I auditioned the Keilidh at my Linn dealer's suggestion when I asked him how to spend two or three thousand dollars upgrading my system : LP12, Cambridge DiscMagic / DACMagic, and Linn Majik. Yes, lots of magic in my system :-) but the speakers have resisted it so far. I won't name them, but they're not very efficient.
The Keilidhs with the Majik alone were very agreeable because of their efficiency and the quantity of detail they put out. Choral voices on the Reference Recordings Rutter Requiem were clear and the level of bass was a nice surprise. Harmonies were nice too. But I had a sense that things were uncontrolled somewhere. The upper bass and midrange bloomed a bit too much for my taste, and the image was too flat and up front. I wasn't ready to stop looking for new speakers yet.

With an LK85 and active crossovers added there was a LOT more bass. Tuneful, controlled, vibrate-your-legs bass. Voices were clear and detailed even at high volumes. The kettledrums on the Requiem were recognizably kettledrums and not a distant thundery rumble. There was a lot more attack and a lot more rhythm. Strings were stringier and emotion came across powerfully. Everything was more open, airy, spread out on a deeper soundstage. The musicians even seemed to be playing better together, listening to each other more. In short, the music communicated strongly for the first time.

After the listening session I was wrung out. I have never had a system this good and rarely listened to one that did to me what the active Keilidhs did. I've been daydreaming of them ever since. My head tells me to listen to other solutions at the same price before I buy anything, but my heart belongs to Keilidh. They look great, too. In my opinion they shouldn't be compared to other speakers at the same price. Instead the active biamped setup should be compared with other systems.

My star rating is for the system at its price point. I listened to a Linn Genki CD player, Linn Majik / LK85 amps cabled with Linn K400, and Linn Keilidhs equipped with active crossovers. The price of this setup in Canadian money would be around nine thousand dollars.

I agree with the last reviewer's comments, however it should be pointed out that the last thing you should do is go active without a first class preamp or source!!! I know there are many Linn fanatics that can't wait to have an active system for bragging rights, but this is contrary to the whole Linn philosophy. A passive system using Wakonda or Kairn/LK140/Keilidh, for example, out-performs a bi-active Keilidh with a Majik/LK85.

This is an update to my last post.
I have information to suggest that the Keilidhs were initially intended to be 3 way like the kabers, they also use the same tweeter as the keltics and drive units as the Kabers.

I have modified my Keilidhs, which never have sounded thin.....sorry! but compared to missions, B&W etc they don't.......there bass extension is also good for there size, however they are a little shut in. Anyway, Linn seem to have reverse engineered them by using poor quality crossover components and wiring.

I can say that I have modified the crossovers using Audyn Caps (£40ish) and rewired with Chord Rumour (same as my speaker cable)and lined them (inside) with rubber underlay (makes little difference). This has brought about tremendous differences in treble and soundstaging quality.

I have on order bass caps, resistors and inductors to finish the job (£130) to bring the rest of it up to spec. with my trble cap mods, my bass cap mods were cheap but better than the Bennics!

With these in place the Keilidh should sound close to the AV model, but without the bass extension of that model........talk about getting something for nothing. A friend of mine had done the same using cheaper caps and the difference made his sound like £1500 instead of £985. And definately Kaber killers.

This will make the speaker sound arguably better than an active Keilidh, unless you decide to upgrade the card components. This improvement is due to the high build quality of the Keilidh and quality of the components used.

I have written this for your information, although I already thought they were stonking speakers, these mods double there price.

Lively presentation. Beautiful build.

It would be helpful if they were taller.

I've owned a pair for a little over three years and just love them! However, that wasn't the case when I first set them up---they need to be broken in for a couple of weeks, first impressions were that they were tizzy and had a horrible treble, but after breakin, the treble became smooth and clear.
Others seem to downgrade the base, but I find it extremely fast and tight and "tuneful." I've sold my Velodyne powered subwoofer and haven't missed it at all!
Using the Linn K-400 for biwiring makes a very noticeable improvement in focus, and clean electronics can really make them sing. I use a McIntosh amp and preamp and they are marvelous on female vocalists, small ensembles, rock and jazz. (May not be the best choice for someone who lives on a strict diet of symphony orchestras.)
I haven't tried the weighted base or biamping options, but even without them they can give the illusion of live with small scale music venues.

great coherence, awesome bass

none

Great value, very deep bass. Good timing. Dont feel the need to go active. Can be placed close to wall.

Set-up

Meridian 501 pre-amp
Meridian 557 power amp
Meridian 506 cd player

interlink, speakercable Siltech

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