Chic’s ‘Le Freak’ is a tightly syncopated workout for bass and rhythm guitars, drums and Fender Rhodes electric piano, and rarely have I heard it hang together quite so well. In other respects though, the Ekos excels.
#LINN EKOS SILVER FULL#
Where some rivals carry these instruments in all their full glory, with their rich harmonics and lush texturality, the Ekos sounds thin by comparison. You get the impression that whatever the Ekos plays, it’s subtly veiled, as if the contrast has been turned down on the music. This is best heard on acoustic instruments, such as the brass section on Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s ‘Geno’. Most obvious is the midband, which has a tonal homogeneity or ‘sameyness’ to it that some rivals do not. The Ekos is not the most tonally neutral of performers. With an effective mass of 12g, it’s in the medium-to-high mass category, meaning it works well with most MCs and MMs alike. Cabling is low capacitance and inductance copper, terminated by gold plated Linn phono plugs. The sliding brass counterweight is decoupled to the rear end stub by hard rubber bushes, and thumbwheels set the spring-applied tracking force and bias. Very finely aligned, these bearings offer a single rigid coupling right through to the arm pillar with its three point fixing.
#LINN EKOS SILVER PLUS#
The arm comprises a large bore alloy arm tube which is glued to a perforated aluminium alloy headshell and a robust bearing assembly, housing standard ballraces plus a stainless tool steel central shaft. So the Ekos is in effect the first pure Scottish Ittok.
which some Scottish nationalists like to put on their cars when driving abroad, instead of having a GB sticker. When the Ekos was made, its name alluded to this, sounding like the French word of Scotland, Ecosse. Not long after, the production began to move to Scotland. They were said to sound better, and soon became covetable, cult items. Several years into the Ittok production run – around 1980 – rumours abounded of the so-called ‘Scottish Ittok’, a version of the arm which was finished in black and made to even higher tolerances in the Linn factory. Indeed, the arm itself reputedly got its name from its designer, one Mr Ito. What’s in the name? Well, early Ittoks were made by the Denon Parts Company of Japan. Actually, it wasn’t radically different to Linn’s original ‘direct coupled transcription tonearm’, but subtle design and manufacturing process changes made enough of a difference to warrant renaming the arm. The original Ittok started trickling into circulation around a decade earlier, and at last here was its replacement. And then, practically within months of this, Linn released its Ekos. Then came the Naim ARO, which was pretty much the exact opposite – to this day many folk swear by it and won’t countenance another arm. It sounds wonderfully dynamic, tight, taut and all-of-a-piece, but rhythmically doesn’t quite do the job.
#LINN EKOS SILVER SERIES#
First was the SME Series V, about which much has been written many think it ‘the best’ arm in some respects, but not in others. Just like London buses, after you’d waited seemingly ages, not one but two – then three – came along at he same time.