linn power amps

[icequake2000]

I have just been offered a linn av5 125 5 channel power amp cheap I was wondering if they are any good for home cinema please help

[Chris Frost]

Linn products are rarely discounted. Is it stolen???

Be careful

Regards

[ReTrO]

Chris: Suprise! Linn are doing an offer with the 5103 processor and 5125 5ch amp for £4.5k!

I expect the reason one has been offered cheap is because it has been bought as part of a package cheaply by a dealer and they have only sold the processor to an existing coustomer.

The AV5125 is a great sounding amp, will output 125w RMS max per channel with max 500w at any time from all 5. Only one probelm with them is their reliabilty, they seem to fail a bit. But then you do have a 5 year guarentee so it's not really a worry, they should be able to fix the problems within this time.

What price have you been offered?

[ 16-10-2001: Message edited by: ReTrO ]

[icequake2000]

no the amp is not stolen it is a ex-dem £700 I will have to find out about the 5 year gurantee.

[Chris Frost]

icequake2000,
£700 seems like a bit of a bargain even taking in to account any special promotional price that Linn may have offered the dealer.

Let us know if you go ahead , and how it sounds in your system.

Good luck.

[ReTrO]

Good price, it is usually £1795 retail.

It is meant to be the best soundingamp in Linns range at thye moment bar the Klout(Klimax) mono-blocks, the Klout(Klimax) stereo is nothing special.

Buy it!

[ 17-10-2001: Message edited by: ReTrO ]

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Hi Rick,

Have to take exception here. There's no such amp as a Klout mono. I suspect you are talking about Klimax Mono's.....

Either way, it's a good price for a 5125 but to suggest it's one of Linn's best power amps, and it is better than LK140's, Klouts and Klimax Stereo amps is a bit ..... er .... off.

IMHO two channels of LK140 will easily outperform two channels of 5125 but then it should as it's more money! As for Klouts with that "old" transformer technology! Well, they are a different planet to 5125's.

Anyway, just my opinion. Go and listen to the 5125 for yourself and then buy with confidence.

Gordon

[ReTrO]

Gordon: My mistake. We had the Klimax Stereo amp in the shop a couple of weeks ago, brought down by the Linn rep. It didn't sound that exciting really.

I agree on the LK140 front also, certainly we have proven a pair of LK140's can work better than a 5125, after a coustomer blew one up and has not klilled his LK140's yet. He also has a LK240 for a centre channel.

I've not been able to compare the 5125 to the Lk140 properly (last one put in with an old Paradigm speaker system...), but I can definately say it is not as good as a LK240, or five!

Buy it at that price though!

[ 17-10-2001: Message edited by: ReTrO ]

[actionj2001]

Hi,

I thought I'd try to ressurect this thread.

I'm currently torn between upgrading my system to run a pair of Espeks with 3 x LK140's (in Aktiv) or 1 x 5125 and 1 x LK140 (again all in Aktiv).

I've also seen some cheap Klouts around as well but I think making them Aktiv will be a pain (they seem an old s/n) and I guess the Espek Aktiv cards won't work in the Klouts?

Also I currently have a Wakonda pre amp. I guess the best and cheapest nice upgrade would be a late s/n Kairn?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[rowlandhills]

Personally, if you're looking to upgrade both the preamp and power amps, then I'd definately look at moving over to the "AV" range.

The AV5103, although designed as a home cinema decoder, is also an excellent stereo preamp. Most people think that it wipes the floor with the Kairn. Available on fleabay from around £500, depending on age. The newer ones, with blue displays and DTS decoding, are supposed to sounds better (I have one which is slightly older than this, as it has DTS but a green screen, and it sounds great to me!)

The AV5125 is definately still a very good amp, and easier to find space for than a pair of LK140s. You'd need two of them to run your Espeks, but you would then have 4 spare channels which you could use for a centre speaker or something if you wanted to.

I don't know if they ever made mono aktiv cards for the Espek, to use in Klouts. However, I think I did read recently that Linn are now making available kits to fit new Chakra style cards into older amps, so you might be able to go down this route.

Good luck whichever approach you take. I think that I'm about to start looking for another AV5125 myself, so that I can have 5 speakers all of which are bi-aktiv, or possibly a tri-aktiv main pair, bi-aktiv centre and passive rears. Choices, choices...

[actionj2001]

Thanks for the reply mate. Good idea re AV pre amp, I'll check them out.
I'm actually going to buy a Onkyo 905 AV receiver for my main HT stuff, I guess its pre amp for audio 2 channel wont be as good as any Linn pre amp. Will be a bit weird using the Linn AV pre amp just for my 2 channel audio though but if it sounds great then hey!
PS. Cant/wont use the Linn AV pre amp for my whole HT cause the Onkyo 905 has a load of new features (HDMI 1.3, HD etc).
Cheers

[actionj2001]

I'm now thinking about driving the Espeks (again in Aktiv) with a Chakra 6100. Newer amp and will drive the Espeks in Aktiv all with 1 amp.
Sound ok?

[rowlandhills]

A c6100 should be even better than an AV5125 (or two). I kinda figured that since you were talking about LK140s or AV5125s then you were looking at the second hand market!

This may be a stupid question, but are you actually using the Espeks in your HT system, or just for two channel audio? If you're using them within the HT, how are they linked up to your Onkyo? You might want to look into "Unity Gain" inputs...

[actionj2001]

Originally Posted by rowlandhills

A c6100 should be even better than an AV5125 (or two). I kinda figured that since you were talking about LK140s or AV5125s then you were looking at the second hand market!

This may be a stupid question, but are you actually using the Espeks in your HT system, or just for two channel audio? If you're using them within the HT, how are they linked up to your Onkyo? You might want to look into "Unity Gain" inputs...

Yeah, I was looking at 2nd hand but then a very lightly used ex demo 6100 came around, so I thought why not!

Re the other question, basically I'll be using the Espeks for both 2 channel and HT. 2 channel will comprise of Ikemi, Kairn, C6100 (Aktiv), Espeks. With HT, I'll use my Onkyo TX NR905 (when I finally get one!) to drive my centre, 2 sides and 2 rears. I'll use the Onkyo's 'pre outs' of for the 2 fronts into my Kairn-C6100-Espeks.

Never heard of Unity Gain, what's that in a nutshell? I'll look it up as well though

Thanks again for advice.

[actionj2001]

Ahhh, I see
"What is Unity Gain?
Unity Gain is simply a home theater pass through.

How does Unity Gain work?
Take the left and right line level output from your home theater processor and connect them to input 4 on the preamp. Now when you want to watch a movie, go to Unity Gain mode on the preamp and turn it ON. This allows the signal from the processor to pass through the preamp un-attenuated. Level setting etc is now done by the processor and not the preamp.
"

So I guess I need to find out if my Kairn has a Unity Gain! ?...

Looked in the Kairn manual and it looks like it does
"USER FUNCTION 11 (U11) Option 0 allows the AUX/AUX1 input to be used as a general purpose line-level input. Option 1
allows the Kairn to be used in conjunction with a surround sound processor to provide the front left and right audio channels.
The surround sound processor should be connected to the AUX/AUX1 input of the Kairn. This input is specially configured
to have unity gain, corresponding to a volume setting of 80. The volume and channel balance is then controlled
by the surround sound processor. When selected this input is displayed as SSP and the volume, balance, and volume
functions are disabled. If any attempt is made to change the volume, and volume settings the display will change to show
SSP. The other Kairn inputs are unaffected."

Thanks very much for your advice Rowlandhills! I've always just used the pre outs into my stereo pre amp but always had the pain in the ass of adjusting the volume on the pre amp to the right level each time I played a movie. This should help a lot