Linn Owners

Improve the performance of your Linn streamer??

zee9

Audio Junkie
Wammer
Oct 16, 2018
1,540
966
148
52
New Jersey, USA
AKA
Zorawar
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Not much of an audible difference for me. When I hit restore after choosing the zip file it basically did a factory reset. Maybe I didn’t do it right


Adsm/3 >> Akurate 4200/1 >> Akurate 242 (mark 1) Silvers/K200

 

Patu

Wammer
Wammer
Dec 6, 2019
289
398
83
Finland
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Not much of an audible difference for me. When I hit restore after choosing the zip file it basically did a factory reset. Maybe I didn’t do it right


Adsm/3 >> Akurate 4200/1 >> Akurate 242 (mark 1) Silvers/K200
Did you remember to tick the little box saying Device Recovery? I ticked that and pressed Update button, not the restore button. Anyway it seemed to work since I had ro reconfigure everything afterwards. 

 

zee9

Audio Junkie
Wammer
Oct 16, 2018
1,540
966
148
52
New Jersey, USA
AKA
Zorawar
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Did you remember to tick the little box saying Device Recovery? I ticked that and pressed Update button, not the restore button. Anyway it seemed to work since I had ro reconfigure everything afterwards. 
Yes I did tick that device recovery box. When you do a factory reset you have to configure everything again as well.


Adsm/3 >> Akurate 4200/1 >> Akurate 242 (mark 1) Silvers/K200
 
  • Like
  • Upvote
Reactions: Patu and Coalboy68

Coalboy68

Life in the fast Linn
Wammer
Dec 30, 2020
317
377
83
NE England
AKA
Nigel
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
I wonder if this is similar logic to the purging of the buffers on the radikal which is also meant to improve sound quality. Perhaps @zee9 if your unit is relatively new or upgraded there is not much “baggage” to reset while others may have had their units for a long time so “hear” a bigger difference. 
 

just a thought. 

 

Patu

Wammer
Wammer
Dec 6, 2019
289
398
83
Finland
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
First thing that came up in my mind was these body cleanse/detox products marketed in wellness industry 😅 I'll get me coat...

 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Haha
Reactions: akamatsu

zee9

Audio Junkie
Wammer
Oct 16, 2018
1,540
966
148
52
New Jersey, USA
AKA
Zorawar
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
I wonder if this is similar logic to the purging of the buffers on the radikal which is also meant to improve sound quality. Perhaps @zee9 if your unit is relatively new or upgraded there is not much “baggage” to reset while others may have had their units for a long time so “hear” a bigger difference. 
 
just a thought. 
It’s an older unit but just got the katalyst upgrade last month.


Adsm/3 >> Akurate 4200/1 >> Akurate 242 (mark 1) Silvers/K200
 

Paulssurround

Space Explorer
Wammer
Oct 11, 2018
3,991
4,295
148
Vancouver
AKA
Paul
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
I followed Donuk’s advise and did the upgrade this evening, with PDW’s assistance 

‘It was a notable improvement in sound quality, with more dynamics, clearer detail, more relaxed presentation and bigger soundstage. The depth is the soundstage on Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side is the best I have heard

Well worth the effort.

‘Thank you Donuk, PDW and MickC

 
Last edited by a moderator:

hannson.design

Newbie
Wammer
Oct 31, 2018
108
76
33
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
I have a Linn ADS/3 - with the Katalyst board. My friend has an ADSM. We came across a curious piece of information recently and have tried it out to great benefit. The resulting improvement to sound is clearly noticeable: tighter bass, more open sound – all the usual adjectives.

Essentially what you effectively have to do is to reformat your streamer. Perhaps not quite.

But all you need to do is to reinstall your firmware, while in Device Recovery mode. Do not do this until you have read to the end of this.

What I did was:

1) Download from the Linn site the latest firmware, which in my case was Fw988.
2) Using Konfig, go to the Advanced page.
3) Tick the little box called Device Recovery
4) Browse until you locate the firmware file (leave it in ZIP format).
5) Wait while firmware updates and restarts your streamer.

Now comes the painful bit for which I take no responsibility if it changes your life for ever.

When your streamer wakes up from the above procedure it remembers nothing. It will deny ever having known you. You have a brand new machine. It will of course play once your system has found it. But it will have lost all Space settings. Fortunately I prefer Space 1, so all my settings were on my PC and easily transferable. Speakers also had to be ‘installed’. I found it took a couple of hours’ wait to be able to sign into my Linn account: probably just cloud problems. When in again my Space settings were all available.

But only do this if you are happy setting up a streamer from scratch!

I have no certain knowledge of how this improves the sound of my system, but undoubtedly it does. My streamer has been in place for a few years and has been “played around with” over the months. I was told that Device Recovery wipes everything stored in the non-volatile memory. Does removing junk make reading easier or prevent it needlessly being loaded into volatile memory?

Do tell me if you know. But my friend and I have found it makes a surprising difference.

Donuk beautiful downtown York
Was the firmware changed to the latest version at the same time of the reset of your DS, or had you previously “upgraded” to the latest version?

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Donuk

Newbie
Wammer
Oct 11, 2018
88
64
23
I am glad some of you found this tweak worthwhile.

I am surprised it makes a difference but in my system which has a Kat board which has been extensively played with during lockdown - firmwares and space settings - it certainly has.  An a friend of mine in the industry, who knows infinitely more than myself about digital matters says he is not surprised.

The question that now remains is, how often should I purge the settings and install it all over again??  Yes a fuss but less painful and less expensive than some of the tweaks we find ourselves getting involved in.  Only a few minutes work if you are confident about what you are doing I suppose.  As I don't change firmware usually unless there is "something for me" I suspect I would do this with every firmware upgrade.  

The other less radical tweak I have thought about is the option to have shorter playlists.  Under Advanced settings Linn allow you to reduce it from the default 1,000 tracks to — I don't know how low.  I have reduced mine to 200 - I rarely go larger than 100.  I cannot hear any difference after a reboot. Does anyone else?   Why do Linn have this feature?  I could actually see some logic in this adjustment - reducing from 1,000 possible addresses in volatile memory should increase the amount of available memory.  In some systems it may matter.

Who thought that digital as an easy option alternative to turntables.....

Donuk beautiful downtown York

 

Patu

Wammer
Wammer
Dec 6, 2019
289
398
83
Finland
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Now when I think of it, my ADSM/3 is second hand unit and had at least two owners before me. The previous owner did the Katalyst upgrade on it in 2018 so I guess that’s the last time it was restored. The unit was never restored to stock settings even when I bought it from him. I just adjusted the settings for my needs.

I have enjoyed listening to my setup even more than normally this evening. It might just sound ever so slightly better than before.

 
  • Like
Reactions: Chris 1970

hannson.design

Newbie
Wammer
Oct 31, 2018
108
76
33
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Don,

Was the firmware changed to the latest version at the same time of the reset of your DS, or had you previously “upgraded” to the latest version?

 

Dasher

Wammer
Wammer
Jun 7, 2019
941
1,040
98
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
The other less radical tweak I have thought about is the option to have shorter playlists.  Under Advanced settings Linn allow you to reduce it from the default 1,000 tracks to — I don't know how low.  I have reduced mine to 200 - I rarely go larger than 100.  I cannot hear any difference after a reboot. Does anyone else?   Why do Linn have this feature?  I could actually see some logic in this adjustment - reducing from 1,000 possible addresses in volatile memory should increase the amount of available memory.  In some systems it may matter.
I happened to slowly run my. playlist up to 999 and, because it was in effect full, I emptied it to zero. The difference between having 999 and 0 in there was clearly  audible and, like your 'tweak' was almost instantaneous. There was no expectation bias - I never for one minute thought  that emptying the playlist would have a beneficial effect - but it did.

 

Wendy

Ms
Wammer
Apr 4, 2019
35
90
38
HiFi Trade?
  1. Yes
My dealer told me that powering off the ds, waiting and then turning on improves the sound quality, something he does before he has a serious listening session. 

It's something I now do fairly often and the improvement is substantial. This has the benefit that no settings need to be reinstalled and it is a very quick process. 

 

Patu

Wammer
Wammer
Dec 6, 2019
289
398
83
Finland
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
I noticed that the SO2 website loads much quicker after the reset and lags less.

 

Forum statistics

Threads
113,444
Messages
2,451,263
Members
70,783
Latest member
reg66

Latest Articles