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Review 1 of 1
Price Paid:
$3500.00
from Innovative Audio/Vid Summary:
Cosmetics: The Linn Majik has a sleek, clean, modern design that doesn't really draw attention to itself. It seems to be designed to blend seamlessly with modern decor. The looks don't have much "wow" factor like the Moon CD players.
Controls: I like the fact that the buttons on the unit are kept to a minimum (6), which enhances the clean look. But I'm not crazy about the buttons themselves. They're too small, and combined with the fact they are soft-touch, makes them seem rather effete. As to the remote, it is probably nice if you have several Linn components, but if you just own the CD, then there's lots of stuff crowded in there that you will never use.
Display: Art Dudley said, "I don't like it." Well, neither do I. It's a shame that this poorly-thought out display mars an otherwise nice-operating unit. One can toggle through 6 different display choices: Disc Type; Track # currently playing/Total # of tracks; Track time elapsed; Track time remaining; Disc time elapsed; and Disc time remaining. Dudley didn't like the fact that you can't view the track number and time elapsed simultaneously. The whole scheme is unnecessarily complicated. (Thankfully, though, if you are pushing the "next track" button, the display will automatically show a Track#/Total# display, then revert to the previously selected display. Same when the end of a track is reached.) But what Dudley didn't mention was how difficult it is to read the display from the listening position. Maybe his eyes are better than mine, but to me, it's just too darn dim, even set at 100%. In a darkened room, from 8 feet away, it is just barely legible, and in a lighted room it is almost worthless. To compare, my mbl 7008 integrated amp display has four brightness settings. The dimmest one is brighter than the Majik set to 100%! This is very frustrating. Another thing, why put the open drawer button to the left of the CD drawer, and the play button to the right? Wouldn't it make sense to put them on the same side?
Sound: I can only compare the sound to my previous player, a Rotel RCD-1072. (It wouldn't be fair to compare it to other CD players which I have heard through different speakers than my own.) I like what Art Dudley said, that the sound is "open and pure." There is a purity, a higher resolution, to the timbre. When listening to 'Reckoning,' Jerry Garcia's and Bob Weir's acoustic guitars sound more realistic than ever before...beautiful tone, and I feel like I can hear each plucked string, which reverberates and decays with a fantastic realism...I also think that the imaging and coherence is quite improved with the Linn. But instead of going on, I'll simply say that everything sounds "better." I understand what people mean when they say a "veil has been lifted." My speakers "seem" to have improved. But it's the CD player showing what my speakers are capable of.
However, the Linn costs five times what the Rotel does, and the Rotel is a player that I think most people could live happily with for many years.
I will also add that because I own so many Grateful Dead discs, I wanted a player that has HDCD. I also liked the fact that John Atkinson said that the Linn's measurements (other than a modest pre-empasis error) were state-of-the-art for a 16-bit device. And my understanding is that very few CD's were mastered with pre-emphasis, so this should not be bothersome.
Link to Art Dudley's review:
http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/307linn/index.html Strengths:
Clean, sleek lines to match seamlessly with a variety of decor; Build Quality; State-of-the-art measurements; Linn pedigree; Great sound Weaknesses:
Display, ergonomics in general
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