PRODUCTS

Stereophile USA -
Akiva
October 2004
"..this new cartridge has sailed through everything I’ve played so far. From the most forceful piano chords to the loudest singers..The Akiva is more than just a good tracker..the new Linn is superior to its illustrious predecessor in every meaningful way…after hearing the way the Akiva nailed the sound of the electric bass and kick drum on Led Zeppelin’s ‘ Achilles’, I’m a convert..I can state comfortably that the Akiva was not at all lean…. timbrally right, with a clear, open, naturally detailed sound that never lapsed into exaggerated detail. Similarly, its spatial performance was solid and precise but never fussy: The musical message was always stressed over sonics. The Akiva is without doubt, the quietest phono cartridge I’ve ever used, and the one that’s least perturbed by all the older records in my collection. Were phonographic monogamy required of me, I'd tie the knot in no time.”

Hi-Fi+ magazine (UK) - July/August 2003 -
Akiva
July 2003
"…The Akiva's awesome combination of fine dynamic expression and wide bandwidth is going to be very difficult to beat. It gets itself out of the way, and allows the music to get through with less vinyl "signature" than any other cartridge I've encountered…Every time CD seems to be sneaking up on vinyl, something new moves the goalposts, and that's just what Linn have done here."

The Linn Akiva Moving Coil Cartridge
Eliminates surface noise yet extracts more music information from the LP groove.

January 2003

The original Arkiv, Linn's top performing moving coil cartridge introduced in 1992, represented the culmination of over twenty years of Linn cartridge design evolution. Its successor, the Arkiv B introduced in 1997 was a significantly enhanced version of the original Arkiv. Now, following further extensive development, Linn announce an even higher performance development, the Linn AKIVA moving coil transcription cartridge.
The Linn AKIVA is a super-precise, ultra-linear, direct coupled, moving coil cartridge designed for simply better music reproduction from vinyl. The Linn AKIVA reinforces the commitment to deploying new technology and new knowledge in the pursuit of improved access to the priceless and irreplaceable store of music performance captured on LP and that continues to accumulate on vinyl recordings.
The design of the Linn AKIVA incorporates a new and advanced magnetic assembly for higher output and noticeably better tracking with even lower distortion and spurious noise than the Arkiv B. The Linn AKIVA design delivers greatly improved signal transfer without loss of vital information. The advanced magnetic assembly employed in the Linn AKIVA is constructed around a machined from solid alloy carcass for complete structural rigidity. The optimally damped suspension mechanism supports hand-wound coils secured in a high precision rigid stylus assembly, terminated with gold contacts.
The Linn AKIVA is designed to enhance any top quality transcription turntable and arm combination. To discover what is now possible for the advanced reproduction of music on vinyl we recommend you to audition the Linn AKIVA with the Linn Sondek LP12 Transcription Turntable and Ekos direct coupled arm with the Linn Linto moving coil phono preamplifier, to discover how faithfully the original performance is reproduced by the Linn Akiva.

The AKIVA is Linn's newest moving coil cartridge and represents our continued commitment to deploying new technology and new knowledge in the pursuit of improving music reproduction from the irreplaceable store of music performance that continues to accumulate on vinyl recordings.

The design of the AKIVA cartridge incorporates a new and advanced magnetic assembly structure to produce a higher output with noticeably better tracking and even lower distortion than previous cartridge products. The integrity of the AKIVA cartridge design ensures greatly improved signal transference without loss of vital information and without any spurious noise from this super-precise, ultra-linear, direct coupled, moving coil cartridge.

The advanced magnetic assembly structure in the AKIVA cartridge is constructed around a machined from the solid alloy carcass for complete rigidity, and the optimally damped suspension mechanism supports hand-wound coils secured in a high precision rigid assembly, terminated with gold contacts.

Finest nude diamond stylus
Triple-point mounting system to ensure accurate coupling to tonearm
Machined-from-solid alloy body for rigidity
Ceramic Boron cantilever provides ultra low mass and extremely high rigidity
Precision transducer has minimum sensitivity to spurious vibration
Gold contacts for accurate and reliable connection
Advanced magnetic materials
Precision assembly

Type
Low output Moving-Coil phono cartridge

Stylus
Line Contact

Tracking force
1.6g - 1.9g

Pin connection type
Flying wire

Recommended load
> 50 ohm

Weight
7.4g

Separation at 1kHz
Better than 30dB

Channel balance at 1kHz
+/- 0 .5dB

Output at 1kHz @ 3.45cm/s
0.4mV

Recommended arm
Rigid, medium mass - ideally Linn ITTOK or EKOS