Surround Sound Variations

Surround support is currently available for HDMI PCM audio streams only, 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. Currently there is no support for ARC/SPDIF/TOS surround streams, required for playback of surround from internal TV sources, e.g. Netflix. Other sources, such as Chromecast, require the stream decoding to be performed by a secondary AV receiver, e.g. an Oppo, added into the HDMI chain. These configurations require specialist knowledge to configure and control, can cause additional audio delays and are reliant on 3rd party devices. Also, currently, a full surround system requires a full Exakt configuration for each of the additional channels.

There are a few Surround Sound options with the Linn DSM:

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 will be sold as an upgrade to any Akurate or Klimax DSM with Exakt capability and fitted with a HDMI-2 board. The full list of supported devices is:

Akurate Products

• Akurate DSM (Exakt Variant) (upgraded with HDMI-2 board)
• Akurate DSM (4K compatible)
• Akurate_DSM_(Katalyst)
• Akurate Exakt DSM (upgraded with HDMI-2 board)
• Akurate Exakt DSM (4K compatible)
• Akurate System Hub

Klimax Products

• Klimax DSM (Exakt Variant) (upgraded with HDMI-2 board)
• Klimax DSM (KATALYST Variant)
• Klimax Exakt Dsm (upgraded with HDMI-2 board)
• Klimax Exakt DSM (4K compatible)
• Klimax System Hub

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.
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.

Speaker configurations:
To reduce the Exakt hardware requirements for extra channels, it is possible to configure an ExaktBox/ExaktBox-I to drive one non-Exakt speaker per channel, up to a maximum of 8 channels using either "6 x channel passthrough or "8 x channel passthrough, (depending on the Exaktbox), speaker 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 as passthrough for up to 6 or 8 speakers.