Article: New Linn Klimax DSM With Organik DAC

[The Computer Audiophile]

View full article

[botrytis]

I have heard the Linn products, which I am highly impressed with, just not interested in expensive speaker that look like cloth covered obelisks. I do like the sound though.

[JoeWhip]

At these price points, no way Jose.

[The Computer Audiophile]

40 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

At these price points, no way Jose.

 

Come one, you could go to Antarctica for a second time or have a Klimax DSM to listen through for years :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, botrytis said:

I have heard the Linn products, which I am highly impressed with, just not interested in expensive speaker that look like cloth covered obelisks. I do like the sound though.

 

I love the cloth covered speakers. 

[mcgillroy]

Design is hideous. Linn used to have very slick Bauhaus design. The new Klimax is looks cheap with the silly gold bling and no sense of proportions. Pitty.

 

Wondering about the chips used. AKM 4499 or AKM 4498/4191?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, mcgillroy said:

Design is hideous. Linn used to have very slick Bauhaus design. The new Klimax is looks cheap with the silly gold bling and no sense of proportions. Pitty.

 

Wondering about the chips used. AKM 4499 or AKM 4498/4191?

 

I love the design. Beautiful.

 

Did you watch the DAC video? No chips. All custom.

[JoeWhip]

Ha Chris, a second trip to Antartica would get past the finance committee. This Linn stuff, not so much.

[manueljenkin]

This company is very good at attention to detail but the first video is just describing what's there is almost every dac lol 😅, just the level of accuracy and perfection changes. I'm not a PCB designer, but I feel that the clock routing looks 👌👌. Anyway most of the magic would be in that 8 layers you don't see. I Ion't quite understand if this is a delta Sigma dac or a PWM dac.

 

And by the way, I see a few ti opa1612 and opax140 opamps. Interesting to know a 39000$ device still relies on a 7$ chip at some point. Was expecting Linn to make custom opamps or choose something discrete, like Weiss.

[manueljenkin]

Edit: also some vishay surface mount tantalum caps.

[matthias]

@The Computer Audiophile

 

Klimax System Hub $39,000

 

Chris, are you sure about the price? 

This device is without Organik DAC.

 

Thanks

 

Matt

[ecwl]

Very interesting. Organik DAC looks like a 32-element DSD/SDM DAC with shift register based on the video. But of course, the devil is in the details like the over/upsampling and noise shaping algorithm, the oversampling rate (DSD128/256/512/1028?), implementation of the SDM DAC, etc. Also extremely cool how they’re going to put the DAC into their active speakers, absolutely crazy.

 

And OMG the case work looks amazing. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 hours ago, matthias said:

@The Computer Audiophile

 

Klimax System Hub $39,000

 

Chris, are you sure about the price? 

This device is without Organik DAC.

 

Thanks

 

Matt

Good catch. The hub is $19,500. Article updated. 

[mForMusic]

I haven't heard any Linn product so far, but I liked the company until I found their blog. I just can't take them seriously after reading this one: https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/dac-or-network-music-player-which-is-best-for-home-audio

 

Quote

For starters, DACs can be a real pain if you want them to work with your other devices. A DAC needs to be physically tied to your computer, which therefore needs to be in the same room as your hi-fi system.

If you want to control and choose music using a phone or tablet—or have the whole family accessing music around your home using a device of their choice—you’re out of luck. So hunch yourself over that laptop and get used to it. That's the window to your music collection from now on.

 

Quote

So if you want multi-room audio, or maybe surround sound, or would like digital audio from sources other than your computer, your DAC will be obsolete.

 

Quote

Most DACs are low-spec consumer devices, whose quality is further impaired by the computer they connect to. They’re built on the basis of price rather than performance. The music you hear is very different from the original source, because musical information is being lost along the way.

 

...so you shouldn't buy a high-end DAC because digital streamers don't exist and most DACs are cheap. Sure.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

25 minutes ago, mForMusic said:

I haven't heard any Linn product so far, but I liked the company until I found their blog. I just can't take them seriously after reading this one: https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/dac-or-network-music-player-which-is-best-for-home-audio

 

 

 

 

...so you shouldn't buy a high-end DAC because digital streamers don't exist and most DACs are cheap. Sure.

 

Your glass is really empty this am. 
 

There is truth to those statements. If you look at them in the most negative way possible, then you get to where you got. 

[rhmmmm]

I’ve never owned any Linn but the times I have demo’ed them, they’ve been fantastic. Happy to see them introducing this line. Looks very exciting!

[bbosler]

I find this very interesting

 

Quote

taking the coolness to another level, Linn put an SFP port in the Klimax DSM! 

 

just added fiber to my system, Mac Mini M1 server running Roon and HQPlayer >> Cat6 >> Cisco 2960 with SFP port >>> fiber to 2nd Cisco 2960 >> CAT6 to  endpoint (JCat femto ethernet card in gaming computer running AudioLinux as HQplayer NAA endpoint off of an M.2 card, , , JCat USB out to DAC)

 

I know there are thunderbolt to SFP adapters so think I can eliminate the switch on the server end , also see a lot of PCI SFP cards so thinking about that as a way to eliminate that switch. I saw a discussion here from about 3 years ago that spoke to the problems with that. Seems like there would be an audiophile PCI SFP card by now... any thoughts? Seems like a good idea to get rid of the switches but "seems like" does not always translate to "good idea."

 

thanks

 

BTW, my older Mac Mini choked on DSD to 512 with Sinc-M and ASDM7, this M1 cruises with it. 

 

 

 

[ecwl]

Just re-looked at the Organik DAC video again.

I wonder more and more if it actually resembles more to Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC architecture. 

https://www.hifinews.com/content/mola-mola-tambaqui-network-attached-dacstreamer-feel-pulse

Because you can think of the Mola Mola as a 5-bit 3MHz DAC or a 1-bit 100MHz DSD/SDM DAC with 32-element and shift register.

While the design is still not as sophisticated (or complicated) as the Chord Pulse Array DAC design, this approach should still significantly reduce jitter sensitivity at the actual DAC level although it would still be susceptible to noise floor modulation depending on the noise shaper.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, ecwl said:

Just re-looked at the Organik DAC video again.

I wonder more and more if it actually resembles more to Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC architecture. 

https://www.hifinews.com/content/mola-mola-tambaqui-network-attached-dacstreamer-feel-pulse

Because you can think of the Mola Mola as a 5-bit 3MHz DAC or a 1-bit 100MHz DSD/SDM DAC with 32-element and shift register.

While the design is still not as sophisticated (or complicated) as the Chord Pulse Array DAC design, this approach should still significantly reduce jitter sensitivity at the actual DAC level although it would still be susceptible to noise floor modulation depending on the noise shaper.

Similar to the DSC1

 

https://www.signalyst.com/hardware.html

[ecwl]

43 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Similar to the DSC1

 

https://www.signalyst.com/hardware.html

Yes, from a pure DAC architecture standpoint but at least according to my limited understanding...

I think if you run HQPlayer and feed it into DSC1, it can feed DSC1 any signals of 0’s and 1’s alternating. Mostly because HQPlayer can modulate the oversampled DSD signal based on the noise shaper, but also that HQPlayer has no idea whether the DSD DAC it’s feeding into is a 64-element, 32-element or 1-element DSD DAC or whether it uses shift register as an architecture.

 

But Mola Mola DAC would only feed PWM signals from 0-32 to the DAC meaning that you’ll only get 

00000000000000000000000000000000

00000000000000000000000000000001

00000000000000000000000000000011

00000000000000000000000000000111

00000000000000000000000000001111

00000000000000000000000000011111

etc. Until 

01111111111111111111111111111111

11111111111111111111111111111111

And when you feed that into the shift register, whenever the DAC is maintains the same signal, say 5, your DAC is would be constantly switching and the advantage is that there is 1 element that’s going from 0 to 1 while another element is going from 1 to 0 and so that balances the DAC elements out and produces constant amounts of noise. 

And that’s what you can see from the Organik DAC images of the 32 elements:

00000000000000000000000000011111

00000000000000000000000000111110

00000000000000000000000001111100

00000000000000000000000011111000

00000000000000000000000111110000

Etc. Until

01111100000000000000000000000000

11111000000000000000000000000000

 

The difference between Chord DACs and Mola Mola is that Mola Mola can still switch from say 5 to 15 then back to 5 in the next sequence and jumping like that would force 10 elements to go switch from 0 to 1 in succession and then later from 1 to 0 in succession 10 times and that would still generate small signal linearity issues and noise floor modulation, albeit significantly less than other DAC architectures or HQPlayers feeding the same DAC architecture.

 

Whereas Chord DAC noise shapers would only go gradually from 5 to 6 to 7 to eventually to 15 if needed so that you’re at most having 1-element imbalance in the switching, thus significantly reducing small signal linearity issues and noise floor modulation. At least this is what I can gather from Rob Watts the designer of Chord DACs and the videos Chord posted.

[loop7]

I've only heard Linn products twice, both full Linn systems. First time was at an audio show and I left really impressed. Second time was at an experienced Linn dealer and I was so impressed I contemplated starting over.

 

At the dealer, the L/R speakers could not have been more than 30 cm from the wall yet the soundstage was immense.

 

I'm on the fence as to their speaker's aesthetics but love the look of their other components.

[MetalNuts]

One of the expensive DACs that does not support MQA.  😄😄

[matthias]

1 hour ago, MetalNuts said:

One of the expensive DACs that does not support MQA. 

 

I like that Linn dislike MQA. 😀

 

Matt

[MetalNuts]

10 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

I like that Linn dislike MQA. 😀

 

Matt

Me too.  This may be the critical advantage for me to rate it over other expensive DAC😆

[Focus Fidelity]

14 hours ago, ecwl said:

Just re-looked at the Organik DAC video again.

I wonder more and more if it actually resembles more to Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC architecture. 

https://www.hifinews.com/content/mola-mola-tambaqui-network-attached-dacstreamer-feel-pulse

Because you can think of the Mola Mola as a 5-bit 3MHz DAC or a 1-bit 100MHz DSD/SDM DAC with 32-element and shift register.

While the design is still not as sophisticated (or complicated) as the Chord Pulse Array DAC design, this approach should still significantly reduce jitter sensitivity at the actual DAC level although it would still be susceptible to noise floor modulation depending on the noise shaper.

It also reminded me of the Mola Mola DAC in as much as there appears to be a single bit stream shifted through a series of single bit registers. The paper describing the operation of the Mola Mola DAC is here https://www.hypex.nl/img/upload/doc/an_wp/WP_AES120BP_Simple_ultralow_distortion_digital_PWM.pdf