Linn Klimax DS Renew
Network Music Player

Linn Klimax DS network D/A processor

Linn Klimax DS Renew

Even the most savvy Stereophile reader might wonder what a "network music player" is. Linn rightly considers a music server to be a combination of 1) stored digital files, 2) music-management software, and 3) a device that uses #2 to transfer #1 to your hi-fi. What Linn's Klimax DS is is a high-quality digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that receives digital data through an Ethernet connection rather than optical or electrical S/PDIF or AES/EBU inputs.

The Klimax DS doesn't store your files-you'll need a network-attached storage (NAS) drive for that-nor does it allow you to organize your files or construct playlists, for which Linn does supply a graphic user interface (GUI), which runs on a computer or PC tablet (Linn's recommendation) that you supply. While it can be connected to your existing WiFi system, like other music servers, because the Klimax DS can handle192kHz sample rates at a word length of 24 bits, Linn very much prefers you to establish a wired network to ensure maximum performance. The Klimax doesn't have an optical disc drive, so you'll need a separate PC to rip your files-or you could do what Linn recommends and "hire a ripping service to do it for you."

The Klimax DS is unlike any other network music devices because it assumes you're starting with high-quality sources, not lossy compressed files. Linn's default standard is lossless-compressed FLAC files. But its real glory is handling higher-rez material-not only does it accept native resolutions up to 192kHz, it also upconverts to 384kHz or 352.8kHz.

The price for such clarity of purpose? Linn's CEO, Ivor Tiefenbrun, assures us that it's less than $20,000. Discovering if the Klimax DS is worth that price was hard work, but, as Sam Spade told the fat man, I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

"These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history"

The Klimax DS shares the slimline chassis style established by the Sondek CD12 CD player (now discontinued) and carried on by the Klimax amplifiers and Kontrol preamplifier. That means it's machined from a solid billet of aluminum, which assures it of excellent EMF shielding and mechanical isolation.

The front panel has an almost Zen-like simplicity: no buttons or controls. The dark, half-moon-shaped panel in the middle of its faceplate is the display. The rear panel, which is overhung by the Klimax DS's "lid," has pairs of RCA and balanced XLR outputs, two RS-232 ports to communicate with other Linn components, an Ethernet port, a power switch, and an IEC power socket. The proximity of the overhang to the AC module means you won't be able to use any macho power cables. As it happened, the power cable supplied by Linn did transmit AC just fine from my wall outlet to the Klimax DS. (Phew! )

What's under the hood? Upconversion is handled by a Xilinx field-programmable gate-array stage, and the D/A conversion is done by Wolfson delta-sigma devices with isolating output transformers. Linn doesn't include a drive in the Klimax, I was told, because they wanted the Klimax to be an entirely "open" product and not limited to specific optical disc formats.

"Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding"

The Klimax DS is not a component for anyone attempting to do a music server on the cheap. Whether you find this a deal-breaker or not will depend, I reckon, on two things: money, and your desire to have the "best" digital sound. Linn is obviously assuming you have lots of the first and a powerful version of the second.

I'm not the typical Linn customer, so my experience with the Klimax DS wasn't what that customer would have. As Linn explains it, your Klimax would normally be installed by a dealer, who would encourage you to prepare by buying an NAS drive and having your digital library ripped to it by a service such as MusicShifter. If you purchased a 1TB NAS from MusicShifter and had them rip 600 discs to FLAC, you'd pay a little over $1000.

Then your dealer would bring your Klimax DS over, install it in your system, and add a WiFi router (they start at around $50) and an Ethernet hub (another $50). Then he'd connect them all to your system and your now-filled NAS and show you how to operate your system with the tablet PC (another $1000), using Linn's graphic user interface (GUI) or one of the many open-source GUIs available. If that's your experience, your initial response to the Klimax DS will probably be fairly favorable.

I was at the opposite end of the spectrum. I picked up the Klimax DS, a pre-filled NAS, a WiFi router, the Ethernet hub, and a Samsung tablet PC from Wolfson's exhibit at last October's AES Convention, and proceeded to attempt to connect it intuitively. I do not recommend this approach. (Neither, I hasten to point out, does Linn-the company was notorious for cutting off dealers who would sell their LP12 turntable without setting it up, so I assume they're just as picky in the digital age footnote 1.)

My point is that Linn's GUI is not intuitive. It's also, as I discovered, rather clunky and, not to put too fine a point on it, stupid. For instance, the most basic attraction of a music server, as I understand it, is the ability to easily manipulate your digital files, creating and changing playlists-and, if you manage to come up with a good 'un, to store it. The Linn GUI will let you create a playlist, but it will play files only in the order in which you add them to the list. You can't randomize, you can't drag and drop the files into a more pleasing arrangement, and if you do put in the hours creating a playlist with tracks in the precise order that you'd like to listen to them, you can't save it.

To handle those chores, Linn suggests that you download Media Monkey, Music IP, or similar open-format applications. I tried Twonky Media Server at Linn's suggestion, but was not impressed.

One last setup grouse: The cooling fan of the Linn-supplied NAS drive was offensively noisy, alternating between very and extremely loud. (The case houses four 3.5" drives, which run hot.) My solution was simple: I put it in another room. Ethernet cables are cheap.

"You'll take it and like it"

You may well be asking: Enough already with CDs-how do I get the hi-rez files the Klimax DS was made to play?

Well, you can download them from the Internet. At the moment, there are two main sources: Linn's Studio Master downloads and Mark Waldrep's iTrax. They won't be the only game in town for long, however.

There are minor problems with this. For one thing, you'll need another computer. And you better get yourself a download manager, because 24-bit/96kHz files are huge, even in FLAC form, and you can't manually download an entire album, you have to do it track by track, at least at Linn's website. For $25 I bought iGetter, which uses segmented (accelerated) downloading. I simply put 96 tracks into the queue, turned iGetter loose, and forgot all about it-until my laptop told me it had 800MB of hard-drive space left. Yup, those are big files.

Then you log your computer with the hi-rez files on to the network where the NAS drive resides, create a new folder, and transfer them to the NAS drive, which allows you then to play them through the Klimax DS (footnote 2).

"You're good-you're very good"

That's why you'd want a Klimax DS. Listen to "Red Book"-quality files and you'll be happy, but you won't be getting better sound than with many other high-end CD players. Linn would argue that point-and perhaps they're right. Certainly, the DS sounded very much as good as I remember the CD12 sounding, which was about as good as "Red Book" gets-but that was another country, and besides, the wench is dead.

In any event, when I listened to FLAC files, such as Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler's All the Roadrunning (CD, Nonesuch 44154), the DS was easily the match of my current reference player, the Ayre C5-xe, delivering the smooth electric thrum of a tight rock band and the warmth and timbre of two of rock's most relaxed vocalists. That was my first impression-as time went by, I began to think that it was my Ayre that might almost match the Linn. No, there wasn't a night-and-day difference, layers weren't revealed in previously unsuspected places, and my room didn't magically "disappear"-but I did begin to feel that the music was more solidly present. When it came to coaxing "Red Book" digits into analog, the Klimax DS was definitely first-tier.

But get above "Red Book," even ever so slightly, and the Klimax came into its own. Linn had supplied the NAS drive with several demonstration tracks from their own recordings, but most of those revealed only the differences between MP3 and CD formats. I had no need of convincing on that front, so I went on a music hunt. My first score was a 24-bit/44.1kHz recording Len Moskowitz made of the early-music ensemble Angelica, using a pair of DPA 4023 microphones. Now you might think an extra 8 bits wouldn't mean that much, but comparing the 24-bit version of Toda Pulchra Est to the same track on the "Red Book" CD of Angelica's Sing We Nowell (footnote 3), I clearly heard more of the overtones from the handbells, and Angelica's voices floated within the church's acoustic with greater solidity.

Huge difference? In one sense, not colossal-yet every time I followed the 24-bit version with the 16-bit, I realized I was missing something I really, really wanted.

On to Linn's Studio Master downloads. Barb Jungr's cover of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?," from her Walking in the Sun (Studio Master 24-bit/44.1kHz FLAC download), was stunning, and not simply because it was audacious for a woman to record such a macho swagger song. It begins with tablas that simply pop into the room before being shoved along by a driving double bass that's all about power. Jungr enters breathlessly, a guitar chiming in-ching! -on the line "made out of human skulls." As Jungr continues, a piano enters, she calls and responds to herself, and a Hammond B3 choogles underneath.

Generally, recordings that build like that start out on a dynamic plane that remains more or less consistent no matter how many instruments are added. In real life, the more people are playing, the louder things get-more is more. And so it was with the Studio Master files. The tablas were life-sized and did not get smaller when the bass entered. The bass was big, but when Jungr came in, it didn't overpower her-quite the opposite-and with each addition the sound and the soundstaging grew.

Grew? Well, not really. Those tablas were in a large room all along, but tablas don't fill a room. An acoustic bass does-and when it entered, it was immediately apparent that we were in a large room, one that kept filling up as the song progressed.

Did I mention that it totally rocked? The band-and the Klimax DS-were slammin'.

Want a really big room? The Dunedin Consort's recording of the 1742 Dublin Version of Handel's Messiah (Linn Studio Master 24-bit/88.2kHz FLAC download) puts you in Edinburgh's Greyfriars Church, and trust me-you want to be there. The performance is spectacular, and the balance of instruments and voices is phenomenally clear and easy.

And oh-my-gosh-Clare Wilkinson's "He Was Despised" will just totally lay you out. I've heard many a Messiah-play brass in high school and you'll work for weeks every Christmas and Easter doing it in one church after another-and I wasn't sure anyone could ever make it sound new and fresh. Dunedin do. A huge part of that was the solidity of the sound, the way it was placed within the Greyfriars acoustic, and the complete lack of dynamic compression the Klimax DS revealed in the recording. I noted the same thing, of course, on Barb Jungr's Walking in the Sun, but it was even more apparent in an even bigger room. This is one of the most vivid ways that live music beats recordings, and the Klimax DS conveyed that sense of realism better than just about any component I have auditioned-at least when fed the high-octane stuff.

"The best goodbyes are short-adieu"

Unlike the format wars of SACD vs DVD-Audio and HD DVD vs Blu-ray, file downloading is finally heading toward acceptance. DRM seems to be on the way out, and full-sized and high-resolution options are proliferating. Even though my track record as a prophet is dismal, I predict that we audiophiles will soon be spoiled with a plethora of choices of legally available hi-rez downloads. Based on my experience with the Linn Klimax DS, I can't wait.

In the January issue I reviewed the McIntosh MS750, an all-in-one music server that included a burner drawer, hard drive, and an interface that was a joy to use. Too bad it didn't actually sound all that good without an external DAC. The Linn Klimax DS offers the opposite extreme: it's a one-trick pony saddled with the clunkiest interface I've experienced. However, that pony's trick is spectacularly good-so good that, God help me, I'm going to miss it.

I suspect that it's going to be a lot easier for Linn to find a software programmer than it's going to be for any other company else to find an electrical engineer up to taking digital to the Klimax DS's level. Other companies do offer hi-rez music servers, and they're all in the Klimax DS's price ballpark-and I hear through the grapevine that they haven't solved the interface problem either.

That brings us to the question of value, always a tricky one-my wallet isn't in your slacks, and vice versa. At $20,000, the Linn Klimax DS is about as good as digital gets. It's better, when playing hi-rez files, than any "Red Book" player I've heard. That has to count for something.

As more and more hi-rez downloads become available, the incentive to own a Klimax DS will increase. Audiophiles of a certain age will remember when new turntables, tonearms, and cartridges revealed musical details that had previously remained hidden in the grooves-and they'll also remember how addictive that experience was. "Red Book" CD hasn't given us nearly the same number of veils to remove, but hi-rez digital can. Or so the Klimax DS has me thinking.

Will that be enough to make the Klimax DS seem like a bargain? No, it will remain a niche product, an aspirational product-something that only audiophiles who care about owning the best would even consider. The rest of us punters will have to content ourselves with "almost as good." But we can always dream.

The Linn Klimax DS is the stuff that dreams are made of.