaker cables to it. You can run the Keilidhs passively biwired, but as you already know, this requires two pairs of cables to each speaker also.

You should understand that the aktiv cards do not make a Linn system aktiv by themselves. You must have a channel of amplification and a pair of wires running to each driver in each speaker. For the Espeks, consider Linn K600, a six wire cable, and for the Ekwal, use the Linn K400, a four wire speaker cable. I have used them in the past, and they are extremely good-sounding, but not visually beautiful, cables. Consider the K400 for passively biwiring your rear speakers with the LK85s. I had a very similar system in the past. There are no other cables that I can think of that will will compete with them for the price.

As your rear speakers are so far from the rest of the system, consider placing the LK85s in the rear of the room and use longer interconnects.

Good luck with your system. The sound of an aktiv Linn system is truly world-class.

Yikes!!! Thsalmon is right! The Espeks do need to be tri-amped and tri-wired in active configuration. You can bi-amp them but only passively, not actively. I had a nagging feeling when I wrote my post that there was something different about the Espeks. Now I remember, you can't actively bi-amp!

Okay, now here are the options with respect to wiring the Espeks:

1. single wire (K20) with one amp;
2. biwire (two K20s or one K400) with one amp;
3. biamp passive (two K20s or one K400) with two amps;
4. triwire passive (three K20s or one K600) with one amp;
5. triamp passive (three K20s or one K600) with three amps;
6. triamp active (three K20s or one K600) with three amps containing the electronic crossovers for bass, mid and treble.

So for active use, the Espeks will need one K600 cable or three K20 cables per speaker.

As Thsalmon said, if you can situate the LK 85s closser to the rear speakers, it will be sonically better, and cheaper, to run a long interconnect with shorter speaker cables than vice versa. It will require a custom length interconnect but that's no big deal to obtain from a high-end store.