Brief impressions of the Lina:
DAC:
The DAC was definitely the most impressive part of the trio. Whilst I didn't get to compare to a Bartok side by side, I definitely felt that the Lina did not have the same 'overly polite' issue that the Bartok did and I enjoyed it much more.
It kept dCS' signature refined sound, but had the speed and energy to back it up.
I don't want to say too much on the DAC itself as I don't like to give lengthy impressions on a DAC in particular unless I've spent a fair while with it, but what I would say is that the LINA is clearly a fantastic DAC and I hope I might get the opportunity to review it in future.
I'm fairly certain I prefer it to the Bartok from memory, and to have that in a smaller chassis, at a lower price (for the DAC alone at least) is brilliant.
In fact, I really was not a fan of the Bartok, but the Lina definitely had me tapping my feet and grinning!
Clock:
The clock made a pretty notable improvement, primarily in clarity of layering, how convincingly elements were portrayed in terms of their physical distance from you.
It wasn't that the stage got bigger, just that it got a lot better. Like everything was just a touch more in focus with less uncertainty in the position of elements in a 3d space.
Perceived resolution particularly during busier tracks also received a nice bump due to this.
I have to say, I really like that dCS actually uses proper word clocks, rather than 10Mhz clocks. And I hope more companies follow their lead.
There isn't really a reason why a 10Mhz clock would ever make an improvement, and in fact they should in theory always cause a slight degradation in quality due to the fact that 10Mhz cannot be divided cleanly by 48khz or 44.1khz, and a fractional clock divider must be used. Whereas native rate word clocks can indeed provide a direct improvement in jitter performance and it was surprisingly audible here.
Whether it's worth the asking price, that's up to the listener, 'worth it' is entirely subjective, and this clock is certainly pricey, but it definitely does make an improvement.
Amp:
The amp was unfortunately the disappointing part. It sounded strangely intimate and lacking in space.
Resolution seemed fine, but nothing particularly special. And overall it was just quite....well mediocre to be blunt. A bit soft and I couldn't find much to praise about it besides the exceptional build quality.
And ontop of that, 2W really is not enough power for an amp of this price. Trying Susvara on it sounded notably soft compared to more powerful amps.
Whilst 2W will be plenty for the vast majority of headphones, it's likely that buyers of the LINA will have higher end and hard to drive cans such as the Susvara, 1266, and Raal SR1A with the new adapter. And therefore more power would certainly be appreciated.
There was also a rather strange issue with the Audeze LCD-5 where it sounded honestly outright shouty.
Swapping to the Bryston BHA-1 (still using the LINA as the DAC, and not through a splitter, just moving the cables) fixed this and it sounded fine.
The BHA-1 also sounded outright better than the LINA amp with the Sennheiser HD800S.
Conclusion:
The LINA DAC and Clock were very impressive, the amp not so much.
It's an expensive stack for sure, but honestly gear of this pricing is not so rare in the headphone space anymore. I know several people using DACs like the Holo May, Rockna Wavedream signature, DAVE etc in headphone systems, and people will happily pay out for extremely expensive amps like the Woo WA33 or Zahl HM1 as well. So I don't really want to discuss pricing as everyone's situation is different.
What DID surprise me most though was that the system is quite a bit bigger than I anticipated.
I had anticipated it to be quite compact, as it seemed that the intention with the LINA was to provide a high end, but very 'desk friendly' all in one option.
But actually, it was surprisingly large.
If it were ~30% smaller I think that a lot of people in higher paying jobs who would want a compact desk system would be interested. But stacked vertically or laid out side by side the Lina is certainly uhm....chunky. Though it does look beautiful in person. I don't think I know of any company with better build quality than dCS.
I hope I might be able to spend more time with or review the LINA in future, as the DAC/Clock were really good.
