Aqua LinQ network streamer experiences

[Designsfx]

Hello All!
Tossing around the idea of adding a LinQ to my system to pair with an Aqua La Scala Dac. I’ve read almost every review and thread available but still would love to hear more about direct comparisons with other streaming products. Sound quality is always first and foremost but user interface impressions and reliability are always important considerations. Any LinQ owners out there who can offer their thoughts?

[barbz]

Hi there,

 

I had the LinQ (with hqcore) + La Scala combo for a couple of months recently and spent a bit of time A/Bing between the LinQ and USB (FTA calista) out from my antipodes K30. The LinQ was been fed network from the network out of the K30.

 

To my ears and that of my partner the difference between the two was minor and while we didnt do ABx testing or anything too serious it was hard to pick which source we were connected to.

 

If I tried real hard to pick something out I would say the LinQ was a bit more direct/dynamic but it would be like 1-3% if that.

 

I think the optilogic tech in the aqua products even the field between the different inputs.

 

I ended up selling the LinQ and running USB direct.

[Designsfx]

@barbz

Thank you for the response! Although you ultimately stayed with the Antipodes vs LinQ are you still finding the La Scala satisfactory? 
I like the La Scala enough to ignore other products for now ad although I prefer to rip CD for playback I thought I would venture into the world of streaming. It seems obvious to try the LinQ but some are telling me the lack of interface makes for clumsy operations.

I currently use a Lumin U2 for streaming music and am trying to figure out whether moving up to the LinQ will be better all around. I appreciate your feedback!

[barbz]

3 hours ago, Designsfx said:

Although you ultimately stayed with the Antipodes vs LinQ are you still finding the La Scala satisfactory? 

Yep, its a very natural dac with just enough warmth and detail with plenty of musicality; I did upgrade the tubes to 1950s mullards.

 

I dont own the lumin at the moment but have had the u1 in the past; the beauty of the U1/U2 is it supports every streaming service.

[AudioDoctor]

19 hours ago, Designsfx said:

but some are telling me the lack of interface makes for clumsy operations.

 

I am not quite sure how someone comes to that conclusion as you don't need to interface with it at all as it is strictly an endpoint for other software which you do interact with.

[Designsfx]

@AudioDoctor

I’ve heard this from 2 others and just making notes as I’ve never used the LinQ- which is why I’m seeking opinions.

I do know this came from hardcore Roon users- maybe had something to do with interfacing with that?

I know some become very comfortable with the interface offered- like Roon, Sense, Lumins app and others. I’m not surprised that the Aqua doesn’t have its own as it’s the only product of its kind in their lineup.

[AudioDoctor]

5 hours ago, Designsfx said:

@AudioDoctor

I’ve heard this from 2 others and just making notes as I’ve never used the LinQ- which is why I’m seeking opinions.

I do know this came from hardcore Roon users- maybe had something to do with interfacing with that?

I know some become very comfortable with the interface offered- like Roon, Sense, Lumins app and others. I’m not surprised that the Aqua doesn’t have its own as it’s the only product of its kind in their lineup.

 

The LInQ is, functionally, no different than a Raspberry Pi4 acting as a network audio endpoint. It doesn't need an interface. The only thing you can do with what functionality it has is get its IP address if you need to and it's not auto discovered by whatever software you're using. It essentially has no interface. So I am still lost as to what kind of interface those people were expecting.

 

edit: Yes, I had one for a while.

[barbz]

For me the linq was set and forget.

 

It took a moment to read the up address off the screen on the linq and add it to roons settings under hqplayer and then you never had to touch the linq again.

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

9 minutes ago, barbz said:

For me the linq was set and forget.

 

It took a moment to read the up address off the screen on the linq and add it to roons settings under hqplayer and then you never had to touch the linq again.

 

 

 

Right.

 

Roon, as much as I dislike it, is dead simple to interface with HQPlayer whether it's in the LinQ or not.

[dericchan1]

My friend has a Aqua La Scala Dac and had taken a free home trial of a LinQ from a dealer (whom he bought the la Scala dac from).

For three days, three of us (along with another buddy of his) compared the LinQ as a streamer (not a HQP NAA) with a Raspberry PI4 as a HQP NAA (I know it’s not an apple to apple comparison as we did not use the LinQ as a NAA) mainly streaming our local playlist. All three of us concluded the raspberry pi set up sounded better and my friend returned the LinQ on the fourth day and went on to order a raspberry pi 4 and an intona usb isolator and a hqplayer license

[Designsfx]

18 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

Yes, I had one for a while.

@AudioDoctor

So interface question aside- can you share with me what you liked (for a short time) and disliked about it? We’re you using it in combination with an Aqua dac or another brand? 
Of the responders so far each has moved away from it. This is the kind of information that matters most.

I can understand @barbz situation as the unit was being compared directly to another streamer (which was superior). 
Honestly I’ve only found 4 people (outside of this forum) that have purchased a LinQ. Two use the streamer mated with an Aqua dac, one tried it on loan and decided not to purchase and another purchased and sold to move into a Grimm Audio unit. Makes me wonder if there would actually be a difference between it and what I currently have.

[AudioDoctor]

2 hours ago, Designsfx said:

@AudioDoctor

So interface question aside- can you share with me what you liked (for a short time) and disliked about it? We’re you using it in combination with an Aqua dac or another brand? 
Of the responders so far each has moved away from it. This is the kind of information that matters most.

I can understand @barbz situation as the unit was being compared directly to another streamer (which was superior). 
Honestly I’ve only found 4 people (outside of this forum) that have purchased a LinQ. Two use the streamer mated with an Aqua dac, one tried it on loan and decided not to purchase and another purchased and sold to move into a Grimm Audio unit. Makes me wonder if there would actually be a difference between it and what I currently have.

 

Sure. I liked it a lot. What I didn't like was that it only did DSD via DOP and was limited to DSD128. I was not using an Aqua DAC. I sent an email to Aqua inquiring about any future plans to update it and received a snotty reply about not following market trends and fashions of the day despite the fact that their very own Formula DAC accepts higher rate native DSD and PCM.

 

So I sold it.

[AudioDoctor]

19 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

My friend has a Aqua La Scala Dac and had taken a free home trial of a LinQ from a dealer (whom he bought the la Scala dac from).

For three days, three of us (along with another buddy of his) compared the LinQ as a streamer (not a HQP NAA) with a Raspberry PI4 as a HQP NAA (I know it’s not an apple to apple comparison as we did not use the LinQ as a NAA) mainly streaming our local playlist. All three of us concluded the raspberry pi set up sounded better and my friend returned the LinQ on the fourth day and went on to order a raspberry pi 4 and an intona usb isolator and a hqplayer license

 

That's interesting. As an NAA in my set up it definitely beat a Raspberry Pi4.

[dericchan1]

24 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

That's interesting. As an NAA in my set up it definitely beat a Raspberry Pi4.

My friend has a all tube - preamp, mono amp set up with horn speakers, the rpi4 with the intona usb out to La Scala dac upsampling everything to pcm 24/384 are significantly cleaner sounding than using the LinQ as a streamer, not even close.

 

Deric

[AudioDoctor]

6 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

My friend has a all tube - preamp, mono amp set up with horn speakers, the rpi4 with the intona usb out to La Scala dac upsampling everything to pcm 24/384 are significantly cleaner sounding than using the LinQ as a streamer, not even close.

 

Deric

 

That's very interesting. 

 

edit: What was doing the upsampling in each case?

[Designsfx]

@AudioDoctor

Thanks for that- I’ve been the beneficiary of a couple of those emails as well! 😉

As my playback consists of all ripped CD I wouldn’t have the need for higher sampling ability. 
What product did you find that ultimately met your requirements?

[AudioDoctor]

8 minutes ago, Designsfx said:

@AudioDoctor

Thanks for that- I’ve been the beneficiary of a couple of those emails as well! 😉

As my playback consists of all ripped CD I wouldn’t have the need for higher sampling ability. 
What product did you find that ultimately met your requirements?

 

I continued to use the Sonora Signature Rendu SE to USB in on my DAC.

[Designsfx]

@dericchan1

This is an interesting claim- makes me wonder about how complex a good streaming device really needs to be. Can you describe the signal chain leading up to the RPI4? Where did the 24/384 files come from and how was the RPI4 configured/setup?

[Designsfx]

@AudioDoctor

Interesting- the second person today that has brought Sonore into the picture! I was just in another thread earlier regarding the Lumin X1 and although the owner is moving forward with it in his system he’s also keeping his Optical Rendu/Musetec Dac pairing. He has described that combo as having more warmth than the Lumin (I find my Lumin to be a little bright as well).

Which Dac make/topology do you prefer- R2R/FPGA or Chip based?

[dericchan1]

24 minutes ago, Designsfx said:

@dericchan1

This is an interesting claim- makes me wonder about how complex a good streaming device really needs to be. Can you describe the signal chain leading up to the RPI4? Where did the 24/384 files come from and how was the RPI4 configured/setup?

Very simple set up - Hqplayer desktop upsample all source to 24/384 -> cat 6 -> Cisco sg300 switch -> raspberry pi 4 -> intona -> La Scala DAC 

 

again our conclusion are subjective only three sets of ears listening to a few hours per day for 3 days 

 

Cheers

 

Deric

 

[dericchan1]

This is the rest of my friend’s set up

 

KR842VHD based Monoblocks

DECADE ONE HORNS (110Db)

PATHOS SYNAPSE PREAMP

MELCO N10EX MUSIC LIBRARY

AQUA LA SCALA DAC

 

He ended up selling his Melco (he liked the LinQ better than the Melco and was debating to keep the LinQ until he tried the rpi4) as well after deciding to take the RPI4/hqplayer route 

[dericchan1]

1 hour ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

That's very interesting. 

 

edit: What was doing the upsampling in each case?

Hqplayer doing upsampling for rpi4 NAA

 

No upsampling done for the LinQ

 

simply playing the files on our favorite local playlist (mostly hi-res files with some redbook quality)

 

Not exactly apples to apples comparison but considering the LinQ is 100x the price of a rpi4 it was never a fair fight to begin with?

[AudioDoctor]

1 hour ago, Designsfx said:

@AudioDoctor

Interesting- the second person today that has brought Sonore into the picture! I was just in another thread earlier regarding the Lumin X1 and although the owner is moving forward with it in his system he’s also keeping his Optical Rendu/Musetec Dac pairing. He has described that combo as having more warmth than the Lumin (I find my Lumin to be a little bright as well).

Which Dac make/topology do you prefer- R2R/FPGA or Chip based?

 

Well, normally I would say that I prefer R2R/Multibit DACs to Delta/Sigma based DACs, but I think my current DAC has a Delta/Sigma chip inside it.  It also has custom firmware, software, and an Arduino that does something, to make the chip work in the way the DAC designer wants it to. So I guess it comes down to implementation of the whole in my case.

[Markus8]

Has anyone compared a Holo Audio Red with NAA to LinQ with NAA module?

[AudioDoctor]

On 1/22/2024 at 11:56 AM, Markus8 said:

Has anyone compared a Holo Audio Red with NAA to LinQ with NAA module?

 

Those are both network endpoints, why would you plug one into the other?