Linn Audio Sondek Klimax LP12 Turntable

Description

Over 40 years’ worth of research and development has gone into this latest evolution of the turntable that turned the hi-fi industry on its head back at the beginning of Linn’s journey to make better sound. Each precision-engineered upgrade has uncovered more music from the depths of the record groove.

It includes the best of Linn’s precision-engineered upgrades, and because it’s modular, you can update it whenever we release a new upgrade. A Klimax LP12 is an investment that will amaze and reward you for years to come.

Key Features

• • Sondek LP12 turntable
  • Keel machined sub-chassis and armboard
  • Radikal motor control unit & power supply
  • Brushed DC motor in acoustically isolated housing
  • Ekos SE precision tonearm
  • Kandid moving coil (MC) cartridge
  • Urika II Moving Coil phono stage built-in to suspended base.

Keel
Choose Keel—our integrated sub-chassis, armboard and tonearm collar—to give your turntable a significant leap in performance, helping to retrieve even more music from your vinyl records.

Machined from a solid piece of aluminium, Keel provides extremely rigid support to the tonearm and platter. We’ve eliminated screws, fixings and joins between each component so that virtually all vibration is removed, providing you with a more faithful reproduction of your music collection.

And to ensure that the Keel is integrated seamlessly with the suspension system of every Sondek LP12 turntable, it has been engineered to maintain the same mass and centre of gravity as achieved with a separate sub-chassis, armboard and collar.

• • Machined from solid aluminium
  • Integrated armboard and tonearm collar
  • Varying ‘pocket’ depths for consistent centre of gravity
  • Available for Ekos SE & Ekos tonearms

Trampolin
Made from high quality aluminium, the Trampolin base board is the best performance choice and can be fixed directly to the wooden plinth of your turntable.

Its expertly-designed suspended feet provide any Sondek LP12 turntable with additional isolation from vibration, using acoustic dampening material to minimise interference for improved audio performance.

• • Aluminium base board
  • Suspended feet isolate deck from vibration
  • Retro-fittable to any LP12

Radikal

Radikal is the highest performance motor control and power supply available for the Sondek LP12 turntable and comes complete with a brushed DC motor that replaces the standard LP12 AC motor. Radikal also powers the Urika internal phono stage for the LP12, where fitted.

Radikal brings together several breakthrough technologies that enable a completely new and innovative approach to motor control in the LP12, significantly improving its performance. To ensure perfect timing, Radikal’s speed management system auto-calibrates the motor every time the Sondek LP12 is powered on.

With radically reduced electromagnetic noise levels, the precious-metal brushed DC motor delivers a huge improvement in signal-to-noise ratio, getting you even closer to the music.

Radikal is available in a Klimax chassis, machined from solid aluminium, or our standard Akurate-style chassis, so you can match it to your Linn system

• • External power supply for LP12 and Urika internal phono stage
  • Supplied with brushed DC motor
  • Speed management system checks speed on every rotation
  • Dual speed: 33/45 rpm

Ekos SE Tonearm
Setting a new performance benchmark, Ekos SE features advanced materials carefully selected for their sound performance and low resonance properties. These minimise interference, resonance and microphony, meaning you’ll hear even more from your vinyl collection.

The arm tube is machined from titanium to reduce resonance and a stainless steel bearing housing ensures precision of movement.

Regardless of whether you are listening to the first track of the day or have been spinning records for hours, the ultra-low friction bearings and temperature-compensated precision-springs ensure that exceptional performance from the Ekos SE tonearm is maintained.

Every Ekos SE tonearm is precision-engineered to last and is hand-built to the highest quality standard, so that you can continue to enjoy your vinyl collection for decades to come.

• • Machined titanium arm tube
  • Ultra-low friction bearings
  • Stainless steel bearing housing
  • Temperature-compensated springs
  • Long headshell accommodates almost any cartridge

Kandid Moving Coil Cartridge
Kandid is our best moving coil (MC) cartridge yet, designed to extract as much musical detail from your vinyl records as possible.

The first thing you’ll notice about Kandid is that the motor housing is exposed. With no cartridge housing potential sources of resonance are removed, resulting in purer, cleaner sound, making all your vinyl sound better than ever.

We’ve also kept the weight of the cartridge down by using a plastic front yoke screw rather than metal. As well as allowing the counterweight to be moved closer to the bearing point which gives a quicker reaction to changes in the vinyl, using a plastic screw eliminates any magnetic interference to the delicate coils in the cartridge.

Another notable innovation in Kandid is the angle of the mechanical body and the tracking angle of the cantilever which have also been moved from 23° to 20°. This means that when it’s placed under tracking force on the LP surface, the flux lines remain symmetrical, ensuring that mechanical forces on the coils and iron core remain equal in all directions, avoiding any deformation.

Kandid uses the finest nude diamond Line Contact stylus and benefits from a ceramic boron cantilever for ultra low mass and extremely high rigidity. The suspension mechanism supports hand-wound coils secured in a high-precision rigid assembly, terminated with gold contacts on flying leads for superb signal transmission. The coils in the Kandid also feature an extra winding to increase output.

Kandid’s assembly structure has been designed to perfectly partner with the Linn Ekos SE tonearm. It is constructed around a machined-from-solid, 7075 aluminium alloy body for complete rigidity and includes our unique triple-point mounting system to ensure a more rigid and accurate coupling.

• • Linn’s highest performing cartridge
  • Moving coil (MC)
  • Low mass housing and cantilever
  • Precision machined 7075 aluminium body
  • Triple-point mounting system
  • Nude diamond Line Contact stylus

Urika II Phono Stage

Using our cutting-edge digital signal processing technology, Urika II now carries out the key process of implementing the RIAA curve in the digital domain. This brings you lower distortion, lower noise and more music.

Transported over Exakt Link, the musical information that Urika II delivers is perfectly preserved until the moment it reaches your ears, delivering a musical experience like never before.

That’s not all. We take the same approach with Urika II that we do with our Exakt-enabled loudspeakers. This means we can optimise each and every individual device, correcting the variations inherent in the analogue stage to ensure outstanding performance every time.

Urika II can be optimised to work with your preferred cartridge load values. Simply choose from our list of popular cartridges or enter your own, and easily change when you next upgrade your cartridge.

Urika II is powered by our extraordinary Radikal power supply and is mounted on the integrated Trampolin base board within the plinth of your Sondek LP12 to maintain phono stage isolation and improve deck suspension.

• • Moving coil (MC) internal phono stage for LP12
  • The most precise implementation of the RIAA curve
  • Converts music signal to digital at the earliest point possible
  • Lossless digital output over Exakt Link (requires an Exakt-enabled Linn DS or Linn DSM player in the system)
  • Component manufacturing tolerances measured and corrected
  • Optimised for your chosen cartridge

Supported Cartridges
Linn: Akiva, Kandid, Klyde, Krystal

Non-Linn: Benz Micro Ace S, Denon DL103, Dynavector DV20x, Dynavector XV1S, Dynavector XX2 Mk2, EMT JSD 5, EMT TSD 15 SFL, Lyra Argo, Lyra Delos, Sumiko Celebration Pearlwood II, Van den Hul ‘The Frog’

Physical Dimensions
Width: 445mm
Height: 140mm
Depth: 356mm

Available in Oak,Cherry,Black Ash,Rosenut and Walnut