Klimax DS

We use the Tune Method to evaluate performance

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seanhinde
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Post by seanhinde »

I heard the same system as Fredrik a bit earlier in the day (I happened to be in Stockholm and called in to the same store. Total surprise to find a DS there!)

The tracks I heard were all ripped from normal CD - they hadn't got round to downloading any master quality stuff, having had the DS for 1 day only.

My impression was that the DS was "invisible". The first tracks were from some normal old pop CD and it sounded exactly like that. Other tracks were from well recorded minimal production CDs (Ryan Adams) and it was truly amazing. I'm quite sure it was better than anything I've heard from my LP12 (no Keel/Ekos SE yet..).

The rest of the system was aktiv 242s with C6100 and C4200, and some middle range pre-amp.

I'm saving up for one!!!
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Hugo
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Post by Hugo »

The Klimax DS has been officially announced by Linn: www.linn.co.uk/klimax_ds

Does anyone know the official explanation of the phrase "DS" - is it Digital Source or Digital Stream or what?

Could anyone who actually heared it please describe their experience?
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Hi-Fi World review

Post by Ceilidh »

Hi Everybody,

You've probably all already seen it (e.g., it's in the site that Hugo just posted), but Linn is linking to a DS review in the U.K. Hi Fi World. Here's the pdf:

http://linn.co.uk/files/eaccc978/Linn%20Klimax.pdf

Enjoy!

-C
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Streamed playback versus cd playback

Post by Lego »

Hi Guys,
Its about time linn got round to getting this digital music thing sorted.If you think back to portable cd players we all used them at some point but rarely found them enjoyable: go on admit it . It wasn't until I bought a 40 Gb i-river player(and more so the Sansa ) that I realized that streamed music was so much more enjoyable to listen to than CD players, which would probably explain why I never bought a CD player,so this comes as no surprise to me that the the cd12 is well beaten;Now we are going to have to listen to linn saying how terrible the CD12 was (yawn). What are your thoughts on this and could one of the reasons be the fact that when one listens to streamed music all the corrections have already been taken place.


Leo
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Post by Music Lover »

Lego, not sure I follow you...
CD12 was the best CDplayer for years.
Stunning when introduced -99 and VERY likely the best unit for "spinning" silver discs, even today.

Until Klimax DS, no "non spinning" player have impressed me.
They all have been rather bad to be honest.

Have you heard the Klimax DS?
I have and it's WOW. So much better than normal CD spinners that it's hard to understand :shock:

Well done Linn :!:
It's all about musical understanding!
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Post by Lego »

..hi musicLover although i know nothing about the technology,when comparing portable digital music i always found that the best of the mp3 players sounded way better than the best of the portable cd players,so it comes as no surprise that that it would take a player of ripped music to sound better than a disc spinner.Maybe ripped or streamed music is the best way to listen to digital in that the players job is easier as it doesnt have to get bogged down with error corrections etc and other things disc spinners have to contend with!!???.....well i dont know; what do you think?
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Post by Hugo »

To all those who have listened to the Klimax DS:

What are the supported formats? Is it possble to listen to mp3 songs as well?

How does the navigation work? Can you easily navigate through a huge collection of songs with the supplied remote control or do you need the PC-software?

Best regards,
Hugo.
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Post by seanhinde »

Linn has so far made reference to CD bitrate or higher files encoded as FLAC or WAV. They have said that it will only play high quality encoded music, so I guess that all says no to native mp3.

One interesting thing could be to look at the transcoding capabilities of the Twonky media server (and similar). These have capabilities to on the fly transcode between formats. It would be a matter of software to transcode mp3 up to 44.1 16 bit to stream to the DS.

Also as I understand complex navigation can be done via a hand help PC running the GUI software, or even a Nokia N800 running GUI software.

Kudos to Linn for going with an open approach to this side of things. I forsee lots of interesting hacks ahead :-)
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Post by lejonklou »

Lego wrote:i always found that the best of the mp3 players sounded way better than the best of the portable cd players
I have only listened to a few portable CD players and none of them were particularly impressive.

But if you compare a good CD-player (such as an Ikemi or a Majik CD) with an mp3 player, the mp3 player is practically unlistenable in comparison.

Error correction is often misunderstood and not a practical problem for a CD-player. Getting correct data off the disc is easy, converting it to music is difficult. The DS seems to be a big step up in converting performance. If Linn really wanted I am certain they could combine it with a disc reading mechanism and create one hell of a CD player.
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Post by Broccoli »

lejonklou wrote: Error correction is often misunderstood and not a practical problem for a CD-player. Getting correct data off the disc is easy, converting it to music is difficult.
If this is the case, what is the reason behind the often reported worse sound on burned (copied) cds? Maybe that's another thread...
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Post by lejonklou »

Good question, Broccoli. The common answer is that if you convert the signal directly from the laser pickup, a CD-R reflects less light and will therefore have a different digital waveform than a standard CD. This reportedly affects the sound after the D/A conversion.

I say 'reportedly', because I have not personally measured this. But in my experience slight alterations to a digital waveform does influence the sound, so the explanation makes sense.

One way to get around this is to store the digital information in a memory instead of converting it directly. This is what the DS does (and many other machines as well - the technology is far from new). Since the converter then reads the data from its own memory, there will be no difference between the digital waveform from a CD-R and a normal CD (or any other source for that matter, as long as the information is identical).
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Post by Hugo »

Mr. Lejonklou,

what is a "digital waveform" that you refer to? Although it makes sense that the "analogue waveform" (i.e. the wave itself) influences the sound, a digital signal can either be correct or not. If a digital signal is not correct then, of course, the resulting analogue signal is not correct either.

But that would mean the CD technology would not be suitable to store computer programs either (because a changed byte can make a program unusable). In my experiences most of the CDs that store computer programs are free of such faults so I would think music CDs have the same quality level. Also, if you extract a wave file from an original versus a copied CD the resulting files are identical on the bit-level.

Of couse I have heard the differences between various CDs (and treated CDs with any kind of fluid or de-magnetism). So far I have not come across any realistic explanation of this phenomena. Now I cannot understand why the cheapest CD-ROM drive in my PC should be able to extract the music sufficiently for a reproducion through the world class Klimax DS.

So, please explain your understanding of the "digital waveform" a litle bit more. I would be really happy to understand what has changed with the Klimax DS.

Thanks,
Hugo!
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Post by lejonklou »

With digital waveform I mean the analogue qualities of the digital signal. For instance, one can add noise or limit the bandwidth of the digital signal, without corrupting the information in the signal. This will however add jitter, which will lead to distortion in the analogue signal after the D/A conversion.

This subject is a bit controversial, as some people suggest that there is no (or very very little) trace left of any such distortion of a digital signal after the D/A conversion. But these people usually speak from measurement experience only.

From practical experiments, I am firmly convinced that the analogue qualities of the digital signal is very important. And despite very low jitter figures, the quality of a signal can be found to be rather low. This indicates that - just like with analogue signals - it is not the total amount of distortion or jitter that is important, but rather what kind of distortion/jitter.
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Post by Broccoli »

Thank you Fredrik, very interesting.

Btw, Wikipedia has an interesting article on jitter.
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Post by ThomasOK »

Hugo wrote:Mr. Lejonklou,

what is a "digital waveform" that you refer to? Although it makes sense that the "analogue waveform" (i.e. the wave itself) influences the sound, a digital signal can either be correct or not. If a digital signal is not correct then, of course, the resulting analogue signal is not correct either.

But that would mean the CD technology would not be suitable to store computer programs either (because a changed byte can make a program unusable). In my experiences most of the CDs that store computer programs are free of such faults so I would think music CDs have the same quality level. Also, if you extract a wave file from an original versus a copied CD the resulting files are identical on the bit-level.

Of couse I have heard the differences between various CDs (and treated CDs with any kind of fluid or de-magnetism). So far I have not come across any realistic explanation of this phenomena. Now I cannot understand why the cheapest CD-ROM drive in my PC should be able to extract the music sufficiently for a reproducion through the world class Klimax DS.

So, please explain your understanding of the "digital waveform" a litle bit more. I would be really happy to understand what has changed with the Klimax DS.

Thanks,
Hugo!
Hugo,

Although they look similar, the format of CD-Audio discs and CD-ROM discs are different. It is because the CD-Audio format does NOT have a robust enough error correction system that the CD-ROM spec was developed to include a much more sophisticated error correction system to assure bit acurate transfer.

My understanding is that audio CDs use an error correction system that is not able to correct all errors. When it comes up against an error it cannot correct it goes into error CONCEALMENT! This is where the CD player interpolates (fancy computer term for a guess) to determine what information it should substitute for the real information so that you don't know the original data is missing. This system obviously would not work for data so a more effective error correction system was made part of the CD-ROM spec.

I am with you on wondering how the cheap CD-ROM drive can get the information off the disc well enough to outperform the CD12. Although the Majik CD uses a DVD-ROM drive and is said to outperform the Ikemi with its "Made in Scotland" machined aluminum drawer transport. Still does the software used for extraction effect the ultimate quality? As the extraction software usually includes de-jitter capability I would think that different software would give different results. There are obviously still a lot of questions to answer, the first being "Why won't it work off my Mac?"
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Post by ThomasOK »

Hugo wrote:To all those who have listened to the Klimax DS:

What are the supported formats? Is it possble to listen to mp3 songs as well?

How does the navigation work? Can you easily navigate through a huge collection of songs with the supplied remote control or do you need the PC-software?

Best regards,
Hugo.
At release the Klimax DS only supports FLAC and WAV formats. MP3s are not currently sopported nor is Apple Lossless. Because of this it will not work with Internet radio or iTunes (although it may handle iTunes libraries that are encoded as WAV files).

Any real navigation will only be possible with an additional controller such as a handheld PC. The included remote will only allow skipping forward or back within the most recently selected playlist. And if the DS loses power no playlist will remain in its memory.
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Post by bbyte »

the best option would be small handheld display used only to browse album artworks, changing tracks and all system control (volume, balance, sources) without other "pc" software.
maybe something like apple ipod but as a remote?
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Post by ThomasOK »

bbyte wrote:the best option would be small handheld display used only to browse album artworks, changing tracks and all system control (volume, balance, sources) without other "pc" software.
maybe something like apple ipod but as a remote?
I think an Apple iPod as a remote is something Apple has in mind. Since the iPhone and the new iPod Touch both have wireless communication built in it is only a matter of time before software to use them as remotes comes out. However, they will only likely work directly with iTunes not with things like Twonky Media or Slim Server unless others write software programs to allow it to work.

Unfortunately, in this freeform digital media age standardized interfaces have yet to become available - everyone wants to do their thing their own way and they all want to own the interface. It's amazing how much time we spend getting these "time-saving" devices to work in a reasonable fashion. It is so much easier to just drop the stylus in the groove. :wink:
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Post by lejonklou »

ThomasOK wrote:My understanding is that audio CDs use an error correction system that is not able to correct all errors.
If the CD has too many errors, the correction can't repair the data completely. But from the examples I have seen, it seems that with a reasonably clean CD the data retreived is usually 100% correct. So I am unsure of how often we are actually listening to interpolated data.

It would be possible to find this out by connecting equipment to a CD player and then playing through the CD collection while recording the error correction activity.
I am with you on wondering how the cheap CD-ROM drive can get the information off the disc well enough to outperform the CD12
The big difference here is that the while the CD12 reads the data and converts it to analogue at the same time, the cheap CD-ROM drive can read the disc at any speed and how many times it feels necessary, before the data is stored. The conversion to analogue is not synchronized with this task, so all that matters to the Klimax DA is whether the data is correct or not.
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Post by Broccoli »

lejonklou wrote: The big difference here is that the while the CD12 reads the data and converts it to analogue at the same time, the cheap CD-ROM drive can read the disc at any speed and how many times it feels necessary, before the data is stored. The conversion to analogue is not synchronized with this task, so all that matters to the Klimax DA is whether the data is correct or not.
I don't get it: Why hasn't Linn used such technique before - it has obviously been there for some time. They could have made very cheap drives and the price perfomance ratio would have been much better.
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Post by bbyte »

Nor cd-rom transport is perfect. While in computer, you don't need to have data sent 1-2-3 form, as it is in cd-player (in real time). When reading faster than normaly, error could become more percent of all data. The cd-player need to have very good transport to sent 'in-real-time' data to d/a and output sound. In pc you can wait till drive reads all data correctly. So thing like DS + computer + NAS drive is near perfection in digital audio...
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Post by Ceilidh »

Hello bbyte,

Thanks for the explanation!

As you know much more about these things than I do, may I ask something that's been puzzling me for a while? ===> Since I can "rip" a CD in a much shorter time than it takes to play it, and since Flash memory seems to be inexpensive and fairly fast, why not read blocks of music into flash (at high speed, but as many times as needed to ensure bit-accuracy), and then write it back out (into the DAC, etc.) at the appropriate time and speed? (Yes, there'd be a lag between what the CD's reading and what's coming out of the speakers, but nobody should notice....) If it's real-time read errors/jitter at the transport that's causing problems, wouldn't something like this decouple the transport from the DAC?

(I guess I'm asking why CD-players aren't built with the "DS + computer + NAS" architecture you refer to, only with the "computer" replaced by a simple transport, flash buffer, high-grade clock, embedded processor, and I/O?)

Presumably there are excellent reasons why something like this wouldn't work(!) -- but I was wondering if you (or anyone else) might know what those reasons are. Many thanks (and "Thank you" to everyone for the very interesting posts)! :D

-C
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Post by Hugo »

To ThomasOK and all other MAC Users:

I have searched quite a bit for a MAC application to convert back and forth between the formats mp3, wav and flac. The cheapest and easiest solution I have found so far is MAX -> http://sbooth.org/Max

You can batch convert your mp3 songs to flac and it automatically arranges them according to your settings. And it has an extensive error correction section built into it (called CDParanoia).

Maybe that helps (as soon as you got your Klimax DS)!

Happy listening,
Hugo.
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Post by bbyte »

Ceilidh wrote:Hello bbyte,

Thanks for the explanation!

As you know much more about these things than I do, may I ask something that's been puzzling me for a while? ===> Since I can "rip" a CD in a much shorter time than it takes to play it, and since Flash memory seems to be inexpensive and fairly fast, why not read blocks of music into flash (at high speed, but as many times as needed to ensure bit-accuracy), and then write it back out (into the DAC, etc.) at the appropriate time and speed? (Yes, there'd be a lag between what the CD's reading and what's coming out of the speakers, but nobody should notice....) If it's real-time read errors/jitter at the transport that's causing problems, wouldn't something like this decouple the transport from the DAC?
Flash drives / solid state storage is even better than classic hard drives or discs. Only problem to deal with when playing from hdd / flash memory if we have perfect dac is jitter... So DS is a very special product, while it isn't nessesary to buy "new data-in product" - just use your normal pc or mac. Whatever your choice will be, you can have nearly bit-perfect data. Only better way is to buy them direct from recording studio - like Linn Studio Master. (Why LR doesn't record good british rock, metal or blues?)

But all things, doesn't matter, we must listen to product and it's the only way we could say it is better or not. Let other techies talk about what is better, while no one of them really want to listen to music.

I'm master of science in Physics & IT, and even I know that sometimes things happen with no reason... Let Linn R&D team discuss what could provide us even better products. :)


what about something like that?
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