It is never said of cars, nor watches, nor houses. So why must it be true of audio equipment?

I speak of the audio industry adage that the better something looks, the worse it performs. Although those handsome yet horrible-sounding home-theater-in-a-box systems at Best Buy provide anecdotal evidence to support this thesis, audio researchers have yet to postulate a scientific principle that proves a stylish system cannot sound good.

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To power the Komponent system, Linn offers the equally stylish, comparably compact Unidisk SC DVD player/surround processor and the Chakra C 5100 five-channel amplifier. Both measure a mere 3.2 inches high. (Click image to enlarge)

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The audio experts at Linn certainly do not hew to the “if it looks good, it’s bad” rule. The company’s new Komponent speaker system shows the influence of both a talented industrial designer and an imaginative acoustical engineer. Three tones of gray grace the speakers’ face: medium gray for the body, dark gray for the grille, and light gray for the ring surrounding the grille. The speakers’ triangulated cabinet and convex sides not only look distinctive, they improve the sound by adding structural rigidity and minimizing sound resonances inside the speaker.

Audiophiles prefer freestanding speakers; the other 99.99 percent of the population despises them. Wisely, Linn gives the Komponent owner both options, and even offers a radically styled, saucer-shaped subwoofer that can be placed on the floor or attached to a wall.

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Like the other speakers in the line, the Komponent 104 employs Linn’s 2K driver array—small and large tweeters mounted together in an aluminum baffle, which is positioned in front of a 4-inch midrange driver. (Click image to enlarge)

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Most home-theater-in-a-box systems come with a DVD receiver, a device that combines a DVD player and an A/V receiver into one chassis. Linn’s take on the DVD receiver is the combo of the Unidisk SC DVD player/surround processor and the Chakra five-channel amplifier. The Unidisk SC plays practically any type of disc you might own. It also controls the volume of your system, and performs Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, and DTS decoding. And it connects to other source devices, such as a cable box, a satellite receiver, an AM/FM tuner, or an iPod.

Next in the signal chain is the Chakra C 5100 amplifier, which provides 100 watts of power for each of five channels. Its tiny chassis incorporates an efficient switching power supply, and much of its amplification circuitry sits idle except during especially loud passages. Its entire chassis—two intricately machined pieces of solid aluminum—serves as a heat sink. Despite its compact size, the Chakra runs incredibly cool; even the loudest scenes from action-movie DVDs barely warm its top plate.I begin my Komponent experience by wall-mounting one Komponent 110 speaker on each side of my projection screen, and a Komponent 106 LCR speaker underneath the screen. I place two Komponent 104 minispeakers on stands in the back of the room for the surround speakers. With no good place left on the wall for the Komponent 120 subwoofer, I position it on the floor, in the “sweet spot” where subwoofers sound best in my room.

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The Komponent 106 LCR (below) is designed to be mounted either horizontally or vertically, on stands or directly on a wall, making it ideal for use with plasma and flat-panel LCD TVs. (Click image to enlarge)

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Immediately, something about the Komponent speakers grabs me: a refreshing clarity in the treble. Delicate percussion tones that many speakers smear sound as clear as I have ever heard them—and perhaps better than I have ever heard. Many speakers enhance the treble merely by boosting it, which produces a sound that quickly tires your ears. The Komponents, however, enhance the treble without emphasizing it. Surely this lucidity results from Linn’s 2K driver array: an aluminum casting holding a small, 0.6-inch tweeter and a larger, 1.2-inch driver that handles the lower treble and upper midrange. This assembly floats over an angled, 4-inch midrange driver mounted in a shallow, hornlike molding. Each of the Komponent speakers (save the subwoofer) employs this driver array, so the speakers sound essentially identical, which is important for achieving an optimum surround-sound effect.

Voices sound impressively intelligible through this system, with a barely perceptible emphasis in the midrange that makes dialogue stand out subtly. Even rough-edged pop vocalists who sound harsh through most speakers sound pleasing—yet never softened—through the Komponent system.

All speakers pressed into double-duty for wall-mount and freestanding use must compromise: Should they be voiced to sound best in one position and not quite so good in the other, or should the designer split the difference, compromising the sound a bit in both positions so the speaker works equally well in either? Linn seems to take the first approach here: The Komponents sound good when wall-mounted but better when standing on their own; midrange sounds like voice, trumpet, and saxophone reveal a more natural tonality when the speakers stand on their own plinths.

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The Komponent 120 resembles no other subwoofer we have seen. An 8-inch driver hides beneath the gray disc in the subwoofer’s center. The round enclosure also houses an amplifier rated to deliver 170 watts RMS of power. (Click image to enlarge)

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Many design-oriented speaker systems practically fall apart when played loud, but not the Komponents. I feed the system the most energetic, pounding material in my possession, and it maintains its composure. Do not mistake these for powerhouse speakers; when you crank up the volume, they lose some fidelity and their stereo imaging decays. But for their intended application—living rooms and smaller media rooms—the Komponents are more than sufficiently robust.All, that is, except for the Komponent 120 subwoofer, whose dynamic capabilities are not in the same class. If I play the system loud, the 120 distorts, and produces the “chuffing” sound of air passing with great frenzy through its ventilation ports. At the same volume, the other Komponent components are not challenged—it seems as if they would glance over at the 120 in scorn, if only they could glance and if only audio gear were capable of scorn. I move the 120 into the corner to reinforce its output, but still, it cannot keep up with its brothers. And in this position, its tones sound boomier, less defined. It is capable only of adding a bit more fullness to the system, not of acting as a real subwoofer; Linn hints at its limitations when it calls the product a “bass extension loudspeaker.”

The 120 sports a strange set of controls: a one-character alphanumeric display and three tiny buttons. Using this display, you can adjust phase, level (but only in 6-decibel increments), and the high- and low-pass filter frequencies (but the display shows only the numbers 1 through 9, and the manual does not explain what frequencies these numbers represent). The Unidisk SC provides a subwoofer trim control that compensates for the sub’s lack of fine level adjustment, but with the filter frequency adjustments, you must trust in your ears or in Linn’s choice of default frequency settings. Bottom line: This system deserves a more serious subwoofer. (Click image to enlarge)

I barely notice the Unidisk SC and the Chakra, but that is a good thing; the two units possess a quiet competence appropriate to a high-end lifestyle product. Setting up the Unidisk SC is much like setting up any other surround processor and DVD player, and the combination proves as easy to operate as most. You can connect only one component video source (likely a high-def cable box or satellite receiver), but that seems OK—I suspect most Komponent customers will use their system only for watching TV and DVDs, spinning an occasional CD or SACD, and perhaps using the device’s audio inputs to connect a radio tuner and an iPod.
 
The Unidisk SC’s internal DVD player produces a clean, sharp picture. As it sails through even the most visually demanding DVDs, it produces excellent resolution with almost no visible artifacts. Only test discs reveal any significant flaws (specifically, a few glitches when converting 24-frame-per-second filmed material to the 30-frame-per-second video frame rate).
 
The Komponent system proves that the audio industry is wrong—good looks and good performance can coincide in a sound system. Partner this system with a good plasma TV and you will enjoy many years of exceptionally stylish home entertainment.DESCRIPTION
Home theater audio system comprising 5.1-channel speaker system, DVD player/surround processor, and five-channel amplifier.

CONNECTIONS
Komponent 110 and 106 LCR: four sets of five-way speaker cable binding posts
Komponent 105: three sets of five-way speaker cable binding posts.
Komponent 120: stereo analog audio jacks for line-level input, loop-through output, and filtered output
Unidisk SC: component video input and output, S-video input and output, composite video input and output, two optical digital audio inputs, two coaxial digital audio inputs, four stereo analog audio inputs, optical digital audio output, coaxial digital audio output, 5.1-channel unbalanced analog audio output (to amplifier), RJ-45 jacks for RS-232 in and out, four RJ-45 jacks for multiroom use, RJ-45 jack for accessory connection, RJ-45 jack for main input, two 3.5mm jacks for IR out, two RCA jacks for Linn remote in and out
Chakra C 5100: five-way speaker cable binding posts and RCA-type unbalanced line-level input and loop-through output for each channel

DIMENSIONS
Komponent 110: 40.3 x 7 x 5.7 inches (hwd)
Komponent 106 LCR: 7 x 22 x 5.7 inches (hwd)
Komponent 105: 9.8 x 7 x 5.7 inches (hwd)
Komponent 120: 6 x 20 inches (hw)
Unidisk SC: 3.2 x 15 x 14.8 inches (hwd)
Chakra C 5100: 3.2 x 15 x 14.8 inches (hwd)

PRICE/CONTACT
PRICE: Komponent 110 $1,150 each, Komponent 106 LCR $1,000 each, Komponent 105 $500 each, Komponent 120 $1,500 each, Unidisk SC $4,999, Chakra C 5100 $3,325

CONTACT: 904.645.5242, linn.co.uk