Linn's Ninka speaker: Anyone heard it??

It's worth the trouble to biwire them. The stock cables that came with them weren't quite long enough for the permanent installation (and my friend thought they were ugly) and she didn't want to spend very much for wire. I bought some bulk Canare StarQuad wire from Markertek, Linn connectors for the amp end from a Linn dealer and some decent locking bananas and soldered up a pair. Total cost was about $65 for a 12' pair and even with the relatively inexpensive cable the Ninkas were quite a bit more open and transparent.

These are definately more open sounding than the keilidhs, however contrary to their instruction manual they don't take to kindly to close to wall placement. If you like b&w you probably won't like these. Stands are a necessity.

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.