Linkwitz™ speakers - stage for musicians

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STEREOPHILEs "Reichert on Sunday" experienced the magic of LXmini and LX521 during RMAF (Denver) 2014:

"The sound was so good that I am now about to go against my whole belief system and state:

In the 4th and 5th Atrium floors that I covered, the best sound I heard was the in room with the lowest price system!

The Linkwitz Lab's LXmini loudspeakers

But, the larger,.., quad-amplified LX521 shown above provided even more satisfying results."

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linkwitzlab.com is a widely known and appreciated website for loudspeaker development.

The LXmini+2 or LX521.4 with PowerBox setups render stereo recordings to a degree of realism that I had never experienced before.

(Siegfried Linkwitz , 26.1.17)

TheAudioCritic.com (Peter Aczel):

The speakers naturally disappear as soon as you start the music; you don’t even have to close your eyes. I would go even further—you have to make a slight mental effort to be aware that the speakers are actually there! It’s uncanny. The precise phantom images produced by the LX521 create the most solidly three-dimensional soundstage of any stereo system in my listening experience.

Just wanted to tell you that that a nephew recently payed me a visit. He had just bought an advanced surround system with B&W speakers and a NAD amplifier. Because of budget restrictions he had to go for the CM9, but during the selection process he listened (blindly) to the store's best speakers and (unsurprisingly) selected B&W 800 Diamond as the best-sounding. On this background he was completely shocked by the performance of the LX521. First of all he was impressed by the quality of the bass which was the best he ever heard , but also praised the transparent highs and the open midrange . Looking at the price, he declared that this had to be the bargain of the century. He is now hard at work trying to finance the system. If he succeed, you may hear from him.As you may understand, I am extremely satisfied with my system now,.....thank you (and Siegfried, of course) for the best speaker system I (and my nephew) have ever heard. Kind regards T.S. Norway, (LX521)

Lieber Frank,

inzwischen habe ich ausgiebig Aufstellversuche gemacht, im Moment bin ich wieder bei der alten Position.

Klingt absolut wunderbar, ich habe auch ausgiebige Hörversuche gegen das alte System gemacht.

Von dem dachte ich, es sei schwer zu schlagen, aber es ist eine ganze Ecke besser geworden.

.......Freue mich sehr, viele Grüße,Sebastian (Germany), LX521 in Mahagony, 2x PowerBox

Hi Frank, ...the detail, clarity, and soundstage are all extraordinary. I don't really believe in magic, but this is the closest I've heard to real music from a recording. Thank you for all your help making this possible. Regards, Jeffrey (Japan). LX521 in 3-layer massive Sen-Ash,with analogue PowerBoxes

I have run the speakers for a couple of hours today, and so far everything is just super. I have just the same experience as I had with the Orions. Not so impressed in the beginning - a bit too bright sound. However with time I appreciated the sound more and more. Nothing I have heard come close. Before I got the Orions, I was seeking stores with high class loudspeakers in any city I visited. With the Orions the urge stopped. Now, it is more accidentally that I ask for demonstrations in Hi-Fi shops. When I do, my impression of the LX521 superiority is confirmed over and over again. Especially concerning bass performance it is difficult to imagine why people are satisfied with anything less.

Regards, Terje (Norway) LX521 in amer Walnut with analogue PowerBoxes

Dipl.Ing G Redlich: Beeindruckend ist die Räumlichkeit, die diese Lautsprecher „fabrizieren“....Das musikalische Geschehen spielt sich im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes um die beiden Lautsprecher ringsherum ab. Die Instrumente stehen (virtuell) teils vor den Boxen, teils sogar links und rechts daneben, natürlich auch dazwischen und weiter hinter den Boxen im physikalisch und psychisch vorhandenen Raum.

Dear Dr Brenner, ...by the way, and as Mr Linkwitz predicts, the LXmini (with PowerBox) has become the reference by which we judge other components, and recordings as well. Thanks again. James S., USA (LXmini with transparent tubes and PowerBox4180)

Hi Frank,

..die LX sind dieses Wochenende fertig geworden...Der Klang ist einfach atemraubend.

(the LX got ready this weekend, the sound is just breathtaking)

MfG, James, Luxemburg, (LX521,oak, oiled)

"I can report that the LX521 leaves the ORION (all variants) and PLUTO "in the dust" (sadly, perhaps, but technology marches on....). There is a clarity and truthfulness to the midrange in the LX521 (long my pet peeve with the ORION, which improved with each X'over iteration) that is so natural and right that it is immediately clear we are dealing with a different caliber of transducer. Imaging specificity and micro-dynamics in the LX521 is significantly improved (high WOW factor) over the ORION -- hard to believe, but true.....the LX521 demonstrates "transcendental" FFF (Form Follows Function) engineering......It is a winner" (Charles)

Feb. 2014 - Ein Hör-Erlebnis in Stuttgart

Eigentlich wollte ich hier nur von "alten Sachen" erzählen und die Vergangenheit dokumentieren. Doch im Hinblick auf mein Erlebnis mit der verklärten Wahrheit der Erinnerung, inzwischen zigfach wiederholt, möchte ich von einem ganz aktuellen (positiven) Erlebnis berichten, das zu diesem Thema paßt. Im Hifi-Bereich gibt es jede Menge Spinner oder Scharlatane, die Lautsprecherkabel und Steckdosenleisten zu horrenden Preisen anbieten. Die habe ich sowieso schon auf dem Kieker. Bei Lautsprechern war und ist es vielfach auch so. Bei den Super-Lautsprechern im ganz oberen Preissegment hat sich jedoch ganz Enormes getan......

http://www.hifimuseum.de/hifimuseum-neues.html

http://www.hifimuseum.de/philosophien2013.html

google translate

"The spatial impression is that the phantom sources become more decoupled from the speakers compared to anything else I have heard. Listening to a Schubert song for soprano with piano accompaniment the piano stays put in the sound stage no matter what register it is being played in while the singer is free to move around in subtle ways.

....Can't wait to hear some more. Excellent work Mr Linkwitz!" (Keith Taylor)

The speakers sound absolutely wonderful. Thanks for building such sonically and esthetically beautiful creations for me. ... I am a very fortunate and lucky man.

Sincerely, John Field, LX521

....However I can say now that the craftsmanship is of furniture quality and beautiful to behold. It exceeds by far any result that might have come from my own efforts. Please feel free to quote me on this in any of your promotional efforts...I don't view myself as having been an easy customer to work with. My uncertainties, my slow decision making, and my many questions - all this contributes to my respect and regard for the high level of your customer orientation. I have the double satisfaction of excellent goods and a "gemutlich" productive dialog.

With my many "Thanks", Jim Clark

Dear Mr. Linkwitz,

After learning a great deal from your website (and in the process unlearning what I thought I had previously known) I decided to build your LX521s. I went with Frank Brenner's excellent Magic LX521 kit which was easy to build. I am new to dipole but suffice to say that my sons and I have been blown away by a quality of sound, particularly bass, that we have not heard before. Everything I have read about the wide sound stage and imaging is true, but coming from boxes it is the clarity and detail in the full spectrum of the audible frequency range of the LX521s which is revelatory. I also have quickly learnt that some of the albums I previously thought were pretty good are actually seriously compromised. These speakers are ruthless in exposing poor recordings and excessive compression. Thank you very much and please feel free to publish my remarks and photos if you wish.

Hylton Q, Australia , LX521kit

2 further thoughts on “Linkwitz Lab LX521 – Constant Directivity Monitor”

tubemaze on October 16, 2013 at 4:22 PM said: I don’t usually write about speakers, there are so many of them and they kind of sound very similar to each other. I have multiple sets with Vienna Acoustics Beethoven driven by PP tube amp, Omega Aperiodic driven by SE tube map and B&W 803 driven by Emotiva SS amp (just for my HT set up ;), but when I visited 2013 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest and heard these speakers, I just couldn’t not write about them (here is a double negative for you I didn’t even know that Linkwitz Lab made speakers, but I went to their room to check their stuff out – after all Siegfried Linkwitz is one of the creators of the Linkwitz-Riley crossover network which is used it billions of speakers. The speakers looked very strange (see pictures), but as soon as they started to play, all this was forgotten and my attention shifted to the sound they were producing. I’ve heard a lot of good speakers, but I have never heard what these speakers can do! I have to set my expectations for speakers – it’s simple… I close my eyes and I can recreate presence of a band in a room (visually and audibly). These speakers came very, very close (closer than any other speakers at the show) to that reality. Bass – drum truck that was played was superb – it was super tight and controlled – I could feel that the drum material was stretching when it was impacted by drum sticks. Midrange – as open and natural as I’ve ever heard – superbly transparent & life-like. Top end was extended and nice – here the speakers didn’t outdo other speakers, but didn’t come short on expectations either. So the results are spectacular. cport on October 19, 2013 at 4:05 PM said: I am so glad to see (hear) that you had a chance to listen to these loudspeakers: Frankly, I am surprised that there are not more comments on the LX521 from the 2013 RMAF, being that they **are** the finest transducers that “money can’t buy” (you need to build these guys yourself — they are available as a “KIT”). I have followed Siegfried to audio nirvana, starting with Pluto’s and ORION’s, but graduating finally to LX21. If one enjoys well recorded Classical/Jazz (or anything, really, that is well recorded) then these make well known $150K loudspeakers sound like “boat anchors”….

Studies

The renowned architect Alexander Vohl did some studies on a possible coulour/surface concept of the LX521 speakers