Linn’s new approach to designing amplifiers

[Spannko]

"I think probably the biggest performance advance we were aiming for in the Solo 800—the thing we felt makes a huge difference to a power amplifier—was lower distortion," she said. "We went all out to bring distortion down from every source and choose topologies and components that give you the lowest possible distortion. We were really aiming for the purest signal reproduction. While distortion levels in the older Solo 500 are really quite good, there is room for improvement, especially when amps are driven really hard by large, lower-impedance speakers.

"We were able to do more with more modern architectures and more modern components. Previously, we hadn't really done a lot of the design work necessary to drive difficult speaker loads. Mostly, we'd just aimed at 8 ohm speaker loads rather than at much bigger loudspeakers that sometimes present really difficult loads. We wanted the amp to perform with excellence even when it was working really hard." Many engineers initially focus on measurements as they build prototype after prototype. Once their measurements are the best they can achieve, they turn their attention to sound quality, "tuning" the sound. Roscoe and her team proceeded differently.

"We didn't really feel we needed to tune the amplifier sonically," she said. "We designed for very, very low distortion levels, very low noise levels, wide bandwidth, and low output impedance, all of which are obviously measurable. Then, when we listened to the design, we felt that it sounded so clear that there didn't seem to be reason to do more. I don't know what we would have tuned really. We didn't feel like we could improve it by listening to it and changing something empirically. Instead, we heard what you would expect from an amplifier that measures as well as the Solo 800 does. It really seemed to pick out music better.

"Ultimately, when 'tuning' the sound by listening and modifying the design, designers usually select which distortion is least offensive to the ear. However, when there is so little distortion there, this becomes a more meaningless exercise."

Nina Roscoe
Linn Senior Electronic Design Engineer

[tokenbrit]

From just listen to just measure... :/

I make no apology if this is a distortion of the Linn approach :p

[Tendaberry]

The Solo 800's do sound pretty good though...

[Spannko]

Personally, I don’t believe a word she’s saying. It seems to me that she’s addressing the target market of people who want to spend upwards of £$€200,000 on what they perceive to be the most finely engineered systems in the world. These people don’t understand the concept of musicality and just the mere mention of it would most likely be interpreted as being marketing hype.

[matthias]

I listened at High End Munich to 360s driven by six Solo 800 and was not impressed.
I agree with Spannko, would love to listen to a comparison Solo 800 vs TM3 with passive high sensitivity speakers.

[matthias]

BTW, this approach is not a revolution, there are manufacturers like Weiss Engineering (weiss.ch) in Switzerland who do similar for years.

[Rutger]

I listened at High End Munich to 360s driven by six Solo 800 and was not impressed.
I agree with Spannko, would love to listen to a comparison Solo 800 vs TM3 with passive high sensitivity speakers.

I have listened to 360 a couple of hours with the internal poweramps in Denmark, a klimax dsm as source and I have the same impression. They sounded more ”hifi” , with more treble energy and less groovy than the former active 350. Maybe just a setup problem with to much space optimization used ? Or is this the new Linn sound ?

At the same time the 360 was a small let down, the new 119 and 150 seems interesting.

Regarding the cheaper new amplifiers, they are going to be chipamp class D ( as in Selekt and Majik dsm4 ) , probably with PFFB .

[Tamblers]

Sad to hear a Linn engineer speak this way. Low, low distortion, measurable of course, make musicality irrelevant at the new Linn. As William Z Johnson of ARC once said, measurements are fine, the trouble is most of them have little to do with a components ability to reproduce music.

[Øyvind I]

The test sited is only parts of the description of the work so hence does not quite make that much sense. There is a lot more explanation given in various articles.
A Swedish engineering colleague of mine once said "at meta er at veta" which translates to "to measure is to know". This was related to high voltage cables but anyhow do apply.

I understand that this explanation may be difficult for some compared to the old "we designed it such that it was foot tapping and engaging to listen to" but for me as an engineer it is not a very impressive statement and more comes across as "we didn't really know what we were doing but by trail and error we ended up with a enjoyable product".

Obviously a musically engaging product is is the target and Linn's old advert with picture of a pair of hairy feet stating" Two of the most reliable HiFi-critics " is really what this hobby boils down to.

Having hear the 800's a couple of times is interesting. Once at the factory this summer with some large American speakers was more of "traditional Hi-Fi experience" and not that impressive. More recently at a dealer in Oslo on 360P it was really engaging and fun experience. Significantly better than Klimax 500. Source in all circumstances was Klimax DSM with Qobuz streaming. I have also heard the 360 (as other speaker, amps LP12 etc) with less good results and as we all know - set up is important.
(360 active with LP12 50 at the factory was another level and made streaming embarrassing)

[Tendaberry]

I have also heard the 360 (as other speaker, amps LP12 etc) with less good results and as we all know - set up is important.
(360 active with LP12 50 at the factory was another level and made streaming embarrassing)

I also recently heard the difference between streaming with a NG KDSM and an LP12-50 and indeed it was very embarrassing for the streamer.

[tpetsch]

I have also heard the 360 (as other speaker, amps LP12 etc) with less good results and as we all know - set up is important.
(360 active with LP12 50 at the factory was another level and made streaming embarrassing)

I also recently heard the difference between streaming with a NG KDSM and an LP12-50 and indeed it was very embarrassing for the streamer.

It doesn't need to be an LP12-50. ...A used 40 year old unmodified LP12 of Ebay would clearly embarrass the streamer.