Linn 150 Review
Linn’s new 150 speakers are a pair you can keep for life, and it’s not just because they sound damn good.
LASSE SVENDSEN
A whole new generation of Linn speakers recently saw the light of day. That in itself is nothing remarkable. New speakers are popping up from all directions all the time. Most of them are quite forgettable, but some of them leave their mark.
Like the Linn 119 did towards the end of 2024. A compact two-way speaker, built after the same recipe as most small two-way speakers. But these managed to maintain attention longer than most small speakers I have tested.
At the risk of sounding blasé, that’s well done. After all, quite a few speakers visit the test room every year.
The small Linn 119 deliver a much larger soundstage than one would think, and they have a mature bass response considering their size. Additionally, they play with a natural warmth, and the sound is full while providing good insight into the music. What they don’t have is, of course, any kind of deep bass, and the size limits how much sound pressure you can get. But they can be upgraded to active operation, and that affects the sound in a positive direction. This I couldn’t test with the 119s, but after a couple of weeks with the floorstanding 150s, I had them converted to active operation.
LINN 150
Both models were launched towards the end of 2024 and represent, as mentioned, a new generation of Linn speakers. The floorstanding Linn 150 shares two drivers with the compact Linn 119, but the one-meter tall cabinets also house a 19-centimeter bass driver.
At the top of the front, you’ll find the same pear-shaped plate as on the stand-mount model, with a 16 cm midrange and a 19 mm tweeter from Norwegian SEAS. The 19 cm large bass driver is a larger version of the midrange, with the same type of Nextel-coated paper fiber cone in a chamber that exits into a bass reflex port on the underside of the cabinet, which has a base plate mounted with a couple of centimeters clearance to the bass port.
On the back of the 32 cm deep cabinet, the speakers have three cable terminals, with jumpers between them. If you remove the jumpers, you can use bi-wiring, tri-wiring, bi-amping, or tri-amping, depending on your preference. Linn has already planned for the latter, with active operation of all three drivers.
Active Operation
Not in the form of an amplifier module to be mounted inside or outside, but Linn’s Selekt system, which is the hub of either a passive or active solution. You can, for example, start with a pair of passive 150s, like here, and later upgrade to active operation with a Selekt DSM, which is an integrated amplifier with flexible expansion options. If you install three amplifier modules instead of just one, you can drive all three drivers with their own amplifier.
The installation is done by a Linn dealer, who unscrews the bass driver and moves the cables on the crossover from passive to active operation. Then you connect a cable with three pairs of conductors and have active operation of the speakers, with active crossover to each driver.
That gives even better sound, but I’ll return to that in a moment.
Competitors
There aren’t many speakers in the same class as the Linn 150 that can be switched from passive to active operation. But if we look at which passive floor-standing speakers are in the same class, the selection is larger. The new DALI Rubikore 8 is an alternative, but even though the price is the same, they are considerably larger and require more space. The same applies to KEF R11 Meta—which also saves you a couple of thousand dollars—and the delightful Sonus faber Sonetto V G2.
All of these are very good-sounding floor-standing speakers, but only the Linn 150 can be upgraded with active operation if you wish. Whether that’s an advantage or a disadvantage depends on the type of requirements you prioritize when choosing speakers.
Sound in the Room
The Linn 150 is without a doubt the easiest among the above-mentioned to find floor space for. In my test room, 85 cm to the back wall was almost optimal, but they could stand even closer to the back wall. It’s not as easy to do with a pair of R11 Meta, or Rubikore 8, which both have large bass ports on the back.
When the speakers were in place, slightly angled inward, I connected them to the excellent Denon PMA-3000NE, one of our latest favorites among integrated amplifiers in this price range. I also connected one of our reference amplifiers under $, the Yamaha A-S3200, and towards the end of the test also a Linn Selekt DSM. But that will come in a separate test, so stay tuned for that!
The Linn 150 goes half an octave deeper in bass than the small Linn stand-mount speakers. 38 Hz, says Linn, and the relatively low sensitivity of 86 dB, and impedance of 4 ohms, means they are not among the easiest to drive.
But even though they can’t be compared in any way to a pair of easy-to-drive Klipsch Forte IV (99 dB and 8 ohms), they don’t feel particularly difficult to drive.
There were no problems getting serious sound pressure in a 35-square-meter room, and the potent 80-watt Denon PMA-3000NE had full control over the speakers all the way from subdued trio jazz to live funk.
The Klipsch speakers naturally played louder, with even more weight in the bass, and a pair of KEF R11 Meta have even better focus. But—and it’s a big but—the Linn 150 sounds bigger than they actually are—and equally important is that they have more than enough weight in the bass to make Sade’s “Turn My Back On You” sound as awesome as it was originally intended.
Bigger Soundstage and Better Dynamics
Even if it’s unfair to compare with a pair of 119s, it’s natural to do so. Because they have the same technology, minus the bass driver and the cabinet size. And here it’s important to emphasize that a pair of 150s doesn’t sound like a pair of 119s just with more bass.
The extra half-octave in the bass affects scale, depth, and tone.
There is more tonal foundation in vocals and instruments, and it’s not just the bass that sounds tougher and more dynamic in Sade’s “Turn My Back On You.” Double bass, percussion, and piano all get more weight behind the notes. For example, you hear much more of the tonal structure in the bass track on the album “Polarity” with the Jan Gunnar Hoff ensemble, and the Steinway piano goes deeper and has more resonance in the deepest tones.
You can of course play louder than you can with the smaller stand-mount speaker, but at low to moderate volume you quickly notice that a pair of 150s also fill the room much better. If you turn up the volume control five notches, the soundstage grows and it’s easier to follow the rhythm on tracks like Ezra Collective’s “God Gave Me Feet For Dancing.”
Sure, the recording of “Boom Boom Boom” with John Lee Hooker isn’t the best, but it swings like crazy. And that’s the point, after all. That the speakers manage to convey the energy. With Rumer and Redtenbacher’s Funkestra’s “Saving Grace” you get the soundstage far out into the room. You’re sitting right in front of the stage—or in the middle of the studio, as it were. The point is that the speakers deliver an exemplary reproduction of what went into the recording when it was made.
The distinctly rhythmic “Prince Eugene” by James Brandon Lewis has a saxophone track that sits in front of a complex soundstage, with drums and percussion as the dominant rhythmic factor. Here, I could wish for a bit more weight in the bass; an extra bass driver might have fulfilled that wish, and as with the Linn 119, I miss a bit of air at the very top of the treble. But the Linn speakers lack very little else. The dynamic contrast is brilliant, and the speakers always sound focused and open.
Conclusion
The Linn 150 is more than a pair of floor-standing Linn 119s with an extra bass driver. They rest firmly on their own base and build upon the fine qualities of the small 119s. You get the same ability to unleash the music, and the sound is relatively neutral throughout. But a pair of 150s delivers the music with a completely different weight, scale, and dynamics.
Just like the smaller 119s, they are well-balanced, and there is more than enough transparency to give good insight into the music on the recording. That can, indeed, also be said about other speakers in the same class, but with a pair of Linn 150s, you have the option to upgrade with full active operation and get even better sound than you get with a pair of passive 150s. That’s something to consider.
+ Large soundstage and bass with controlled authority. Large instruments get a wonderful tonal foundation. Can have active operation. Solid quality impression.
– Relaxed treble.
Specifications:
Type: Three-way floor-standing speaker, bass reflex
Bass: 19 cm paper with Nextel coating
Midrange: 16 cm paper with Nextel coating
Tweeter: 19.55 mm Somomex dome
Sensitivity: 88 dB
Impedance: 4 ohms
Frequency response: 38–50,000 Hz (–6 dB)
Crossover frequency: no data
Max sound pressure: no data
Recommended amplifier: 20–250 watts
Dimensions/weight: 100 x 32.1 x 23.4 cm / 21.6 kg
Color: Black, white, walnut, oak
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