Linn Sara Specifications

[Geesixty]

What are the physical dimensions of the Sara?

James

They're 336mm wide, 245mm depth (inc. the 'beading' but not the grill foam) and 430mm high (approx 950mm on stands). Their proportions are definitely not fashionable these days (haven't been for the past decade or two!) but when used as intended, up against the wall, they make sense and take up minimal room space.

How about building a floorstanding version? Strikes me this would save the cost of an expensive stand, take up no more room and give you a lot more cabinet volume to experiment with? In fact you could make them even wider and deeper - the Sara stand has a footprint of approx 460 x 310.

 

[James]

Thanks for the dimensional info, Gee. Those are certainly not fashionable proportions. I understand that a floor-standing version makes sense, but since my target market is halfway around the world from me, shipping a pair of smaller boxes is more economical. I'll see what I can come up with. Perhaps something a little bit deeper (255mm) and taller (500mm) might look better.

James

 

[stackowax]

Does anybody know if Linn changed the crossover component values when they switched from the Scanspeak to the Hiquphone?

Note to James: what about a Hiquphone for the tweeter?

 

[James]

Note to James: what about a Hiquphone for the tweeter?

The Hiquphon OW1 is a stunningly good tweeter, but it really prefers to operate above 3kHz. Most 8" midwoofers top out at 2kHz before break-up resonances get in the way, hence the fundamental mismatch.

James

 

[stackowax]

I suppose this (break-up resonances above 2 Khz) would be true of the Sara's woofer as well (which is, I think, an 8 inch woofer), hence there is an intrinsic problem with the design of the Sara. Or has Hiquphone (or Linn) modified the tweeter so that it works well with an 8 inch woofer? Or maybe there is something about an Isobarik design that prevents breakup in the 8 inch woofers?

Ultimately the question is what to you think the "lumpiness" and/or "honkiness" of the Saras comes from (I'm not sure what lumpiness means but I do hear what I would describe as "honkiness"). I suppose it could be do to a variety of factors but if the Sara's woofer is being run outside of its limits in order to accommodate the tweeter, and break-up resonances sound either like honkiness or lumptness, it would seem that they might sound better with a tweeter that could operate farther down in frequency--say, around 1.5 khz.

 

[stackowax]

One more follow-up to James

One more thing: I wasn't aware that you did what you do for a "market". I could be wrong about this but since many people seem to love their Kans and Saras, among other speakers, and they are reaching the end of their usable life, there might be a market for a a combination of new drivers/xover that retained the musically engaging aspects of the speaker but improved it in other ways. For me, the problem with DIY speakers has always been the cabinets and xover design (which is pretty much everything about DIY speakers!). I don't know how to build cabinets and I don't have time to figure out xover design. But I can--like almost anybody, remove and replace drivers and solder in xovers. So, speaking for myself, I would be keenly interested in such a product for the Kan or the Sara. I guess the hard part would be finding good drivers that were drop in replacements. although, in theory at least, both the Kan's and Sara's front baffle are removable, so a replacement front baffle could be provided along with the drivers/xover.

 

[James]

I believe I already have a modern Kan that Mus has dubbed Man Kans in this thread. It's the same frontal dimension as a Kan, but about 50% deeper. I will start design work on a modern Sara when I finish my current 3-way project.

James