Linn’s innovative Exakt technology, combining active speakers with digital signal processing to optimise both the performance of the system and its interaction with the listening room, continues to broaden its appeal.

Just launched is the most affordable Exakt system yet, based around the Exakt Akudorik standmount speakers, and Linn has also announced it has started applying the Exakt optimisation algorithms to loudspeakers from other manufacturers: at an event in London this week it gave the first public demonstration of an Exakt-optimised set-up for the celebrated Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus loudspeaker.

The £17,500 Exakt Akudorik system takes its name from the columns of the speaker stands used to house the Exakt Engine electronics, Dynamik power supply and four channels of 100W Linn Chakra amplification at the heart of the system: this system eliminates the common distortions of passive crossover technology, optimises signals not just for the speaker in use, but for individual drive unit characteristics, and allows the speakers to be set up for the best performance in the room in which they’re used.

Linn jokes that the original slogan for Exakt, ‘The source is in the speakers’, indicating the way the purest possible signal passes through an Exakt system before being processed in the speakers, should be changed to ‘The source is in the stands’ in this case, but in fact the stands and speakers work as a single unit here.

As standard, the system comprises the Akurate DSM control unit, the stands and the matching speakers, but it’s also possible to buy just the speakers and stands for £13,500, or just the Exakt Dorik stand for £9,500 a pair, for use with existing Linn standmount speakers, such as the Akurate 212.

The stand electronics are in a suspension-mounted module to resist vibration, and the speakers themselves are of a ported four-way design using a 16.5cm bass driver and Linn’s 3K array of a 12.5mm super tweeter, 25mm dome tweeter and 7.5cm midrange driver mounted in a single die cast aluminium chassis. The speaker cabinet is made from multiple layers of steam-moulded MDF and birch ply, and is available in a range of finishes including six real wood veneers, and in standard or high-gloss finishes.

In addition a range of more than 200 high-gloss colours is available to order, and the buyer can also choose between black or polished chrome for the 3K array chassis.

Linn is also renaming its £10,000 Klimax Exakt Tunebox crosover/optimisation unit, designed for use with existing active loudspeakers to the rather simpler Klimax Exaktbox, and launching the Akurate Exaktbox, at £4000. The former has six channels of output, and can thus be used in mono mode with one unit per speaker, or in stereo mode for speakers of up to three-way operation. The Akurate version has 10 channels of digital to analogue conversion, and is designed for use with speakers from two-way to five way.

As well as rolling out support for all of Linn’s current speakers and most models from the past 12-15 years, for the first time Exakt can now support third-party speakers, the programme starting with Bowers & Wilkins’s shell-like Nautilus floorstanders.

While it’s not working directly with the Worthing company, Linn says B&W ‘is aware of’ the project. Linn plans to extend the reach of Exakt by the measurement of, and development of Exakt algorithms for, a wide range of speakers.

Linn is organising a series of Exakt demonstration events around the country – and indeed the world – in the next few months: to find your nearest one, and book a place, click here.