Arko is an original, high-performance tonearm, and Linn's first entirely new model since 2006. Rigid in construction and fluid of motion, great effort was taken during this tonearm’s development to ensure that it retains both fundamental simplicity and superlative performance. To produce Arko, Linn have made leaps and taken strides with every element of gimballed tonearm design, manufacture and aesthetic.

It consists of both machined and high-precision, colddrawn parts, in order to improve audio performance and engineering tolerances. Arko boasts greatly improved rigidity, precision and coupling throughout the arm wand assembly, thanks to machined 7075-grade aluminium specified throughout; and the ultra-stable gimbal platform facilitates superb bearing concentricity and alignment.

Materials

Special care and effort was taken to ensure that 7075-grade aluminium would be used exclusively throughout the arm – from headshell to gimbal – with the resultant material synergy and coupling effectively banishing undesirable resonances away from the delicate generator, and out through the sub-chassis.

Marry Arko to its partner cartridge, Kendo, and this synergy is improved yet further with superior dissipation of resonance along the tonearm system.

Headshell

The headshell is machined from 7075-grade aluminium for enhanced strength and stiffness. It features increased overall length with elongated slots to render Arko compatible with an exhaustive list of cartridges of all shapes and sizes.

Arm Wand & Gimbal

The arm tube is high-precision, cold-drawn 7075 aluminium. It is extremely stiff, and is produced to exceedingly high tolerances. The arm wand assembly is held in place by a single, stainless-steel through-spindle, with an enlarged, machined aluminium gimbal.

Finish

In lieu of a powder coat finish, for Arko Linn have both improved performance and elevated its aesthetic appeal with a vapour-blasted ‘raw’ finish. Utilising their new, in-house, wet blast cabinet, they were able to produce a clean, congruous, and premium finish.

Movement

Arko, being of gimballed design, possesses greater inherent stability and rigidity than alternatives like unipivots. This results in an improved sense of depth, impact and emotion.

The structural support and inherent rigidity of the gimbal have been increased relative to Linn's previous tonearms. This improves bearing alignment and overall fluidity of the arm’s movement. The use of multiple, individual journals in vertical bearing assembly design has been known to cause issues with concentricity, alignment and stability. With Arko, Linn have addressed this with a single, polished stainless-steel through-spindle. The resulting improvement in alignment allows the arm wand increased agility, ensuring its tracking over the record surface with zero hindrance.

A fresh counterweight design delivers exceptional stability. It features rubber ‘O’-rings to aid effective dissipation of vibrations. The arm wand’s agility is improved with weight-reduction pockets machined into the headshell resulting in reduced overall moving mass.