Linn Owners

DSM Surround Sound Processing module sound quality

Newton John

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Is it worth having a Linn DSM Surround Sound Processing, SSP module in a stereo system?

TVs, Blu-ray players, satellite boxes, etc. often have an option to output stereo PCM. Therefore, there is no need to put Surround Sound Processing modules in DSMs for stereo only use. It might be useful to have HDMI 2.0 for the ARC input and 4K pass through, but the SSP module doesn’t achieve anything in a stereo system or does it?

Recently, I found that upgrading from Katalyst to Organik makes a substantial improvement to audio from TV and a Sky Q box. That’s got me wondering if the Linn SSP module costing £1,200 could do a better job of decoding the Dolby Digital signal than the typical TV, satellite box or Blu-ray player. Would moving the decoding from the AV components to the DSM improve sound quality?

Perhaps, I am being naïve about AV here. Possibly, the high price of the Linn SSP module is due to do it being specially manufactured to match the DSM and has no bearing on sound quality. Has anyone tried using a SSP module in a stereo system and did it improve the quality of TV sound? I am sure my dealer would be happy to sell me one, but would I be wasting my money?

 
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scallon

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Oct 11, 2018
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  1. No
It might be useful to have HDMI 2.0 for the ARC input and 4K pass through
Yes

but the SSP module doesn’t achieve anything in a stereo system or does it?
Not if you already have PCM Stereo available to feed the DSM HDMI

Possibly, the high price of the Linn SSP module is due to do it being specially manufactured to match the DSM and has no bearing on sound quality
That's what I think anyway.

I don't actually have one though because I would only need it to get 7.1 multichannel from a streaming box which currently only does 5.1 PCM (sometimes!) and I am not convinced it is worth the money.

 

uk030

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Oct 9, 2018
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Only reason I'd consider buying that module is bc my stupid TV passes on the data to the DSM as AC3 2.0 if it is broadcast that way.

But hey, TV program is a lot of crap anyway and using streaming platforms like FireTV the output can be set to PCM (brute force).

 

CJ1045

Krescendo HiFi Partner
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The surround module is not made for Linn. It is off the shelf from a third party. It may or may not be excellent as I have not heard it. However, what it does is decode the compressed audio to PCM which it feeds to the rest of the system. I personally use an Xbox Series X and an LG OLED TV as my two video sources. The LG is via HDMI ARC which is only on the latest HDMI board - the original board in the EXAKT DSMs Linn tested the ARC capabilities and found them poor so they disabled them. The later board works perfectly with a new chipset and also supports 4K pass through which the earlier board did not support. My TV outputs multi-channel PCM and my XBOX 5.1 PCM from Bluray/4K Bluray as it does all the decoding. Given the immense horsepower of the Series X I suspect that would be the best option anyway. I have EXAKT Katalyst Akudorik at the front, 520s as rears and a REL S3 sub with Exaktbox Sub. The latter was overkill but very little cost (for me anyway) and I was very happy without the sub.

CJ

 

Craigas

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Oct 13, 2018
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The surround module is not made for Linn. It is off the shelf from a third party. It may or may not be excellent as I have not heard it. However, what it does is decode the compressed audio to PCM which it feeds to the rest of the system. I personally use an Xbox Series X and an LG OLED TV as my two video sources. The LG is via HDMI ARC which is only on the latest HDMI board - the original board in the EXAKT DSMs Linn tested the ARC capabilities and found them poor so they disabled them. The later board works perfectly with a new chipset and also supports 4K pass through which the earlier board did not support. My TV outputs multi-channel PCM and my XBOX 5.1 PCM from Bluray/4K Bluray as it does all the decoding. Given the immense horsepower of the Series X I suspect that would be the best option anyway. I have EXAKT Katalyst Akudorik at the front, 520s as rears and a REL S3 sub with Exaktbox Sub. The latter was overkill but very little cost (for me anyway) and I was very happy without the sub.

CJ
I'll take those cheap S3 and exaktbox off your hands :)  Out of context can you explain why you think they are overkill with Akudoriks as I would have thought overkill with Akubariks?

 

Elad Repooc

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Dec 23, 2020
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I think the real question here is, has anyone actually tried comparing the Linn surround module decoding to the internal decoding of the source?

In the past, it was always hit or miss but typically a higher end SSP performing the decoding of the bitstream (as opposed to the bitstream being "unpacked" in the source and sent as raw PCM data) sounded better, with the majority of multichannel sources, especially the set-top boxes and spinning disc players. 

I've never done this particular comparison so I have no frame of reference, but am curious nonetheless. I remember even if using stereo speakers, having a proper Dolby/DTS decoder for movies and TV shows made a pretty big difference in many cases, as opposed to a stereo mix in the source, even though all the decoder did was unpack the Dolby/DTS info to PCM stereo.

 

anatius

Newbie
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Oct 27, 2021
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Is it worth having a Linn DSM Surround Sound Processing, SSP module in a stereo system?

TVs, Blu-ray players, satellite boxes, etc. often have an option to output stereo PCM. Therefore, there is no need to put Surround Sound Processing modules in DSMs for stereo only use. It might be useful to have HDMI 2.0 for the ARC input and 4K pass through, but the SSP module doesn’t achieve anything in a stereo system or does it?

Recently, I found that upgrading from Katalyst to Organik makes a substantial improvement to audio from TV and a Sky Q box. That’s got me wondering if the Linn SSP module costing £1,200 could do a better job of decoding the Dolby Digital signal than the typical TV, satellite box or Blu-ray player. Would moving the decoding from the AV components to the DSM improve sound quality?

Perhaps, I am being naïve about AV here. Possibly, the high price of the Linn SSP module is due to do it being specially manufactured to match the DSM and has no bearing on sound quality. Has anyone tried using a SSP module in a stereo system and did it improve the quality of TV sound? I am sure my dealer would be happy to sell me one, but would I be wasting my money?
My understanding is that the module can detect whether or not a stereo or surround signal is being processed and activates the appropriate number of channels. I was told this by my dealer. to date the module does not support Dolby Atmos but that could change given the increased interest in Blu-ray movies.
 

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