Linn Lk1 for use as cheap phono stage..

Yep, it does indeed - so do I need to eat a huge chunk of humble pie? Yes and no, but as it's pie, I'll eat my share

Continued -

I was all but goaded by you lot into buying this mid 80's Linn preamp cheaply, as they apparently make good cheap phono stages! Sadly, these things have battery backup for the display memories and if left too long they leak and etch the circuit board they're on - some tuners and so many TV's of the time used this form of memory backup and where the TV's will have been junked long ago, the tuners (Quad FM4 is one such) are still around and being used. Some little caps on the logic board and rated far higher in voltage than they need to be also go off and the display flashes like a Christmas tree, which is how this one was... Anyway, here's the story below...

Bloomin' 'eck, I surprise myself..

This sodding Linn LK1 was driving me mad with impatience. Bought cheaply non-running to see if claims of a good very cheap MC stage would be realised, the display lit up like a Christmas tree on switch-on, the battery had leaked all over the now long discontinued circuit board and one or two electrolytic caps on this control board looked iffy to me and with corrosion around their legs (I reckon the battery gave off fumes as well as leaking as nearby ic's had blue etching around their legs but they weren't in the gravity fall of any electrolyte). Darran at Class A service didn't want to know as the board was potentially fatally damaged and of course no spares available for nearly twenty years now, so be warned!!!

I ordered replacement caps from RS (free delivery even on an order of a fiver) and received them in a huge box from Parcel Force this lunchtime. I only needed to replace five of them in addition to the battery, I re-connected and after what seemed like five minutes for the display to sort itself out and a couple of turning off and on cycles (no idea why but the thing hadn't worked for years it seems), it's working properly and switching inputs and record functions as it should. It needed five electrolytic caps and one little ceramic cap (to replace one which broke a leg while I was manhandling the board - cough)...

Currently, I've just made up a pair of record-out cables (L and R using each of the tape sockets) and plugged the fixed output into a spare input on the IC-150, but I'm getting two types of equal hiss from the phono circuits and nothing from the Aux side. This bypasses the variable output stage and is probably the best way to hear the phono section in isolation...

I need more time to type listening impressions and should say it's nowhere near as 'expansive' as my NVA Phono 2/PSU, BUT - with the Sh#t vinyl decks I have here, the LK1 phono stage (so far as an MM one) works just fine and its dry and slightly small and 'contained' presentation in original stock form seems to help you to hear things in the mix cleanly and very clearly with no 'syrup,' tuneless stridency (as in cheap phono stages bought retail) or obvious 'veiling' at all. I suspect the old LP12 in full mid 80's 'fruitbox' mode as it was then, was again a great sonic match as you'd expect it to be, but in fairness, I suspect the LK1 would do good justice to a current mid spec and much improved LP12 too. Without a Dirak or double value smoothing caps as the late ones had, the focus is definitely on the midrange, the top and bottom neatly doing their thing and not drawing nasty attention to themselves...

Onwards and backwards maybe, but I'm glad I got it working again, hopefully for a while longer so when time comes to sell, I can hopefully turn a small profit out of it. I'll need a PP3 battery for the remote control as well - and these supposedly go for thirty quid or so on the used market had all else failed.

Currently, the MC stage with MC30 Super is noisier through headphones than I thought it would be and not much less than record surface noise. It's equal both channels so I doubt there's a fault and Ortofons were never high output for low output models, if you see what I mean. This cartridge sounds a touch too strident for me using the Dual 601, but switching back to MM and an ADC ZLM and it's perfect - lively, not too 'sweet' to smother things and very clear, if not as 'etched' as the Ortofon in this deck. Again, I'm limited by not having the LP12 deck it was designed to go with nor the Karma or Troika cartridges normally used with this preamp stage.

Early Klouts were just bigger 280's I believe and not nice outside of a Linn system. The last issue ones were better sounding I thought and good power amps regardless - there were changes made internally I gather.

I must admit my early exposure to the Kairn and Klout were on active kaberssssssssssss* and then Keltiks, this latter a terrible ballistic grainy sounding abortion of an active speaker. I got quite a surprise when I got to hear the Karik III/Numerik III, 'brilliant supply' Kairn and last issue Klouts - not bad at all and then, not totally silly money, although the writing was on the wall for price rises I seem to remember.

* Funny thing was, early kabers could be transformed with the later ribbed tweeter and bi or tri-wiring passive. they changed from a rather unbalanced speaker into something almost sweet...

Off I go again. Sorry...


Now to get the remote to talk to the LK1 properly, it isn't very well right now...

All's not perfect in paradise though...

Left it disconnected overnight, put it in the workroom rack and re-connected. One red led and no response. Turned off and back on - Christmas tree illumination! of and on again, worked with one button push and then nothing. next go Christmas tree again. Finally, I begin to get some response but remote not working right, but the front panel is responding, so I've left it to stew in its regulators for a while.

I'm now wondering if the next issue is the mother board, as there are two regulators for the main board and a third for the logic board, supposedly giving 8V DC. Cheap to replace, or it could be dry joints...

Onwards and sideways this time?


Why do I bother? Well, humble pie tells me that certainly as a PHONO STAGE, it still has a lot to offer as long as you're not a detail HiFi audio-freak. The midrange is musical - but never lush - and quite involving, helping mid level vinyl systems to shine if they're working right I think, as I said before above. Top and bottom are fine, just not as 'expansive' as say the Phono 2/PSU and its peers.

Bearing in mind how power supplies improve the Phono 1 and 2, I wonder what the Dirak does for the complex Lk1 circuits? First, to check the logic board regulator and that means removing the main board and adding to-replacing the smoothing caps thereon as doubling the value did make a difference at the time and it's an authorised update....

My opinion obviously, but Kans have no bass extension and little scale outside of a narrow area in the midrange in my opinion, so beefing up the supply so much may have been at perceived frequencies outside of the Kan's range - just an observation... The Lk2 models did funny things too and any today *may* make for an extensive refurb job as the boards seemingly cooked themselves to destruction, especially if used with the pretty cruel loads of Saras and 'Briks...

If he had the Dirak still, I'd be interested.

The thing was, the Dirak and Spark seemed to come along at around the same time, just before the Linn dealer purge* I recall. Memories of the time seem to indicate the Spark made the LK280 worse if anything, emphasising all the things I disliked in this amp (strangely, the Klout went even further yet I thought it 'sounded' better I seem to remember...). I think the Dirak was tied up to this and maybe it actually does open up the frequency extremes. Somehow, I need to try one to re-align old memories.

* If memory serves right, around the early 90's, Linn wanted to get their dealers to specialise more thoroughly in the brand, wishing for dealer contracts and more details on purchasing customers, which is where my dealership vehemently disagreed. My bosses were happy to share B&O customer details with B&O-UK, but were unwilling to do this via guarantee registration with Linn and, along with nearly a hundred other dealers, we lost the franchise despite offering proper dealer pre and after sales care, service, installation and a good reputation for LP12 set-ups... i remember my pal and London manager pleading with Ivor personally to try to sort something out, as Linn were just about to move to the next stage with digital products (Kairn and Klout were in the wings too), but our boss was adamant and I believe losing Linn was bad for the business, especially as the sales director was so into naim at the exclusion of all else - West Hampstead and the surrounding area was perfect for the expensive Absolute Sounds portfolio too - people wanting to 'upgrade' their Linn/Naim systems of the 80's who ended up moving on to other London dealers...

I know I was a Notts Analogue owner by this time, but I kept in touch with Linn via a mate who was a part timer at a near London agency and was changing/swapping his Linn gear twice a year or more and updating his LP12 incrementally, so I got to hear the Cirkus, Ekos changes and the Archiv cartridge too, as well as the smps supplies in the digital sources and Kairn, which livened up the latter no end I remember. the mid 90's internal changes in the Karik/Numerik were frightening to me and each change fine-tuned the sound I recall. I had the big ATC's and he had a full four-Klout Keltik system...

Instead of the ACT 1's ATC driven, I should have tried three LK140's 'activ' into the Keilidhs and preferably the then newly launched Ninka's, which I thought was a good system, the Ninka's a really good speaker even passive IMO. I even had a sneaking liking of the Espek, which lacked the boom of the previous numbered model, but again, these needed to be actively driven.

I honestly believed that Linn all but hobbled their passive models to sell them active in comparison. Keilidh's transformed in active form, the mid coming forward to balance the bass and top but in tri-amped active form with three LK140's, they were really excellent, even if the tweeter was set rather too low in the box... In my opinion obviously.

I finally made up some cables to check the LK1 as a full preamp and also to make sure the line inputs were working. All fine there.

I was a bit surprised to find the sound still pleasant, as I thought the sound of the thing as a stand alone preamp would be excessively closed in. Doing level matched comparisons seems to dilute any subjective impressions for some reason - and I remember the Dirak and internal supply cap upgrades carrying some improvement on all inputs, so something's odd here as I remember a repeatable difference and not pre-programming bullshit.

Anyway, as you lot told me it would be, a very clean and tidy little preamp, available for not much money but which may need some soldering work on the logic board at least to get it to working condition assuming the battery acids haven't killed it completely. Fine volume setting is easy to achieve and the sound from the variable outputs isn't forced or coloured at all, apart from perhaps being a bit 'smaller' than I'm used to these days. Certainly for the time, it was very advanced I believe, but things were moving quickly back then (five years production life was an age at the time, but a blink of an eye looking back now).

Those early Linn amps are truly dreadful! A NAD 3020 would thrash the pre/power combination on everything but power output!