Surround Sound Variations
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 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.
- 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 as passthrough for up to 6 or 8 speakers.
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.
