On day one of Florida International Audio Expo 2026, Doug Schneider and I walked into the fourth-floor room occupied by Front Row Theater, a big Florida-based custom integrator. My eyes immediately glommed onto the beautiful Linn LP12 turntable. “You know, that thing has a built-in phono stage that digitizes the signal,” Doug said as an aside. “They’ve been doing that for a while,” he continued.
I was startled, so he then asked, “You didn’t know?”
Gilad Tiefenbrun (left) and Jason Thorpe
No, I did not know this was a thing that Linn, which became synonymous with vinyl playback in the 1970s, did, and it took me a few minutes to fully digest what was going on here. At first glance, the system looked quite conventional. A pair of full-size loudspeakers, a turntable, a couple of boxes underneath, and all kinds of wires running behind. But this setup was far, far from conventional.
The speakers were Linn’s flagship model, the 360 Exakt Integrated, a fully active design. So the thick cables running up behind the speakers were, in fact, power cords. Below the LP12 ’table, which I’ll get to in a minute, was Linn’s flagship network music player, the Klimax DSM, which doesn’t have a DAC, since the speakers handle digital-to-analog conversion. In this configuration, the 360 Integrated requires the DSM streamer. Linn sells the system as a package for $145,000 (all prices in USD).
Serving up music via Roon was a Pink Faun Scion.
But that turntable. It was the top-spec’d Klimax version of the LP12, which retails for $34,850 as configured. Inside the Klimax LP12’s plinth is the phono stage and an analog-to-digital converter. I’m not used to that. I’m still not quite comfortable with that.
In attendance was Linn CEO Gilad Tiefenbrun. Doug turned to Tiefenbrun, whom he knew from previous shows, and threw me under the bus. “Jason here doesn’t agree with digitizing a phono signal,” he said.
“Oh really?” Tiefenbrun said, raising one eyebrow, Spock-like. “It makes sense, you know. The pathway from the cartridge out through the turntable is the most delicate signal. Once we digitize it, we can apply RIAA equalization in the digital domain. And now the signal coming out of the turntable is solid.”
I looked around back of the turntable to see how this thing communicated with the world. There were three cables—two terminated with XLR connectors, one for the motor power supply and another for the motor control circuitry—and one thin black wire, the Linn Exakt digital connector
The Linn Exakt Link connector went from the turntable out to the Klimax DSM, which then passed the signal, still in the digital domain, to the 360 Integrated Exakt speakers—which each have a built-in DAC. Holy hell. This was—to the best of my knowledge—the most complicated system I’d encountered to that point.
“And we still make the same ’table with an analog phono stage, for those who aren’t quite ready for this technology,” Tiefenbrun said pointedly, without blinking.
Oh yeah—and those speakers employ a novel room-correction technology called Space Optimisation+, which doesn’t use a microphone. Instead, the user (or more typically, the dealer/installer) enters room information—dimensions, layout, flooring, wall, window-treatment materials, and seating positions—into a web app that looks a bit like an IKEA kitchen planner. Linn’s Space Optimisation+ software then calculates the required filters and uploads them to the system.
Power cables and power conditioning were from Clarus.
How did this setup sound, Thorpe?
Damn good. After listening in a whole bunch of rooms with large speakers and no room correction, the 360 Integrated speakers sounded a touch lean in the bottom end at first. But after my ears became accustomed to the room, I appreciated what the room correction was doing to the sound.
Tiefenbrun is a bit of an agitator. His first musical choice was Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” which cleared the old farts out of the room right quick.
Sweet blue Jesus, did this sound good. I nodded over to the gent holding the iPad and gave him the universal turn it up gesture. This was the loudest I’ve ever heard Rage played at a show, and never in my experience has it been initiated by the exhibitor. Deep bass, low, crisp, and tight. And at this volume? Oh my.
RAtM set the stage. Another showgoer who was pulled in by the music requested Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” and off we went. Heads were banging. The sound was pure, immediate, and intense. So cool. We listened to a bunch of other stuff, and it all sounded great. But it was that RAtM and Led Zep that made my day. I don’t often get this at shows.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
