Surround Sound Variations

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Surround support is currently available for HDMI multichannel PCM audio streams as standard. This is suitable for most Blu-Ray and DVD players, some media streamers and some set top boxes, although all of these sources downgrade higher precision audio to 48k/16 bit when transmitting multichannel PCM audio over HDMI.

The Linn Surround Module supports encoded multichannel audio streams via HDMI, HDMI-ARC, SPDIF and TOSLINK. This is suitable for playback of surround audio from internal TV sources such as Netflix, or external sources such as Chromecast, Blu-Ray players, etc.

Original Surround capability

Up to Davaar 37 firmware, (May 2016), and Majik/Akurate/Klimax products with HDMI-1 boards.
The HDMI audio could be split to allow the Front Left/Right to play on the Linn DSM and remaining channels fed to the Linn DSM HDMI OUT to a surround processor to deal with the remaining channel.


Details of this operation can be found Surround options up to Davaar 37 & Surround with an additional Processor



Software controlled Surround capability

From Davaar 55 (Mar 2017), and Majik/Akurate/Klimax DSM products with Exakt capability.
These products can take multi-channel PCM audio from the HDMI input. This PCM audio could then be used with the Linn DSM analogue outputs and Exakt-link connections. This now allowed the capabailty of 7.1ch Surround audio, the limitation is that the HDMI source MUST be able to feed this Surround Format.


Details of this operation can be found Surround options from Davaar 55 & Set up and adjusting



Linn Surround Module

Direct decoding of surround streams from HDMI / HDMI-ARC / TOSLINK / SPDIF is supported with the addition of a Linn Surround module mounted onto the HDMI-2 board within the DSM.

The Linn Surround module is sold only as an upgrade to any:

Selekt or Akurate or Klimax DSM


List of products that support the surround upgrade module

Selekt Products
Akurate Products
Klimax Products


  • The HDMI-2 boards have been fitted as standard since September 2016 and are available as an upgrade to all Akurate and Klimax DSM's.


Sneaky/Sekrit/Kiko & Majik Products
This Linn Surround Module upgrade is either not available or is not supported in these products.

  • Supported codecs are Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-HD.
Dolby Atmos and DTS-X are not supported.


  • Available from the Konfig > Dolby/DTS tab are Neo:6 mode selection, and ‘Dynamic Range Compression’ (formerly known as Midnight Movie Mode on earlier Linn products).


  • Speaker positioning should be achieved through Space Optimisation, however if Space Optimisation is disabled, the speaker distances may be configured from the Konfig > Dolby/DTS tab.


Speaker configurations:
To reduce the Exakt hardware requirements for extra channels, it is possible to configure an ExaktBox or ExaktBox-I to drive one non-Exakt speaker per channel, up to a maximum of 8 channels, using either a 6 x channel passthrough or 8 x channel passthrough Exakt filter.
Space Optimization will be supported for this configuration, but not Space Optimisation+ (for Exakt speakers).

  • Speakers can be driven from any combination of:
  • Direct analogue output from the DSM
  • Exakt Speaker
  • Exaktbox configured with crossovers for one or two speakers
  • Exaktbox configured for surround playback
Speaker type set for
"6 x Channel Passthrough" for 5.1ch or
"8 x Channel Passthrough" or 7.1ch
Examples of speaker setups can be found HERE



Setup via IR handset:

  • Use the left/right handset joystick control to adjust the Lipsync. (make sure that in Konfid the "delay mode" for that source is set for "Video Sync"
  • Press the Up/Down buttons to adjust the LFE (sub-woofer) settings.


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