AXPONA 2012: Wood Artistry, Linkwitz, Pass, MSB

The Linkwitz Orion 4 loudspeakers, assembled by the team over at Wood Artistry, is a tour-de-force. In this setup, there are three giant amps from Pass Labs. An $8250 Class-A/B X250.5 drove the woofers and two $5500 Class-A XA30.5 amps drove the “everything else”. The Orion is a tri-amped design (could you tell?) — that little box on the shelf (top left) is the crossover.

Fronting the system was a pretty nifty two-chassis $8600 Pass Labs XP-20 line stage. Digital was a mix of systems, including a $14k MSB Signature Platinum DAC IV with the $10k (!!!) Temo Second Galaxy Clock upgrade. A Marantz Reference SACD player was jammed in there, too.

Sadly, I didn’t get to hear this system. It was off because of another photo shoot that a guy with a push cart was running through the show. I’d tried to avoid him, but apparently failed here. So, I snuck in for some quick shots. Hah! Showed him!

Anyway, my recollection from RMAF was very favorable. Next time ….

I did manage to get my ears on a pair of Pluto speakers. These things look ridiculous. But they work — and really well, too. Active speakers (amps are in the base) may not be audiophile friendly, but the sound was open, fast and inviting.




About Scot Hull 1063 Articles
Scot started all this back in 2009. He is currently the Publisher here at PTA, the Publisher at The Occasional Magazine, and the Executive Producer at The Occasional Podcast. There are way too many words about him over on the Contributors page.

1 Comment

  1. I have had extensive sessions with the Orions. A local Audio pal here makes them and had the latest upgrades. While the amps used were average (Atoll home theatre multi-channel amps), the EAR Yoshino CD player was exceptional. As it was in a warehouse, I could listen as loudly as I liked and they are really full range! I am spoilt by the Heils for HF though and this wont match the Heils.

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