The enthusiast products from Lejonklou have not had dealers in Norway before. Exact HiFi in Vibes Gate has now become a retailer of Lejonklou's products, and it starts with the two Moving Magnet phono stages Slipsik and Gaio. And it is hardly a coincidence that it is the Linn retailer Exact HiFi that starts with the import of Lejonklou's products. More on that later

Fredrik Lejonklou

The designer Fredrik Lejonklou is the man behind the Lejonklou products. He previously has a background as a writer for the Swedish magazine HiFi & Musik, and also has a background as a previous hardcore Linn enthusiast. When the Lejonklou web forum was created in the middle of last decades, it was initially the only English-language Linn forum. After a while Linn created their own forum, and Lejonklou's forum gradually became a forum primarily focused on Lejonklou's products.

MM-RIAA

Lejonklou's first commercial construction was Hudik, an MM phono module for mounting in Linn's preamps Exotik and Kinos. These preamplifiers were modular, and had a slot for retrofitting the phono module, a module that was not yet in place from Linn at the time of launch. And since it was a long time before they became available, Lejonklou developed the third-party module Hudik.

Otherwise, it is not entirely coincidental that Lejonklou has always been focusing on MM phono modules. He has been of the opinion that MM is the best concept in moderate price ranges, and that low-cost MC-PUs sounded poor. He also responded that around 15 years ago there were no expensive MM phono stage, and this was part of the reason for his efforts.

Lionklou Slipsik

After the Hudik module became a fact in 2005, Lejonklou's next venture was the phony stage Slipsik. This has been Lejonklou's reference RIAA ever since its launch in October 2006. But it has been constantly evolving with frequent updates, and most of the upgrades have been available as upgrades of previous versions. The latest version of Slipsik is version 7.1, and it came in February 2020. We wrote about Slipsik 6 in 2015, and about Slipsik 7 when it was on sale in December 2018.

Tiesik is hand built in Sweden and also tested there by Lejonklou. It has a dual mono design.

Price for Slipsik is set at NOK. 12.200, -

Read more about Slipsik at Lejonklou

Lion-headed Gaio

We wrote about Gaio when this most affordable RIAA was launched in 2013. It then replaced Kinki, the former entry-level RIAA from Lejonklou which was launched in 2007. In the upgrade that came in 2018, some components were imported from Slipsik. It has also been upgraded in several stages, and in 2020 version 2.4 was released.

Gaio is also manufactured and tested in Sweden.

Price for Gaio is kr. 6,500 -

Read more about Gaio at Lejonklou

MC-phonotrinn

Although Lejonklou has always focused on the Moving Magnet, this was changed in 2019. After a longer development period, two MC phono stages were launched, which we wrote about at the top of the year. The flagships SINGularity are extremely high-end, and will probably have a price tag of around NOK 200,000 if sold in Norway. And this is is per piece, because the SINGularitys are mono-stages.

A more moderate version is Entity, and while it will undoubtedly be considerably more expensive than the mono-steps, we remain at a moderate level.

Entity will come in at just under 20,000, - in Norway.

Read more about Entity at Lejonklou

Sagatun and Tundra - Exciting amplifier kit

Gradually, Lejonklou also got amplifiers on the menu. It started with the power amplifier Tundra 2.5 in 2012, closely followed by the monoblocks Tundra 2.2 Mono in 2013.

But it was in 2014 the really interesting products emerged. Monoblocks were again launched, but this time in the form of preamplifiers. Sagatun Mono is the mono version of the stereo preamplifier Sagatun, and also costs the same - SEK 33,000. The reason why Fredrik Lejonklou created this rather unique preamplifier is that he asked the question: “ You make power amplifiers in mono, why not pre amplifiers? .

And at least as important - the element that made this possible was that both the mono and stereo variants of the preamplifiers have something called "Control Link". This is a feature that allows a sample of Sagatun - stereo or mono - to be set as "Master", while others are set as "Servant". Almost slightly parallel to what happens in many cases with wireless active speakers. With this system you can set up as many preamps and channels as your heart and wallet may desire. 

Finally, it should also be mentioned that what made Lejonklou find it interesting with a mono version of preamps was that he found that it gives a surprisingly large sound gain.

Lionklou TARANDUS

In 2016, the latest amplifier construction came from Lejonklou. The Boazu integrated amplifier costs less than both Sagatun and Tundra, and according to Lejonklou sounded so good that he had to launch the TARANDUS upgrades to Sagatun and Tundra where the improvements in Boazu were implemented.

Exact HiFi

When I mentioned initially that it was hardly a coincidence that it was Exact HiFi that became the first Norwegian retailer of Lejonklou's products, it is related to the great similarity between Linn and Lejonklou. Fredrik, like Linn, swears to the Source First concept, and uses Tune Dem as a test method. Also in other countries, the notorious Linn retailers sell Lejonklou's products.

Exact HiFi with Odd Rune Hegge has now become an importer of Lejonklou's products. Initially, he has taken in the two MM RIAA steps Gaio and Slipsik costing NOK 6,500, - and NOK 12,200, - respectively, and these are already in place at Vibes Gate at Majorstuen. But he is also working on taking the MC stage Entity. This is expected to get a price tag of just under NOK 20,000, -. 

Lejonklou's amplifiers are also under consideration, but the final decision on this will come a bit later, at least after the Korona quarantine against Sweden has been abandoned. 

Odd Rune has also reveiled that there are more agencies in the Horizon. We will return to this in another article - stay tuned!

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