Komri with Tundra/Tundra mono

[Music Lover]

The other thing I wanted to comment on is the “you should really listen to them in your own home” comment that comes up in any thread like this. Now, of course, the ideal way to make a decision on anything is to listen to it in your own home with your own system. And I’ve certainly given this recommendation myself often enough. (Probably the second best is to compare a component to one you are familiar with in a somewhat similar system in a dealer who has rooms designed to mimic normal listening rooms.) However, I don’t think people realize how unrealistic that often is in the US and especially when dealing with a long-discontinued, high-end product like the Komri. I have to agree with post from Azazello that the idea is rather depressing, as it is so unlikely. Some of this is just due to the US market. Here we have a quite large landmass with pretty spread out dealerships. A good example of this is that I now have three customers who travel 500 to 600 miles to have me set up their LP12s and a fair number traveling over 300 miles.

No offence Thomas, but I think you make a huge mistake assuming guys in NA are the only ones with large distances.
In EU it's not easy finding good dealer with attention to details, dedication TOGETHER with deep knowledge of TuneDem.

Some examples :)
Living i South France for 5 years it took me 2 days in the car 2400 km to get to a good dealer for the heavy stuff. Then it was the return trip...

And in EU we often travel quite a bit just to buy stuff.
My KK was bought from a guy 3500km away (North Norway), we both book a flight trip and teamed up at an airport halfway between. Changed KK, money and both went straight back into the aircraft to travel back. The crew having a great time laughing I remember...

I actually bought most of my electronics unheard. Mostly as I liked getting the new stuff asap. Not an option to wait for the official demo and line up in the queue.
Normally that is not a risk as upgrading within the Linn range as you just get something better.

But with SPEAKERS, I strongly recommend listening first!
Specially with speakers from 2000 when Linn started releasing a bunch of stuff that sound VERY differently.
Up to Komri all had same characteristic, but nowadays...well how many strange speakers have we seen? And sadly heard!

Back to Komri.
If a customer can travel 600 miles to hear Komri but hesitate, that is a HUGE mistake. Cost nothing compared with buying/selling them.
I had to wait 6 years after the release to hear my first pair 3000 miles away. I instantly knew I must get a pair and a year later I picked up an ex-dem pair 2000 miles away.

So don't think we have all nice Linn stuff just a block away. Even in EU, high end Linn gear are not THAT common ;)

All the best!

btw, your ATC's sound great a long distant bird recently told me hehe

[Music Lover]

My experience recently with the Isobarik DMS's driven by a borrowed Tundra stereo is that even though the Isobarik is a lesser speaker than the Artikulat in some ways (maybe not all!), it has a musicality when driven by the Tundra which makes these less than optimum recordings more fun to listen to. Of course I suppose this could be the case with Komri too, if driven by Tundra stereo or better yet mono.

First, It's little depressing that a Tundra/DMS combo is better than a well installed A350A's.
Never liked them but expected them to be better than a passive pair of Isobariks. Even if Tundra is a great amp!

Secondly, I'm deadly sure it will no be the case with Komri.
But you MUST hear them, they are not for everybody.

[ThomasOK]

The other thing I wanted to comment on is the “you should really listen to them in your own home” comment that comes up in any thread like this. Now, of course, the ideal way to make a decision on anything is to listen to it in your own home with your own system. And I’ve certainly given this recommendation myself often enough. (Probably the second best is to compare a component to one you are familiar with in a somewhat similar system in a dealer who has rooms designed to mimic normal listening rooms.) However, I don’t think people realize how unrealistic that often is in the US and especially when dealing with a long-discontinued, high-end product like the Komri. I have to agree with post from Azazello that the idea is rather depressing, as it is so unlikely. Some of this is just due to the US market. Here we have a quite large landmass with pretty spread out dealerships. A good example of this is that I now have three customers who travel 500 to 600 miles to have me set up their LP12s and a fair number traveling over 300 miles.

No offence Thomas, but I think you make a huge mistake assuming guys in NA are the only ones with large distances.
In EU it's not easy finding good dealer with attention to details, dedication TOGETHER with deep knowledge of TuneDem.

Some examples :)
Living i South France for 5 years it took me 2 days in the car 2400 km to get to a good dealer for the heavy stuff. Then it was the return trip...

And in EU we often travel quite a bit just to buy stuff.
My KK was bought from a guy 3500km away (North Norway), we both book a flight trip and teamed up at an airport halfway between. Changed KK, money and both went straight back into the aircraft to travel back. The crew having a great time laughing I remember...

I actually bought most of my electronics unheard. Mostly as I liked getting the new stuff asap. Not an option to wait for the official demo and line up in the queue.
Normally that is not a risk as upgrading within the Linn range as you just get something better.

But with SPEAKERS, I strongly recommend listening first!
Specially with speakers from 2000 when Linn started releasing a bunch of stuff that sound VERY differently.
Up to Komri all had same characteristic, but nowadays...well how many strange speakers have we seen? And sadly heard!

Back to Komri.
If a customer can travel 600 miles to hear Komri but hesitate, that is a HUGE mistake. Cost nothing compared with buying/selling them.
I had to wait 6 years after the release to hear my first pair 3000 miles away. I instantly knew I must get a pair and a year later I picked up an ex-dem pair 2000 miles away.

So don't think we have all nice Linn stuff just a block away. Even in EU, high end Linn gear are not THAT common ;)

All the best!

btw, your ATC's sound great a long distant bird recently told me hehe

Thanks for the comment on the ATCs - I expect them to be even better by the end of the year. Early word is that the new tweeter will be easily more open and extended so it could remove the bird's only negative comment on them.

On the availability of quality Linn dealers I did state a bit later in the same post: "This is a very common problem throughout the US as Linn is not as big a part of any dealer’s business here as they are in the UK or other dealerships here and there in Europe." I do know that the availability of quality Linn dealers is sketchy in parts of the EU but it seems like you can't throw a caber in the UK without hitting a Linn dealer and there seems to be decent representation in Sweden. That is why I said here and there in Europe. There are 72 Linn dealers in the UK compared to 33 in the US (probably about half of which don't do turntables) yet the land mass of the UK is less than the land mass of Michigan! Looking at the map of Linn dealers it also seems they are well represented in central Europe and have very thin representation in South America, Africa and Asia as well as parts of Europe so it certainly varies quite a bit.

It was not always this thin in the US but I don't think this market has ever done as well as when Audiophile Systems were the importer from the earliest days through the mid 90s. Since then it has gown downhill with the US accounting for only 6% of Linn's worldwide sales a couple of years ago. Some of this, of course, has to do with the nationalistic tendency for people to want to buy products from their home country and the fact that the US does have a fair number of manufacturers, although mostly of more expensive equipment. But representation is still pretty spotty over here.

[Music Lover]

It's true we have many Linn dealers in EU, specially in UK.
But sadly the truly great ones are few.

Personally I prefer quality over quantity, and do my best to support the ones with the main commitment towards musical enjoyment and not towards maximizing own profit.
I know you are very appreciated in NA for that drive and dedication.

Have you listened to Komris yet?
Would be great reading your thoughts on Komris vs ATC..

[rcmc77]

Back to Komri.
If a customer can travel 600 miles to hear Komri but hesitate, that is a HUGE mistake. Cost nothing compared with buying/selling them.e

I don't actually know if it would be an option to travel to hear that set of Komri's that Thomas OK had mentioned, it is not something that he and I have discussed.

We did discuss my going with him to a customer of his who has Klimax 350's, where he will be going soon to install a Kandid (I believe). Problem with that is the customer lives in Canada, I don't have a current passport, and not enough time to get one. Apparently it's not a problem getting into Canada, the problem is getting back into US.

[rcmc77]

My experience recently with the Isobarik DMS's driven by a borrowed Tundra stereo is that even though the Isobarik is a lesser speaker than the Artikulat in some ways (maybe not all!), it has a musicality when driven by the Tundra which makes these less than optimum recordings more fun to listen to. Of course I suppose this could be the case with Komri too, if driven by Tundra stereo or better yet mono.

First, It's little depressing that a Tundra/DMS combo is better than a well installed A350A's.
Never liked them but expected them to be better than a passive pair of Isobariks. Even if Tundra is a great amp!

Secondly, I'm deadly sure it will no be the case with Komri.
But you MUST hear them, they are not for everybody.

I wanted to try and clarify what I was trying to say here, it seems I may have given an incorrect impression - i.e. that I felt that the DMS driven by Tundra was superior to Artkulat 350a in all ways. I can see where someone reading what I said could be left with that impression.

I don't feel that it is the case that DMS/Tundra was better than Artikulat in all ways. However my initial impression was that with the midrange of the DMS/Tundra, I was hearing both a little more musical information and I was hearing it more cleanly.

On the other side of the coin the bass and treble of the DMS/Tundra actually seemed a bit lacking in comparison with the Artikulats. To be fair some of that could have been caused by the cheap cables/connectors that came with the DMS's, which have now been replaced with the ones I mentioned that Thomas OK made up for me. The new cables improved both top and bottom end. I haven't done a comparison with the Artikulats since I got the cables from Tom.

As I think I've probably said earlier, with the Artikulat there seemed to be an issue with a certain area of the midrange being a bit harsh, which has also been mentioned indirectly by Frederik as a characteristic of Linn 3K arrays. Also Thomas OK said in this thread that he found the same thing annoying from the Artikulat when we did the single speaker comparison to a Klimax 350.

Another thing I had noticed from time to time with the Artikulat which I don't think I've mentioned here before, is that certain musical information that I knew was there sometimes seemed obscured and hard to hear. This also was usually in the midrange.

I could never really understand what was causing these effects, but I'm beginning to believe it might be a combination of the internal amps not being Linn's best, and what Thomas Ok has told me about the internal wiring going everywhere with no attention paid to correct polarity.

Usually when I would hear these things, it would make me want to stop and clean the stylus, but unless the stylus actually did need to be cleaned that usually did not help. Often it made me want to stop listening.

Now that I have dragged Artikulat over the coals, I should mention what I did (and do) like about them, which was mostly what they did in the bass. I've seen various comments on different threads about them having uncontrolled bass, etc. I'll admit that it could seem that way sometimes, but for the most part it was a very deep, extended, physical bass that I had not heard from really any other speaker and I really liked that. To me that made the music exciting. It is probably the reason I have kept them this long, despite the midrange issues.