Linn Akiva cartridge - another review

Colleagues,

I have just taken delivery of an LP12, EKOS, Akiva, Lingo and Linto from Martin Kleiser. Actually, owing to varoius problems the delivery was made over the period from the beginning of November last year.

It is very likely that the Akiva set-up reviewed by Mike Lacey was mine.

I am glad that he liked my system.

However my opinion is rather different. Here then is my review of the Akiva, in all probability the very same cartridge as that reviewed by Mike Lacey.

Installation used for the review tests:

The installation of the Linn equipment was performed together with a Linn dealer (Colin Macey)and is to the best of our knowledge a satisfactory installation. The sound colouration does not exist with other inputs including other turntable/arm/cartridge arrangements.

Equipment used for the tests were: Linn: Akiva, Ekos, LP12, Lingo, Linto, Quad: 34, 707, ESL63s.

Review´:

This weekend I took delivery of my new LP12 again but with a new EKOS arm and Akiva cartridge. The Akiva replaces the Dynavector cartridge fitted as a temporary measure. Due to manufacturing defects and short-circuits the arm and some other components had also been changed. Here are a few comments on the Akiva as it operates in this set-up.

First point is that the mid-range bloom that I experienced with the previous Dynavector cartridge is much reduced but still present. The Akiva delivers a very hard muscular sound. When listening to rock or jazz music, the effect is very dynamic and involving. Problems set in when the recording has a large mid-range component, such as forward vocals, the mid-range bloom becomes a distracting honk.

The colouration produced by the cartridge/arm/turntable arrangement is such that differences between recordings are masked, everything comes out hard and aggressive.Even relatively gentle classical music (say, RVW Oboe Concerto) becomes aggressive, the deeper stringed instruments come in with a jazz-club-style punch. You don't hear the performance or its subtleties, all you hear is Linn.

It is said that the Akiv, and by inference the Akiva, extracts a large amount of information from the groove, this may well be the case but if so, the colouration obscures all this additional information. So bad is the mid-range bloom that while playing a recording of the "Ode to Joy" finale, I had the impression that I was listening to the music using a cheap pair of boxy loudspeaker rather than ESL63s.

My pre-amplifier features a filter which allows a step in the frequency response to be set. I think that this is intended to overcome room resonances. This filter can be used to reduce the mid-range honk. Listening to the effect of the various filter settings, I would judge that there is a bump, or flattened peak, in the frequency response of the LP12 combination somewhere between about 100Hz and 350Hz. I have since been informed that the "word on the street", so to speak, is that the peak in frequency response is at about 250 Hz.

This non-flat frequency response would explain the, by some people admired, punchy Linn sound. I can quite understand that this bass/mid range bump would lift a, let's say not so good, HiFi out of the doldrums and give an instantly impressive sound with the right kind of music.

It is almost pointless to try to compare the sound of a HiFi system with the "original sound", we don't what it is and even, in a studio or multi-miked set up, if it ever existed. What we can tell though, is do different pieces of music, different musicians, different recording venues sound different, can we hear these subtle, and not so subtle, differences? With the LP12, Akiva and so on, the answer is no. Everything sounds as though it were recorded in a jazz dive and, perhaps exaggerating slightly here, played by a jazz band. The Linn colouration obscures all this information. The LP12 converted my HiFi system (based upon the stunningly clear and neutral ESL63s) into a boom-box.

In conclusion, a cartridge with plenty of punch, good for rock or jazz. However, for listeners with good quality, neutral amplifiers and loudspeakers, the colouration will prove tiring. Particularly worrying is the way that all the different sound textures that can result from different collections of instruments, different scoring, different acoustics, different ways of playing are all lost and replaced with an aggressive punch. The musical and acoustic intentions of the composer, the musicians and the recording engineers are all but lost.

Quite a bit different, isn't it?

I do welcome and, in fact expect, comments. I am as surprised by the LP12/Ekos/Akiva performance as I am fairly sure you are.

I want to stress that I have been very careful in ensuring that the performance noted was due to the addition of the LP12 to my system and not the uncovering of other latent problems.