[Review] Linn Sizmik 10.25 subwoofer

Linn Sizmik 10.25 subwoofer

I have a home-made, ultra-flat, transmission-line subwoofer to use with my Rogers LS3/5As in No.2 system. I like it very much (and it was cheap), but it does have its deficiencies, one of which is the inability to go very low. As a predominantly classical listener, I don't really need bass on the Richter scale.However, I've noticed this deficiency in some records, and that set me thinking about the possibility of a new sub.

Enter the local Linn man, just down the road in Oerlikon. He had a demo 10.25 Sizmik sub (there's now a bigger 12.something), so I borrowed it (yes, you're right, that's it playing in the background right now).

The Sizmik is a 15" cube, and this one is black. On a furniture elegance scale of 1-10, the Sizmik is around 0.5; this is a most unprepossessing black box, standing on four rubber feet. The forward-firing speaker is protected by a strange wire grille (raised edge and centre, concentric depression between them). There is a built-in 500W amp and a series of buttons that allow various settings to be changed. The dealer gave me the English-language manual, to help adjust the settings. This might as well have been written in Mandarin, for all the good it was. Fortunately, I was able to download the latest (and much improved) manual from Linn's website.

So, after all that guff, how does it sound. Like a bass speaker. At first, it hardly sounded at all, and then I found out how to fiddle with the settings, and it began to throb with life. All the old bass notes I remember that were not reproduced by my home-made one were there, and then some, if I wanted it. If I put in too much volume on it, things started to buzz. So, off with some bassy material - such as Mr. Bach's organ works (right again! that is indeed Toccata and Fugue in F major, Helmut Walcha playing). There is a lovely bassy snarl about the organ. I've previously been trying out some old pop/jazz favourites - such as Jet Harris's solo in the Shadows' classic "Nivram". There I had to crank the bass back.

There's no doubt, it's much better than my home-brew. But is it £600 better? I haven't answered this question yet.... Moreover, because this thing goes between the pre-amp and power amp, to put it where I want it is going to require the longest ICs in recorded history, about 8M. (Bob "Frontfloater", if you're reading this, I'm definitely not interested!). Watch This Space...

 

Funny you should mention this just now ... I got a new one in maple finish into the house on friday evening and I'm still listening to it now

You do realise you can drive it from a speaker line if you want, don't you? That could avoid you 8m problem.

 

Thanks for that, Steve, this is made clear in Mk.II Users Manual (it's not at all clear in Mk.I, but then, nothing is!). This is through those funny (Neutrik?) connectors, right? The Linn man recommended the pre-/power amp route and supplied the ICs for it.

I've realised that it may fit behind my listening chair, saving me the bother of making long ICs and also the bother of having to look at it (I personally regard most speakers, no matter how nicely veneered, as ugly boxes, and subwoofers especially so). I'll try it later today

 

Hmm I just looked in my manual and it's not quite as I thought. I'm not sure if yours is the same but here goes. I agree the connection diagram in the manual is very confusing. I think I misled you with the previous answer.

My sub has six RCA phono sockets on the back.
The bottom pair marked A in are for a single line in from the sub out of a processor, such as a AV5103, or for a stereo line in from a stereo line out of an ordinary preamp.

The middle pair marked AL out means analogue line out. It is intended to give full range output for a downstream amp and big speakers. i.e. ordinary preamp (no sub out) -> A in -> AL out -> power amp -> full range speakers

The top pair marked HP out (high-pass out) is for use with small or restricted bass speakers. In this case, the sub filters out the low bass so that the small speakers have an easy time. i.e
ordinary preamp (no sub out) -> A in -> HP out -> power amp -> small speakers.
---

In your case if I understand correctly, your preamp is a long way from where you want the sub. Do you have separate pre and powers? If so, would it help to get a line feed from one of the power-amp line pass-throughs instead of the preamp?

Could you describe your kit?

 

Oops I missed something out.

Having grovelled round the back of the sub again, there are of course speaker-level inputs, as I originally thought. Apart from the options in the previous post, you have the following:

Put the sub near to one of the speakers or the (bass) power amp.
Take a run of speaker cable from one of the amp's speaker-output pairs, say the Left channel. and connect the pair to the upper red and black pair of high level inputs on the back of the sub.
Do the same for the right channel, connecting to the lower red and black pair.
NB: I believe the diagram in the manual, bottom right of the page is drawn WRONG.
These connectors are known as BFA connectors in the UK and can be got from Farnell, etc. (Also, Nordost z-plugs will fit too.)

In addition, the diagram called "Connecting a stereo preamplifier" has an omission: there should be a phono pair connected to AL out marked as feeding to power amplifier.

The one thing the Sizmik does NOT seem to offer a speaker-level pass-through, so you can't do as I originally suggested.

Maybe you could put a long interconnect between your pre and power(s) allowing you to position the amps in between the speakers, away from the other kit. Then it could be a relatively short run from the amp's pre-passthrough or speaker outputs to the sub.

Or maybe you could forget it all and live with an 8m interconnect So what if there's a little HF rolloff.

 

It does indeed fit nicely behind my listening chair, Steve, so problem solved. I have a separate pre-power, and, if I had used the long interconnect solution, I would have put the power amp with the subwoofer, giving short cable runs to the LS3/5As.

I'm leaning towards keeping it - it has brought out bass in pieces where I thought there wasn't any.

 

Tones,
It sounds like you already have a good handle on sub setup. I agree that setting up by ear is the best way to keep the setup simple.

The issue I've found with setting a good sub up by ear is that your ear may be hearing a room-based peak at 57Hz or a dip at 63Hz, etc. No amount of phase or gain adjustment seems to effect that.

You then may have a system great at reproducing organ fundamentals and underground tube train rumble, but a bass guitar's notes may fade in and out when played up and down.

IMHO you need an SLP meter and test tones to get the average level errors close to say 1KHz and 2KHz of the main stereo pair.

I then found that at below say 80Hz, peaks and dips are caused by the room, and although they may be lessened by sub positioning, they still remain.

Unless the Sizmik has some sort of EQualisation controls, to allow you to tame a peak or two?

Failing that, it's down to room treatments and bass traps, which can get ugly unless in a dedicated room.

And yes, I'd love to audition a Sizmik!

regards,
Rob.

 

Thanks for the post, FluffUser. No, no equalisation controls, just the ability to adjust the various high and low gains, plus volume (coarse (rendered "course" by Linn) and fine) and phase. I've been fiddling with it to find the right setting for me, and I'm not quite there yet, but no doubt it is better. It's not £600 better than my old one, but then this is law-of-diminishing-returns territory anyway, and as my employer has just put a handsome bonus in my bank account, this will be my pat on the back to me.

As a test on Sunday night, I played some bits of my beloved Monteverdi's Vespers, and got a surprise. In the great choral number "Lauda Jerusalem Dominum", the opening goes

(Male voices à capella) Lauda!

(All, accompanied) Lauda!

(Male à capella) Lauda Jerusalem Dominum!

(All, accompanied) Lauda Jerusalem Dominum!

The first male lines echo in the great emptiness of San Marco, and the answering lines provide the counterpoint to it. And at the end of the counterpoint lines, there was a throb of double bass that I'd never known was there. It acts as a great full stop to the line. I was thrilled.

Does having a better sub add to the overall sound quality too? Am I kidding myself that the whole thing sounds better (or am I subconsciously trying to justify the expense of something I want?). Anyway, mucho great listening ahead...

 

Well, if it's cognitive dissonance I'm getting it too. And compared with other upgrades recently, it's cheap, so I shouldn't really be feeling it. Maybe it was the having to stop every 10m when I collected it from the post office that provided the dissonance for me

I have mine set up so that I can compare with and without at the touch of a button (by switching between surround modes 'Stereo' and 'StereoSub' on my 5103 controller). I don't know for sure where the processor rolls off the mains' bass in the latter mode. I'm gravitating towards corner placement just to the outside of the left front, 50Hz internal upper elbow, 8 to 16Hz lower, and I think about -6dB output. (Of course the 5101 remote allows trimming of the output too.)

I've been struggling two years to cure a bass problem broadly around 90Hz from my room and Espek positioning. Suddenly the problem has all but disappeared. The wool has cleared up a lot, which one notices on quick A/Bs. Maybe it's something to do with a 'real' speaker vs. a port, but I'm no speaker designer. I can still find those room modes with the 'right' music, if I listen for them, but they're not so generally troublesome.

My Mrs said she could hear the bass 'tune' better. Ha - where did you learn that word I said. This is not to mention the extra octave or so, as you imply. Now everything is cleaner I have to keep looking at the preamp front panel to get a reality check for the volume - I can accidentally be playing a lot louder. On the DVD-A of Deep Purple Machine Head the hotel corridor that they recorded in comes out much clearer, for example, and or the first time I accidentally had the volume up in the 90s, so just for the hell of it I took it up to 100 briefly and nothing blew :MILD: (Linns don't do 110).

I admit to picking up a cheap CD called 'Chill Out Bach' on Saturday, on Naxos I think. I'm becoming a sucker for Bach recently, and everything is so much better, I had to keep taking breaks because the music was putting me through the wringer so much. There's no way I could chill out to that. Extra emotional involvement has a flip side, I suppose - I felt like I'd had a session of group therapy or something, afterwards.

I found the limits on the sea battles of Master and Commander (but that was before I had the presently more conservative settings.) I can see why there is provision for connecting a second one. Mind you, nothing can be as good as the first one.

My one quibble is that the fan seems to come on rather easily, and it isn't as quiet, or broad band noise as the ones in the 2250s, for example. I'm looking for a variable-speed mini desk fan to put behind it, maybe. Or perhaps one of the computer people can suggest a better one if I pull it out and have a look what sort it is. Liquid-cooled would be nice. I need some kind of extra cooling on my 2250s too, or a more spread-out rack.

Anyway, back to work so I can save for that second one

 

Follow-up report. I've now lived with the Sizmik for a week and I like it a lot. It doesn't impose itself, but just contributes an extra oomph at the bass end, noticeable particularly in organ music, where the really big pipes have been noticeable for the first time. Best of all, it's invisible - it can be hidden behind my listening chair, where I don't have to look at it. So, No.2 set-up optimised to my liking, so no more money to be spent on hi-fi, until something blows up. Great!

Not happy with Zürich's Linn dealer, who tried to charge me CHF380 (about £160) for 4x3M Linn interconnects (to link pre-amp to sub and sub to power amp). According to the manual, the interconnects come with the sub. Moreover, if I had to, I find I can make my own for CHF80. Needless to say, I won't be paying him any CHF380.

P.S. He rang me to apologise and say the IC price was wrong - it should have been CHF550!! So, CHF80 and an hour's work in the garage later, I had my 3M ICs, every bit as good as Linn's. He did give me one set of 1.2M Linn standard ICs, which are always useful as spares.