It really ties the room together

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Discodave
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by Discodave »

Excellent points Market8.

Just to throw another curveball in.

I have only last night heard Kalla.

Special.

Full review to come soon.

:)
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by u252agz »

tokenbrit wrote: 2021-11-12 00:45 Yes you own the LPs, but streaming is relatively cheap, assuming you already have an Internet service*: most LPs are about $25 new these days; Spotify is roughly half that - 1 new LP every 2 months vs the whole streaming service** library... Of course the best would be to have both, with VPN for Internet privacy.

* not an unreasonable assumption if you are posting on this forum ;)

** there's a host of Internet radio stations if you don't want to pay for streaming :)
I will always keep my turntables and LPs but one of the issues other than cost of vinyl and limited availability, is the hugely variable quality of the recordings. Good ones are fantastic and Mediocre ones, so so. Bad ones are awful. My hit rate of great vs ok/poor, with recently purchased vinyl is less than 50%

With Kalla - Good recordings now also sound Fantastic ( with KDS/2 - they were just good) and I suspect bad ones will remain poor ( have only tried my favourites so far, which are obviously 'good')

But with Digital the library of available music is endless and there is no extra cost to trying and then 'dumping' the mediocre and bad recordings.
Kalla/Sag M/Tun M3/242/LP12/Slip7

Kalla/Giella Pi/JBL308/RS2e

Majik LP12/Boazu/110s
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markiteight
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by markiteight »

A little update:

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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by tokenbrit »

Kikkin your Exotik into touch... ?
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markiteight
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by markiteight »

...into a For Sale post.

The Exotik is a wonderful preamp. It helped open my ears to a world of musical enjoyment I've never experienced with my own system, but the Kikkin is on a whole new level.
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by Charlie1 »

Kikkin was and still is great value for money. I only ever compared it to a KK1 and it held up pretty well despite being 1/16th the cost.
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by markiteight »

That's really good to hear, Charlie1. It's been too long since I heard the KK1 (and it was in an unfamiliar system in a retail environment, so isolating the KK1's contribution is impossible) but what the Kikkin brings to the party is astounding. I sent a message to Fredrik shortly after I played the first album through the system with Kikkin reporting that my first impression of Kikkin was just how fantastic is HAKAI! In other words, it seems that Kikkin does a phenomenal job of passing the musical prowess of the source unimpeded.
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by ThomasOK »

That to me is one of the defining characteristics of all Lejonklou gear. In the 60s and 70s it was said that an amplification device should act like "a straight wire with gain" neither adding nor subtracting anything from the musical signal. Many designers seem to have lost sight of that in these days of flashy, big, expensive and ostentatious gear (both physically and audibly). Lejonklou gear acts more like a straight wire with gain than anything I have heard, letting all the music through. This is also a comment I hear frequently with one dealer saying people ask him how it sounds and he replies "You just have to listen to it. It basically has no sound of it's own." Likewise one reviewer said it did more nothing than any other amp he had heard and another said when it was in his system he basically wasn't aware it was there. A third said this is how an amplifier is supposed to sound.

Equipment that does it's job while getting out of the way and letting the music do the talking is what it is all about to me. In my opinion this is what Lejonklou HiFi does.
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markiteight
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Re: It really ties the room together

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This being my first Lejonklou product I was unprepared for the way it changed the way I listen to music. I shared the following with Fredrik a few days ago, and it sums up what I have experienced since adding Kikkin to the system. Prepare yourself...I'm going to use an audiophile cliché, but bear with me! OK...here it is:

When listening to familiar recordings I'm hearing things I've never heard before.

That phrase is usually uttered right before launching into a diatribe about a component's ability to extract more detail from a recording. But that's not what's happening here. What I'm hearing has always been there, and has always been played back loud and clear, my brain just didn't want to hear it. It was already at its processing limits and anything more was simply rejected. Think of it this way: you're standing in front of a line of people who are throwing balls at you simultaneously and randomly. You can catch some of them, but others you just have to ignore. But with Kikkin the balls come at you in an orderly and predictable way and you can catch all of them. It's a rather remarkable experience being able to hear all the music!

When I placed the order for Kikkin I had one small concern. I like to play music while I'm working or studying and as my system's ability to play music has improved, so has the amount of time I spend distracted from work by the music. I was worried that Kikkin would improve the music so much that I'd have to turn it off in order to stay focused. What's quite surprising is that exactly the opposite has happened! I am actually able to focus on the music and work simultaneously. With Kikkin the music is presented in such a comprehensive and comprehendible way that my brain can easily interpret it while leaving enough processing power left over for work/study tasks.

In the past I've written comments about how long it has taken me to compose my thoughts about the latest musical improvement I've made to my system, saying it sometimes takes 2-3 album's worth of time because I keep getting distracted by the music. This message? I banged it out during the course of 3 tracks, yet enjoyed music more in the process! This happens even if I play something that was intentionally chosen to be background music. Kikkin won't let me not enjoy it.

What happens if I put away the computer and turn my attention to the music? It's just plain fun! And the more Kikkin plays the more fun the music gets. It's so good I'm almost afraid to know what music from Källa and Sagatun is like.

Almost.
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markiteight
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by markiteight »

I've gone all-in on this digital thing:

Image

A well fettled LP12 will be up for sale soon, as soon as I can bring myself to actually part with it.
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Re: It really ties the room together

Post by Charlie1 »

Well, it's very tidy now. Will you spend the LP12 money on your HiFi?

I would hang onto your vinyl for a year or so just to be on the safe side.
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Re: It really ties the room together

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Charlie1 wrote: 2022-11-06 10:10 Well, it's very tidy now. Will you spend the LP12 money on your HiFi?

I would hang onto your vinyl for a year or so just to be on the safe side.
Looks like a really elegant system.

While I spend most of my time listening to digital, I've kept my vinyl.

Some of my albums will never make it to digital streaming.

After living with various streaming services for a few years, I've accepted the ebb and flow of availability of less popular music.

If you want to be sure you'll never lose it, you have to retain your own copy, in analogue or digital form.
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Linn Axis, Kinki, Källa (GS308T+Amplifi HD x 2 + BJC), Boazu, Espeks
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markiteight
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Re: It really ties the room together

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Charlie1 wrote: 2022-11-06 10:10 Well, it's very tidy now. Will you spend the LP12 money on your HiFi?
In an ideal world, yes. But my primary goal right now is to relocate to somewhere in Europe, so I'll have to wait until after the dust settles to know if an upgrade is within reach. The only upgrade I'm interested in at the moment (other than the improvements optimization brings) is Källa.
Charlie1 wrote: 2022-11-06 10:10 I would hang onto your vinyl for a year or so just to be on the safe side.
I've already started selling off my vinyl collection and it's about half gone, and I'm okay with that. I am trying to let go of object sentimentality. They're just things, and things can be replaced. Meanwhile, the sale of those things partially funded a 2 month long trip through Europe, where I accumulated experiences, memories, and friendships that will last a lifetime, and even the greatest vinyl collection can't match that!
springwood64 wrote: 2022-11-06 11:07 Looks like a really elegant system.
Thanks! I love the fact that it's one of the most musical systems one can assemble, yet it can fit in a suitcase (minus the support structures)! That'll make it so much easier to bring great music with me, wherever I end up.
springwood64 wrote: 2022-11-06 11:07 Some of my albums will never make it to digital streaming.

After living with various streaming services for a few years, I've accepted the ebb and flow of availability of less popular music.

If you want to be sure you'll never lose it, you have to retain your own copy, in analogue or digital form.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), none of my vinyl was that obscure. Indeed, some of the music I'm seeking was to my knowledge never available on vinyl, and doesn't seem to be on any of the streaming sites either (anybody have Spydentity Crisis?). Having access to so much music via the streaming apps has brought me more enjoyment than my comparatively limited vinyl collection, and the performance is at least good enough that I don't miss playing records.

And yet...I still can't bring myself to list the LP12 for sale.
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