Glasgow, Scotland
Linn today announces the launch of exciting new upgrades for existing Linn owners. The groundbreaking performance of their first-ever, entirely homegrown DAC – ‘Organik’ – is now being rolled out as a retrofit upgrade, available for all variants of Klimax DS and Klimax DSM – even the very first generation from 2007.
Linn’s premium tier products can all now benefit from their reference performance technology; with all models of Klimax DS, Klimax DSM, Klimax 350 integrated loudspeakers, and Klimax Exaktbox all being eligible for upgrade with Linn’s revolutionary Organik DAC architecture.
It’s baked-in to Linn’s DNA to continue to offer their greatest innovations as upgrades for their existing customers and their cherished Linn products — even those over a decade old.
The Organik DAC upgrade for Klimax DS and Klimax DSM updates these older products with more than just D/A circuitry; it also features Linn’s latest A/D technology and provides support for DSD256 and 24-bit/384kHz streaming capability. It brings the products right up to date with the current Linn software platform featured in Linn’s flagship, next-generation Klimax DSM.
Organik
At Linn, nothing progresses beyond the prototype stage unless they can answer one simple question affirmatively: “is this better than what’s available elsewhere?”
Designing and building their own DAC, completely from scratch, was no exception. It was only worth doing if the result would be significantly better than their previous designs utilising meticulously optimised 3rd-party chips.
Designed without compromise, and engineered entirely in-house, Organik is the manifestation of over thirty years of digital technology innovation and expertise.
Linn pioneered high-performance digital streaming in the hi-fi industry; they’re raising the bar further, thanks to this paradigm shift in digital-to-analogue conversion technology.
With this novel Organik DAC architecture, implementation, and realisation, Linn has finally completed the puzzle; they have achieved complete control over the entire music signal chain — an ambition fifty years in the making.
Gilad Tiefenbrun, Linn’s Managing Director, said:
“Our cutting-edge Organik DAC technology offers a massive leap forward in performance. Today, we are delighted to make Organik available as an upgrade to all Klimax streamers bought since 2007. At Linn, we take enormous pride in rewarding our existing customers through our sustainable, upgradeable product offering.”
Technical Detail
There are many different types of ‘discrete’ DAC. Although simply making something ‘discrete’ does not necessarily result in high performance. The performance advantage of Organik comes from its unique combination of:
Modulation method – Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Delta-Sigma
Conversion stage – Discrete Analog Finite Impulse Response (AFIR)
Implementation – Ultra-stable power, precision clocking, and expert PCB design
When employed together, the PWM modulator and AFIR conversion stage are immune to many of the problems that affect other discrete designs — where small errors in switching times or resistor values can generate distortion.
However, in order to realise the full potential of this conversion method, great attention must also be paid to other factors such as power supply, clocking and, perhaps most importantly, the physical layout of the circuit board.
Organik uses an 8-layer circuit board, facilitating optimal delivery of power and clocks to the DAC. Power for the conversion stage is generated by a discrete regulator, and delivered using multiple internal power planes.
Clock traces are matched to within fractions of a millimetre, to ensure that every part of the DAC receives its clock at precisely the same time. All these elements work in harmony to create an analog signal with incredibly low levels of noise and distortion — far lower than anything Linn has ever achieved before.
Pricing & Availability
Orders can now be placed for Organik DAC upgrades to all variants of Klimax DS and Klimax DSM.
Organik DAC upgrades for all variants of Klimax Exaktbox and Klimax 350 integrated loudspeakers are also available.
Klimax DSM (Audio and AV models), Klimax Exaktbox, and Klimax 350 integrated loudspeakers bought new will feature Organik DAC as standard.
Book a demonstration here (local restrictions permitting): www.linn.co.uk/try-linn.
Pricing (inc. tax)
Klimax DS/DSM US$7,020
Klimax Exaktbox US$7,020
Klimax 350 Integrated Loudspeakers (Pair) US$14,040
