I know, the current Linn Selekt and Klimax systems are excellent.
DG…
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Second here; a very happy Selekt owner with the Organik DAC …
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A large proportion of my listening is Classical and it was what my Selekt’s Organik DACs did in combination with my active ATCs that sold the combination to me. Just one example: I hear subtleties in the inner parts of orchestral pieces that I simply missed before. Some setups do achieve this, but at the cost a sterile somewhat analytical presentation, whereas the Organik DAC, living up to its name, I guess, manages this without losing musicality, drawing you in to the music rather than the opposite.
I do wonder if Naim are working on anything along similar lines (there have been hints). I certainly wait on future developments with interest.
Roger
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I know. The Organik DAC is a fantastic bit of kit, I’ve got two in my Selekt DSM; Edition Hub, as mine is active into Kudos Titan 606 loudspeakers. It is a very big step up from the Katalyst DAC.
We listen to Jazz, A LOT. Either Jazz24 for background music or, for a more serious listening session, Jazz from Qobuz.
Likewise, one of things we noticed was the extra detail you were now hearing. For example, drums and percussion; not only can you place where the drums are situated, but you can really tell the different types of drums. To the extent that you can hear the brushes very clearly sliding on the drum-skin. Also, if they’re using the technique of tapping the metal edge of the drum and the drum-skin together, it’s very clear and distinct. When Taj Mahal plays the Timbale, the decay from the reverberations is glorious, even the bum notes.
After coming from a ten piece Naim system, I did initially wonder if it would be a downward step, regarding PRaT. But no, I find it even more absorbing, and toe tapping.
It is different, but not in a worse way. Perhaps there is a bit more detail with the Linn, that does appear to suit Jazz.
It is also good pairing with good loudspeakers. Finding the correct paring is very important and beneficial. I know that @HungryHalibut has found a good paring with his Nova and PMCs and very much enjoying his system. I did take a lot of guidance from his decision and thoughts and thank him for that.
DG…
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Certainly agree with the thrust of the comments from @DiggyGun, including taking note of what more experienced forum members say, tips hat to @HungryHalibut and others forum members for their useful advice. My musical tastes are a little different in that as well as classical I also listen to a fair bit of indie, female voice, folk/country and 70s/80s prog rock. My setup is essentially the same as @DiggyGun but using standard networking kit and cables with KS-1 between Linn and speakers. Yes, it all sounds very good to my ears. I should also just mention that I benefitted from having a dealer (Cultured Audio) who allowed me to experiment with various setups via listening sessions at his shop and also long home demos.
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I’ve also recently moved to the Selekt Edition hub with dual power amp/Organic dacs into my PMC Fact 8’s and couldn’t be happier, a fantastic single box solution.
Having decided to go on the box reduction path for a couple of years ago, I initially “downgraded” from a 252/Supercap DR/250 DR/NDX2/555 DR PS to a Supernait 3/HiCap DR and kept the NDX2/555, I actually preferred this set up to the 252, more fun to my ears.
I did toy with the idea of the NC range and have listened to them though not in depth. A couple of months ago on impulse I decided to get a demo of the Selekt after reading some very good things about it. Decided there and then to go for it, I was amazed by what was coming out of a smallish single box, it easily drives my speakers and the level of detail coming from the DAC, sounds coming from songs I knew well but had never heard from the NDX 2. Added benefit of a happy partner as she no longer has to look at a rack of black boxes & green lights.
I still have a couple of Muso’s to keep so keeping a foot in the Naim camp.
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Update on the Streaming Cable Tests;
The latest set up, Clearway to the EE8, Epic to the EE1 and then Signature Super ARAY to the Linn Selekt DSM; Edition Hub, has been running for a while now.
Played my Qobuz Test Playlist a few times with the old and new set ups and, must admit that there isn’t a significant difference.
A subtle improvement with more clarity and detail with the Signature Super ARAY streaming cable, but not a night and day difference.
Can’t complain though, it is nice to have matching power and streaming cables to the Selekt. Plus it only cost around a third of what a new cable would have cost, so a good investment in that respect.
Did some further tests to compare against other streaming cables swapping out the cables, as follows;
Test One:
- From the EE8 to the EE1 to the DSM - Chord Clearway; The sound stage reduced and some of the passion, energy and emotion was reduced.
- From the EE8 to the EE1 to the DSM - Chord C-Stream; Slightly further reduction in the enjoyment factor.
- From the EE8 to the EE1 to the DSM - A non-cheap standard cable from Amazon; The sound sounded dull and woolly.
Test Two:
- From the EE8 straight to the DSM - Chord Clearway; A lot less detail.
- From the EE8 straight to the DSM - Chord C-Stream; Further reduction in detail and soundstage.
- From the EE8 straight to the DSM - A non-cheap standard cable from Amazon; The sound closed in.
Test Three:
- From the cable from the Mesh Node to the DSM using an in-line RJ45 connector, (no EE8 or EE1) - Chord Clearway; Further reduction in detail.
- From the cable from the Mesh Node to the DSM using an in-line RJ45 connector, (no EE8 or EE1) - Chord C-Stream; Sounded dull and woolly.
- From the cable from the Mesh Node to the DSM using an in-line RJ45 connector, (no EE8 or EE1) - A non-cheap standard cable from Amazon; It was like someone had put a number of damp ex-army blankets over the speakers, not nice.
My conclusion from these non-scientific tests is that “audio grade” switches, noise isolators and cables do have a positive impact and make an improvement to the sound quality in my system. However, it was is in small incremental steps, but combined, appeared to be worth it. (Usual caveat; Other systems may be different).
I have been fortunate to pick up the cables at very good prices over the last year, which has helped and it has been fun undertaking these exercises.
Now to continue playing the Jazz
DG…
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Nice! I’m going for my first dem Tuesday next week, exciting.
Tim
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Have fun, you’ll enjoy it.
DG…
I was listening to one of my favourite ECM albums earlier, a tad louder than usual, and was struck by how good it was sounding. It’s wonderful that one can get such good sound from just a single box and a pair of speakers. To focus on the cabling, I’ve settled on Chord Clearway from the router to the EE8 switch, with another Clearway to the NAS and a Shawline to the Nova.
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I plan too! I do have one small niggle and that is the distance between the speakers. I am using a bedroom for my system which is 10 x 13 ft current speakers firing down the room. However, reading the Kudos info they do say 2 m between speakers and I am going to have 1.6 m at best, but will not be too far away from the listening position so given that Kudos say that their speakers have a wide dispersion I should be OK and still get a good sound stage.
However, I’m wondering how much the Linn room correction might help, hopefully I can discuss this will Phil or might be a case of smaller speakers.
An exciting journey.
Tim
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Mine aren’t 2.0m apart. When Phil configures the SO, he will take loads of measurements as part of the configuration will get everything just pukka.
For example, my listening position is not in the centre, but nearer in line with the left loudspeaker. However, with SO configured, this is now the sweet spot.
DG…
Great, thanks. Perhaps I might be underestimating what the room correction can do… thinking graphic equaliser!! 
Tim
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It’s way more than that and very powerful.
It takes into consideration, virtually everything.
This is Linn’s description of SO;
Great sound shouldn’t cramp your style.
Every room has its own particular sound. When you’re investing in a world-class music system, why let your room have such a big say in what you hear? Remove the unwanted distorting effects of your listening environment and reveal the true sound of the music.
How it works
Space Optimisation uses sophisticated acoustic modelling to build up a complete picture of how your speakers, their placement, and the unique characteristics of your room interact to affect the sound you hear. It then precisely identifies frequencies that are artificially distorted by your environment, and reduces their energy, to reveal the music that would otherwise be hidden.
Whatever speakers you use, and however you’ve designed your room, you’ll hear a performance that’s optimised uniquely for you.
All Linn network music players have Space Optimisation built in, and it’s a free software upgrade to all existing owners too.
Optimised for your chosen speakers.
Your speakers play a key role in determining the behaviour of sound in your room. Because every speaker design is different, the sound from your particular speakers has a unique set of interactions with your surroundings.
Space Optimisation models these interactions by taking account of the characteristics of your speakers, such as the position of each drive unit and the response of bass reflex ports.
Combining this information with the modelling of your room’s acoustics enables Space Optimisation to optimise the sound uniquely for your chosen speakers.
Place your speakers where you want them.
The interactions between your speakers and the boundaries of your room can dramatically distort the sound that you hear. For example, placing a speaker near to a wall will add energy to particular low frequencies, masking other areas of the music.
Until now, there has been a choice: place your speakers in the ideal location for sound, or choose a more practical location that compromises sound quality.
Space Optimisation is able to recreate the sound of the ideal location, from your preferred, practical location to give you the best of both worlds. Now you can place your speakers exactly where you want them and still enjoy great performance.
Optimised for your custom environment.
The characteristics of your room affect the sound you hear. Sound waves reflecting off your walls, ceiling and floor create peaks of increased energy at specific frequencies. Construction materials, furnishings and features like doors and windows, also affect how much energy is reflected, and the length of time it takes to decay.
Space Optimisation allows your Linn Specialist to identify the precise frequencies affected and reduce their energy by just the right amount, removing the distorting effect of your room to reveal the true sound of the music.
Design your home the way you want to and enjoy a performance that’s optimised for you.
After Phil had completed the physical installation, he then started to configure the SO. This was about an hour, as we had it set up for the Klimax and he re-configured it for the Selekt plus the updated elements to it.
The sound from the Selekt before SO was good. When switched on the SO it went to excellent, with Mrs DG commenting, “What just happened?”
Phil was with us for around four hours, re-terminating the loudspeaker plugs, physically installing the Selekt, configuring the SO, making sure everything was correct and that we were happy.
All in all, a very enjoyable experience.
DG…
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Basic Sound Optimisation is very definitely not a graphic equaliser! I use it and find the results excellent, but my dealer said some of his customers were less keen on the effect and did not use it. I think they found it took away some warmth from the music. In my view what it takes away is an artificial low frequency colouration caused by the interaction between the speakers and the room. You can modify i.e. lessen the effect. I have a few versions of the SO software saved and it just takes a few seconds to switch between them or switch it off if that suits the recording.
It is also worth bearing in mind that SO only operates below 80hz as it’s primarily designed to deal with room resonances. For me that’s a plus as it means SO is not directly affecting the output from my ATC’s midrange dome. But it does mean SO is not a panacea for every room. Home trial is strongly recommended!
Incidentally, Linn have recently introduced bass and treble shelf options to modify the frequency response. These can be used with or without SO, but I have not tried them (yet!)
Roger
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Thanks for the information @DiggyGun and @PeakMan. You know I was kidding about graphic equaliser, however it does seem to be a lot more sophisticated than I imagined.
In my room at the moment my Scansonic MB 5’s are far too large for the room and they produced an enormous amount of low end. The helpful people at Scansonic suggested that I use some acoustic foam to plug the rear ports, there are three of them to tone it down a little. So after some experimentation and a little move of the speakers themselves I’ve got a reasonable compromise by plugging all three ports on each speaker, plugging two sounded OK until I would up the volume a bit. Now they are reasonably manageable but do produce a bit too much mid range and the listening position is quite close to get that three dimensional soundstage without getting too many sound reflections.
The Kudos Titan 606 seem to be a bit more precise with the isobaric configuration and the precise porting on the base of the speaker. I realise that every room is a compromise but am hoping to tune things in a lot better than they are at the moment. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Tim
As has previously been mentioned, SO is an excellent and worthwhile tool.
Plugging speaker ports with foam can make a big difference, you can also consider using some old socks, as these can be altered to allow less / more air through.
The 606s don’t really suffer with placement being base ported, they can also be quite near the wall as well.
Enjoy your demo and playing with some new kit.
DG…
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Streaming cable update;
After getting the Chord Signature ARAY streaming cable and been using a while and finding that it didn’t give that a big improving by having it as the final cable to the Linn Selekt, I did some further research via the Forum.
Also, had a long chat with Linn Customer Services about this and their advice was not quite what I expected. They stated that they use standard Cat5 or Cat6 spec Ethernet cables at the factory and then, nothing special. Just cheapo ones ordered from Amazon, no boutique ones at all.
That got me thinking and as mentioned, I used the Forum search engine and had a good trawl through results relating to streaming cables, to which the results were interesting. Plenty of different opinions as you would expect, but a couple of brands did stick out; Blue Jeans Cable and CatSnake.
Did some research on their respective websites and thought that I’d have a punt on the CatSnake, one of the reasons being, easy to order from Designacable.
Worked out my requirements, three 1m cables, one 10m cable and one 7m cable. Selected the floating screen option, as this seemed to find favour on the Forum. Although the ordering section on the website is shown as Cat6a spec, by being floating becomes a Cat5 spec, as referenced below;
“You have the option above to have the shield ‘connected’ or left ‘floating’, this will depend on your equipment and personal preference. If left floating then this cable will not perform to Cat6a specifications, but will still function perfectly well as Cat5e, which is the most common type of specification in HiFi setups.”
They weren’t too expensive, which was nice, so when they arrive I’ll install them, let them settle in and start the Test Playlist and see what happens.
DG…
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I’ll be following this ……
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CatSnake 6a floating all the way here. Nicely made and works a treat.
G
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