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Are Linn Kans and LS3/5As similar?

There are lots of very good speakers made out of chipboard too. MDF is where things start going wrong to my mind, it seems a very leaden and dead material. It may be coincidental but most of my favourite box speakers are made from ply, some from chipboard and very few from MDF!
 
Chipboard should be a better damped material (acoustically) than MDF. I guess that there is a lot more variation in chipboard, so a bit of a selection problem for bulk manufacture. MDF much more uniform in character - but less well damped on its own.
 
In my very brief time as part of a speaker design team we played around with different cabinet materials, as our design brief was to minimise the effect of the cabinet on the sound as much as possible. We didn't use chipboard as it was difficult to work with for our complicated cabinet designs and limited work working facilities, but one prototype used chipboard with floor levelling compound poured inside to create non-parallel internal sides, it worked very well, but was totally impossible to manufacture consistently or economically. The final prototypes were MDF as it was easy to work with and relatively cheap, which I think is the main reason for its popularity. We never made it to production as we weren't brave enough to offer the speakers at a profitable price, and probably couldn't have raised the capital either, but it was fun trying!
 
david ellwood said:
The ls3/5a is a tuneless dirgemeister devoid of any redeeming positive qualities. A classic example of a product so over engineered as to have designed out its basic function.
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AWF WITH HIS HEAD!!! :)
It’s a very tightly defined (and as you say, engineered) product with a specific professional application, at times unrealistically vaunted by its fans and reviewers. Yet,within its capabilities it’s a lovely thing. A bit like the VW Beetle.
 
As others have said, the LS3/5a's was a technically elegant small monitor speaker that successfully ironed all of the music out of anything fed into it, and issued forth ruler-flat tones. A party I went to years ago was notable for the reasonable mixtapes being played from a Nak, through an A60, but totally boring-ed out by LS3/5a's. Arghh. Didn't last more than an hour, we left in search of alternate cheap thrills.

The Kan, by comparison, was similar size, not at all accurate, but if fed a very excellent signal (LP12, P9, Xerses or a good two-box Naim CDP, for example) and gripped with an excellent amplifier, was quite happy to launch more music at you than was even in the signal. Even if it was a bit of a pastiche. They're fun, bouncy, like they've had a couple in the middle of the day. Depending on the recording, it might have been two pints, two quaaludes, two tabs of ecstasy, or a couple of lines. Certainly not mandrax; the Kan is always in a hurry. I loved mine (Tony's old MK1's), and still miss them some 16 years and some change, later.

FWIW, Some of my favourite small speakers include the Royd Minstrel (again, not at all accurate but *so* *much* *fun*!), the Royd Sintra, the Kans, and the Naim IBLs. Oh, and I still have a penchant for ES11s. Any or all of the above will play music in a way that LS3/5a's cannot even imagine.

PS - I really liked Rega Kytes, too.
 
The correct answer, is of course the Quad ESL. What was the question again? ;)
 
Graham H said:
Were they early 1, later 1, or 2 at Scalford?

If all I ever listened to was singer songwriters, male and female, the early 1s may win out, they can command your attention like few other speakers do. But with a widely varied programme I can’t live with their tonal anomalies, especially evident with string quartets etc. .
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This almost exactly describes my speaker history. I still have the Kan Mk 1s I bought in 1980, for a small room, listening to Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Richard Thompson, and where they also made sense of non-heavy rock (New York New Wave, Ry Cooder, The Band). When I moved from London to a place with a huge living room, and started listening to classical music, they were replaced by much larger speakers to shift some air and get some bass. I actually had a chance to directly compare them with Stirling Ls3/5a's at a dealers, both with and without the Stirling bass extender. This comparison showed up the coloured sound of the Kan - it sounded 'cuppy' as if the singer had their hands around their mouth. The Ls3/5a was indeed nice on string quartets, but not much else except in a small room. The other thing about the Kans is that they were fussy about amplifiers. Naims and other Brit amps of the time were good but more recently a huge Yamaha AS-3000 did nothing for them. They are now in my TV room, used as TV/bookshelf speakers driven by an old Technics amp and sounding surprisingly good.
 
Pretty much wot Tony said. They are (obviously) small speakers and old designs, the first stereo I was bowled over by was Goldring Lenco/valve Leaks/LS3/5A many, many years ago, polite, smooth and lovely. Kans are wonderful on the end of the right amps but they need a lot of £ earlier in the chain and there are some aspects of their presentation that many don't like. But I would like 'em having Daddy Kans!
As others have said "chalk and cheese" for little boxes that look so similar they could hardly sound more different. Listening to one straight after the other would be a culture shock.
 
Tony L said:
In a bizarre way that is actually their strength IMO. They work so well in the kind of tiny room that there is no alternate but put the speakers hard against one wall and the chair hard against the other, i.e. you end up getting bass reinforcement from both boundaries and at exactly the area the Kans roll down. These are the rooms I’ve had at points in the past and loved Kans in. Kans also win in being infinite baffle so their bass rolls very smoothly and cleanly with no horrible port artifice, again a huge bonus for a little bedsit or whatever.

PS I now live somewhere with no place they’d work even if I wanted a pair!
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That is so true. Kan's can be fabulous in the right room and downright awful in another. They don't work too well in US timber/drywall construction rooms but when we had then in a townhouse with the up against a more solid dividing wall (and driven actively), they were amazing.

Mind you, my current Ergo IX's I feel better them even passive.
 
I only had the briefest time spent listening to some 3/5's but had 3 pairs of Kans in my hifi years and I found the 3/5's to be very good but "dull" compared to the Kans which I know do not play music truthfully but boy do they make a sound that engages you and has you living it. But I know they have to be in the right place, right equipment (decent amps) etc but for sheer enjoyment IMO they are superb and isn't that what listening to music is all about?
 
I have not heard the Linn Kan but now I have a Stirling MS-88 (Rogers ls3 /5a 60th anniversary) in a small room and for acoustic, jazz and classical music they are extraordinary.
 
A couple of year ago me and my mate were at a carboot sale and I spotted some little Linn speakers
I was into hifi in the 90’s and remembered the name Linn
The seller wanted £5 for them and I chipped him down to £4 if I remember
Ended up being Linn kan ii”s
Cabinets not the best but worked fine
I brought them home and the kids said omg you’ll buy any old rubbish Dad !
I never got a “Thanks Dad”when they spent all the money on themselves either come to think of it ...lol
 
I had chipboard Kans for over a decade and my dad had LS3/5a for all the time I lived with him (and after). Both do what they do well but with amps good for Kans I’d take the original AE1 or Super Elves instead and with amps good for the LS3/5a I’d sooner have most iterations of ProAc Tablette.

I have missed out in life and never had Royd anythings.
 
david ellwood said:
Quite apart from the design differences the kan has a dramatically better tweeter fitted than the Ls3/5a.
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Yet I’ve never heard *any* Linn speaker with as natural and believable treble as an LS3/5A or JR149! There is something really rather odd about the treble of Kans, Saras and Isobariks, they have a very distinct ‘sound’ that the Kef-based speakers are free from.
 
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