Listening In: Linn Klimax DS

By Michael Jones

December 2007

Thirty thousand dollars is a sum that’s come up twice this year in regards to Linn products. A fully loaded new LP-12 turntable now sells for that amount, while Linn’s newest product, the Klimax DS, will also set you back thirty big ones.

So what is the Klimax DS? Um, it’s a bit hard to explain. It’s sort-of a DAC, and it’s sort-of a network music device, but it’s not quite what either term brings to mind. But it does sound magnificent.

Inside the milled aluminium silver chassis is a high quality DAC (digital-to-analog converter) and the power supply and, um, that’s about it. The rear panel of the Klimax DS points to a difference between this and other devices that could be called DACs. The only way to get music inside the Klimax DS is via an Ethernet port. There’s no standard coaxial or optical digital input, or even a computer-based USB socket.

Unlike many network music devices there’s no disc drive or provision for an internal hard drive. According to the propaganda that Linn’s New Zealand agents left with me, Linn’s engineers discovered that the Klimax sounds best with no moving parts.

So there you have it. It’s the proverbial black (or silver, in this case) box.

Into the black

To use the Klimax DS requires that you rip your CDs, using your own computer. Linn recommend using Exact Audio Copy, a Windows program well known among people who use their computers with audio. The ripped music files need to be saved as either Wave or FLAC files – no others are supported.

The music files need to be stored on a network hard drive (or NAS, for Network Attached Storage). This is an external hard drive that is accessed via Ethernet.

So why would anyone go to all of this trouble, let alone spend the not inconsiderable sums for a Klimax based system? Because it sounds very good.

I was invited along to Linn New Zealand’s showroom to hear the Klimax DS in an all-Linn system. In the system was a Klimax Kontrol preamp, two Accurate C2200 power amplifiers and a pair of Accurate 242 speakers. A UniDisc 1.1 disc player was on hand for comparison purposes.

First up I heard some high resolution digital files, downloaded from the Linn Records web site. Several of Linn Records album releases are available as high resolution files, up to 24-bit and 96kHz.

Audiophiles of a certain age will remember hearing Phoebe Snow’s debut album used and abused as hi-fi demo tracks. I heard the opening track, Good Times, from both the ripped file via the Klimax DS and the CD via the UniDisc 1.1.

The differences were immediate and obvious. First up was the reduction in “hash” and grain in the treble. Instruments in the other end of the spectrum had more definition and realism to them.

But the real kicker was that the music flowed in a more realistic fashion. There was a continuity, a believability, about the music that made the results from CD seem somehow wrong.

We also tried a comparison using the SACD of Roy Orbison’s Black and White Night. The CD layer had been ripped to the NAS drive, while we listened to the SACD layer on the UniDisc 1.1. Once again listening to the ripped file through the Klimax was better, even with the advantage to the UniDisc of using SACD.

And that’s the extraordinary aspect of the Klimax DS. Music files ripped from CD played through the Klimax DS sound better than the original CDs. And this points to better sound from our existing digital files.

Two steps forward, one step back

There are a few areas where Linn appear to have dropped the ball with this product. The audio formats that the Klimax DS supports is limited to FLAC and Wave, omitting AIFF (the Wave equivalent on the Macintosh) the open formats AAC and Ogg, the increasingly used Apple Lossless, Microsoft’s WMA, plus the most common computerised music format of all, MP3. Linn may argue that the MP3 format is of low quality. However if you couldn’t play your collection of MP3-only bootleg Van Morrison concerts from the 1970s through a device that had cost you $30k, then Linn’s attitude may come across as nothing more than corporate hubris.

A further problem is Linn ignoring the effects of the iPod, specifically Apple’s iTunes software. There would be very few of the millions of iTunes users who have ripped music from their CDs – either for iPod or music server use – will have used the Wave format, the only format in iTunes supported by the Klimax DS. I know that if I had already spent hours ripping my CDs to a hard drive, then I’d be reluctant to do it all over again, no matter how good the Klimax DS sounds.

Finally, there’s the question of the user interface. It looks clunky and acts the same. The gold standard here is the iPod. The iPod user interface works well and is familiar to users. Plus, having to lay out an extra $2000 for Linn’s suggested PDA to act as a remote control will seem insulting to many.

Klimaxed

It works. Linn’s efforts in developing a state-of-the-art server/DAC have produced a device that takes CD files and makes them sound better. It’s at a price, sure, but you can be certain that Linn will be developing more affordable versions in the future.

And that just leaves the question; is this the future of hi-fi? Come back in a decade for the answer.