I will disagree with the first reviewer. Violin and Piano rendered by Linn Katans very-very good.

Incredible souding speakers. I purchased a pair of used in beautiful chery finish with ½ retail price from my friend. I bought them because I have a small listening room, and I didn't want to get into large speakers. When listen to violin playing, I am totally right in the concert hall. A true monitor !


When set up properly, there is really excellent speakers. They are better to my ears than: ProAc Response 1SC, ProAc Tablette 8sig, ViennaAcoustic Haydn Grand, Opera mini, SonusFaber Concerto, DynAudio Audien 52SE, ... Better in the sense of 1) fast 2) tuneful 3) emotional 4) tonally balanced 5) naturalness 6) uncolored 7) detailed 8) throwing an exceptionally deep and wide soundstage.
They let the notes go; they boogie; they send you to the concert hall to listen to.


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Pros:
Very musical ; Detail ; Texture ; good Bass punch – speed – tigh ; Tweeter is amazing ; Special presence ; Clarity soundstage.
Perfect speakers in its size & high build quality.

Odd
No deep bass, some type of CD need a Sub.

Overal tonal quality, build is fantastic, options to bi amp, biwire etc.

Base is light but they don't claim to go low so really deliver what the manufacture say they should.

I, I suppose, have the same problem as most people and that is how to get a big sound without having monster speakers that annoy my partner. I used to have a pair of JPW AP3 and I was very happy withem until we moved to a new house where aesthetic appearences started to have an increasing impact on the viewing and listening experience, or so I was told....!!!! So what to do, visit the local hifi shop and see if there was an alternative in the bookshelf department. I tried various bookeshelf speakers including a pair of ProAc response 6's but to of no avail. The shop assistant was very patient and asked me to listen to the katans although they were not on my original short list as I regarded them as Linns surround sound speakers. Well as you can tell I bought, not only were they compact, with a fantastic build quality they past the partner test....!!! So how did they sound, They deliver mid-range and treble effortlessly, they have a dynamism that I didn't think was possible in a small bookshelf speaker. I wasn't expecting deep bass, the specs didn't say so and I agree they are not deliver the earth shattering deep bass the bigguns can deliver. So after about two months I decided to invest in a reasonable sub so purchased a REL Q150. This is being driven using the high level input and wow what a difference. The system integrated very easily and produced a superb sound. Imagery was brilliant and those gut wrenching bass were back. It's almost perfect. Fantastic mids and tones with great seperation married with the great depth achieved with the REL. I am delighted with the final result and so is my partner although I don't think she was particularly please with the sudden addition of another speaker sat in the corner....!!!!

1.I have Rotel RCD 1072 and amp Rotel 1062. I had try this combination with a different speakers like Celestion F-1 paid 200$, Totem- “Rainmaker”price 1 000$, B & W Shelf spacers 601 Series II, 601- 450$ ,602 S3-800$, 705 prise 2 300 $ in retail store. First impression B&W601 small speakers with attractive, balanced sound. Good definitions. Excellent for jazz, classical little sharp, but still good and enough pictures. For money it's gold. B&W 602 s3 Loud sound, flat wight bass. Good for jazz,rock excellent for loud music , but sharp for ears”maybe only for me. 705 of B&W for Rotel is a great speakers. It's for every kind of music, attractive sound, definitions,pictures. Bass is a dip. Enjoyable rock, jazz, the nice drift of violins.
Totem “Rainmaker”nice speakers, excellent with a single instruments,pure sound,but loose definitions. Nice violins drift. Drums fantastic-soft, dip and enjoyable. And I have compare Celestion F-1 with Rotel because it's still remarkable speakers for money and old model of Rotel . Great for mini hi-fi system, like Yamaha, Denon. Very god for soft NAD, mostly enjoyable for classical music, but it's a dull for bass, and hard for ears with new Rotel. And I had very impress with Linn Katan. It's soft and dip balanced bass. Enjoyable any kind of music. Excellent pictures of appearance. Surprisingly want to listen a music. Any kind of good. Rock and Metal music divided for separation of different instruments It's go smooth.It is are not flat. Nice vocal. And it is doesn't “cut” ears. This is are speakers what I want to listen.

Soundstage height and depth, highs and natural sound presentation, value

Poor bass extension for even a mini-monitor in this price class(only going down to 70-80 hz), causing a sub to become a necessity. Soundstage width could be a hair better...

I will disagree with the previous reviewer on the Linn Katans... It could have been a poor electronics or room match, but my audition with the speakers yielded *very* different results... The soundstage these guys put out is abolutely huge... Very tall, and deep. Midrange was very pure for a mini-monitor in this price class, and the highs were non-fatiguing. In short, I was quite impressed overall with the Katans at my demo session with them (and setup was hardly optimal either). Their only deficiency was bass extension (even for a mini-monitor). These will almost certainly need a sub to be paired with them... Maybe a nice value one like an ACI Force would be a good match. For reference, the Katans were powered by all Linn electronics (it was their lower model stuff) and the music used was mainly female vocals and jazz. Out of all the mini-monitors I have heard in the sub 1K range, I would rate the Katans as a close second, only bested by the fabuous Opera Audio Consonance Eric-1s I heard at the 2005 THE Show in Vegas a month ago. Not too shabby at all if I do say so...

Similar Products Used:

Tyler Acoustics, Legacy Audio, Definitive Tech, Boston Acoustics, B&W, Opera Audio, Energy, etc...

Jazz vocal

Piano, violin, Pop music

Very attactive looking and construction speaker in Cherry wood. It is a very attractive speaker for Diana Krall CD that I listen to, but performance were dull on Piano and Violin CD. Maybe it was meant for surround sound. Those same CD was great on Sonus Faber or Wharfedale EVO 10, don't know why it does that on Linn katan, suppose to be equivalent to Sonus Faber at that price range. The rock music drove me crazy on this pair of speaker... Yes, it has a lot of bass for this kind of small speaker, but how to explain everthing mix together can't tell what is what, maybe it wasn't meant to do so much in such a small speaker.

Similar Products Used:

Sonus Faber Concertino, Paradigm Studio 20 v3, Wharfedale Evo 10.