ARTIKULAT
Hi-Fi Choice, The Collection, UK
Oct 2006
"The Artikulat is perhaps the most analytical loudspeaker we have had the pleasure of using; we've never encountered a greater degree of insight into the make up and character of recordings. Old favourites revealed precisely how each instrument and voice had been recorded and produced, the speakers reaching right down into the mix and pulling out the acoustic, or the reverb applied to each element, in uncanny fashion. You get a sense that the Artikulat is totally unflappable. Throw any kind of music at it and ask it to play it back at almost any volume and you get a calm, consistent and totally revealing performance...there simply seems to be no sense of distress whatever you play. The sound doesn't change whether it's loud or quiet; it's just as revealing at low levels as it is at higher ones. This is a rare quality...Another useful quality is the way the speaker makes lesser known and heavy going music more accessible. In many respects, we found ourselves enjoying the less well-played tracks as much if not more than the favourites. Which, from the point of view of musical exploration is a major bonus..with this degree of control and reduction of distortion, it's possible to enjoy stuff that was hitherto impossible. Returning to passive speakers after a pair of Linn Artikulat 350As brings home just how remarkable and immensely capable they are. Suddenly, one needs to keep tweaking the volume in search of a sense of dynamic power, and the Linn's tremendous sense of order remains only in the memory. This is a very expensive speaker but it does things that virtually all other speakers can only dream about. How much you value this degree of quality is a personal thing, but it'll bring you a lot closer to nirvana than a twenty two grand motor car ever could!"
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