Linn 500 Solo manual Audio circuitry

The audio circuitry

At Linn because we strive for continuous improvement in everything we do we use appropriate technologies to achieve our goals. There have been many fine amplifier designs over the history of audio. Some use valves (tubes), some use bipolar transistors, some MOSFETs. Some manufacturers swear by Class A, others by Class AB, one or two by Class D, and many others are somewhere in between. Two designs can use the same components, but achieve completely different results. We believe, and have evidence to support, that what you do with the parts and technology is always much more important than the name of the technology. To illustrate this, our current power amplifier range contains MOSFET, monolithic, discrete and bipolar designs. Our latest monolithic designs sound better than our previous discrete bipolar designs. Our latest bipolar designs have more power and sound better than our earlier monolithic and bipolar designs. So what did we choose for the Klimax?

The Klimax audio design was developed from our previous best amplifier, the Klout, which uses completely different circuitry from any of our other amplifiers. Like the Klout, the Klimax also uses all surface mount technology with eight, rather than two ultralinear bipolar output power transistors. There are many other refinements and advances over the Klout design, the result of many years of experience, analysis, experimentation and our simple, consistent method of judging sound quality. We use bipolar output transistors in this design because they are the most appropriate solution.

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