[GoldenSound]

You just gotta redeem yourself with Bartok 2.0 review

I'd definitely be interested to hear Bartok 2.0.
I'll see if I can find one to demo somewhere (the one I reviewed was sold by the owner).

Whether I do a review of it or not would depend on how different it sounded compared to the one I'd tried previously

 

[adrianm]

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.

Surprising but interesting to see you write that . On a whim, how would you compare it to Dave + Hqplayer?

 

[GPD1]

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.

Would have thought given the existing number of dcs users the amp would be an easy add on for those users looking to get into headphones . So why not make it the strongest element of the three?

 

[IanB52]

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.

That's a shame about the amp, as it's the only piece I'm interested in. Joe at Abyss seems to like it, and says it's the best SS amp with their headphones. However, this using specifically the buffered input.

Not to be a bomb thrower, but IMO LCD-5 seems to sound shouty on a lot of amps.

 

[chesebert]

Would have thought given the existing number of dcs users the amp would be an easy add on for those users looking to get into headphones . So why not make it the strongest element of the three?

Because dCS lacks the know-how given their lack of 2-channel integrated and power amp experience.

 

[Not so fat head]

HE-1 is not magic and may not be a good fit for certain music genre or personal preference. The inability to switch out the integrated amp is the killer. If you just want a desktop conversation piece for your corner office, then sure why not. The thing is super impressive in person when starting up

I’ve never even come close to hearing it, thank god, because apparently it renders grown men into hysterical sobbing audiophiles…
I don’t need that in my life!!!

 

[BTD1]

I need help thinking this through. I am trying to justify why I need the Lina DAC. I use an ifi pro iDSD and a bifrost 2, sometimes my T+A HA200. Of course, the Lina is better (it costs more) but, how much will it change the sound of my headphones? On a daily basis I use the x9000s, Susvara, Bravura, and soon the Shangri-La Sr. These are good headphones, but I can't wrap my head around the idea of a $14,000 DAC. I can't imagine that it would make that much difference. There really isn't a way to test this out in my system. I would need to buy it blind. And, the reviews so far are all positive, as you would expect. Anyone else seriously thinking about this. Also, I love gadgetry and this DAC has some interesting bells and whistles connected to the Mosaic Control app.

 

[adrianm]

I need help thinking this through. I am trying to justify why I need the Lina DAC. I use an ifi pro iDSD and a bifrost 2, sometimes my T+A HA200. Of course, the Lina is better (it costs more) but, how much will it change the sound of my headphones? On a daily basis I use the x9000s, Susvara, Bravura, and soon the Shangri-La Sr. These are good headphones, but I can't wrap my head around the idea of a $14,000 DAC. I can't imagine that it would make that much difference. There really isn't a way to test this out in my system. I would need to buy it blind. And, the reviews so far are all positive, as you would expect. Anyone else seriously thinking about this. Also, I love gadgetry and this DAC has some interesting bells and whistles connected to the Mosaic Control app.

You would definitely see an improvement from a better dac,but i wouldn’t assume something is better just because it costs more.
Since you’ve already spent so much on your collection, why can’t you justify an expensive dac? I’m only planning on using the Elites and the only reason i’d consider the Lina over the Rossini is (trans)portability. And that is only if it’s considerably better than Dave using the same amp.

 

[zach915m]

I need help thinking this through. I am trying to justify why I need the Lina DAC. I use an ifi pro iDSD and a bifrost 2, sometimes my T+A HA200. Of course, the Lina is better (it costs more) but, how much will it change the sound of my headphones? On a daily basis I use the x9000s, Susvara, Bravura, and soon the Shangri-La Sr. These are good headphones, but I can't wrap my head around the idea of a $14,000 DAC. I can't imagine that it would make that much difference. There really isn't a way to test this out in my system. I would need to buy it blind. And, the reviews so far are all positive, as you would expect. Anyone else seriously thinking about this. Also, I love gadgetry and this DAC has some interesting bells and whistles connected to the Mosaic Control app.

The DAC is pretty great, the ability to choose between 2/6V and then the 3 options of crossfeed and all the data processing options really let you tailor the sound to your systems existing needs. I have never owned a DAC in this price bracket before, but since having the Lina on hand I have wanted to use it over anything else we have in house with the exception of my EAD DSP-9000 which I love for many sentimental reasons and because I just got it refurbished.

 

[adrianm]

The DAC is pretty great, the ability to choose between 2/6V and then the 3 options of crossfeed and all the data processing options really let you tailor the sound to your systems existing needs. I have never owned a DAC in this price bracket before, but since having the Lina on hand I have wanted to use it over anything else we have in house with the exception of my EAD DSP-9000 which I love for many sentimental reasons and because I just got it refurbished.

What else do you have in house?

 

[BTD1]

The DAC is pretty great, the ability to choose between 2/6V and then the 3 options of crossfeed and all the data processing options really let you tailor the sound to your systems existing needs. I have never owned a DAC in this price bracket before, but since having the Lina on hand I have wanted to use it over anything else we have in house with the exception of my EAD DSP-9000 which I love for many sentimental reasons and because I just got it refurbished.

I saw your video. Thanks for responding. Your opinion means a lot. Now, I really have to think this through. I'll look at your video a few more times, then I'll probably pull the trigger! Thanks again!

 

[BLacklWf]

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.

Amazing review. Right to the point! I hope you will do a follow-up review with a side-by-side comparison with the upcoming Barok 2.0 firmware upgrade.

 

[vcoheda]

the dCS lina dac is very interesting, but the price seems more reflective of the premium brand than its capabilities. can the dac really be better than a holo may or higher-end denafrips at $4-6k. with the lina you do get the patented ring dac, headphone enhancements and a network player all in a relatively small form factor but i'm not sure that gets you to $12-13k. that being said, i would love to try one in my system.

 

[Frankie D]

Amazing review. Right to the point! I hope you will do a follow-up review with a side-by-side comparison with the upcoming Barok 2.0 firmware upgrade.

The Abyss team really likes the amp calling it the best solid state amp they have heard. Seems to be opposing view points of the amp review vs how Abyss felt. Hopefully some more folks can audition.

 

[chesebert]

The Abyss team really likes the amp calling it the best solid state amp they have heard. Seems to be opposing view points of the amp review vs how Abyss felt. Hopefully some more folks can audition.

Honestly, which headphone manufacturer would talk trash about any well-known hi-fi brand? The only thing any negative comment would do is to push Lina amp owners and possibly dCS owners from not buying Abyss headphones.

You just got marketed to and you don't even know it