|
Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
|
|
|
Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
|
In Reply to: I have Kabers as well as homemade speakers... posted by Twistnshout on September 25, 2000 at 13:28:16:
mr Twister -
With decent electronics / source these speakers can sound great - quite thrilling actually. The Keilidh's not quite the same performance level, but at normalized pricing IMHO the best value in the line. (5dB more efficient as well!)It's the total price of admission to this ride that can be bettered.
You're quite right about the value of used Kabers at $900. Since these were in production for about 10 years, it's important to check them out carefully.
The newer ceramic tweeters made a very big difference ( if not installed, the upgrade was about $300 CDN 4 or 5 years ago)
Granite/resin bases are also very significant improvement, at a similar cost, if memory serves.
Drivers and XO are intact. I've seen several pairs at a local dealers service department over the years with "blown parts" Probably very easy to do if underpowering in the full range passive mode.
Linn doesn't really rate maximum power handling, but recommends minimum of 60RMS. With a sensitivity of 87dB/1W @1k and 4 ohm impedance in the passive mode, it would be easy to clip some modestly powered amps. As we all know, prolonged abuse of this nature can transform any of the following speaker parts into a perfect slow blow fuse: voice coil, capacitor, resistors. Never seen a shorted inductor coil myself, but lots of smoked XO resistors!Other than cosmetic changes to the boxes and tweeter faceplate, I'm not sure if there were any other refinements to the design to look for. Other Linn-ites could help out here.
I might disagree, however on the ease of duplicating the active XO.
All Linn XO, passive or active are not your basic DIY stuff. There's quite a bit of naughty stuff goin' on in there - filtering, EQ and phase correction, that would take a lot of trial and error to replicate. And just try to get the specs from LINN. Gotcha!Bi- or Tri- amping these speakers (even in the passive mode) is vastly preferable to brute force, and is almost a necessity for realistic dynamics/maximum joy.
And wouldn't you know it, but those thoughtful marketing chaps (oops, product engineers!) at Waterfoot are ahead of you there - just check out their brochures or website re the Active modules or Tune Box.
Careful auditioning and a little luck and patience in the "trade-in" department, E-bay or etc., and you could collect the required amps, then buy the XO last.
BTW for fans of the LINN amp sound (and those not requiring the latest bells/whistles or life threatening SPL), a great combo for these speakers would be the old Intek/Powertek (or 2 of the latter for a "six pack"). Quite a decent phono stage and pre-amp in the Intek, and reasonable power (60W at 8 ohms rings a bell). I've seen some on the used shelf for $400 / $300 respectively (CDN!)Never tweaked my Keilidh's but would be interested in hearing from anyone adventuresome enough to have tried either upgrading XO caps and/or destuffing the damping.
Enough for now
Good luck
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- Re: I have Kabers as well as homemade speakers... - cbob 22:16:59 09/25/00 (1)
- Thanks cbob. - Twistnshout 06:48:29 09/26/00 (0)
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
