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Linn Numerik DAC

L

long-time-dead

pfm Member
Can anyone comment on how good or bad the Linn Numerik is as a DAC ?

I use an Ikemi as my main digital source and would like to stream Apple Lossless files wirelessly from my iMAC to my system for general listening.

Initial thoughts are to use an AAE but could be persuaded otherwise.

FWIW - Aesthetics and box counting is important. SWMBO and Fraim dictate that..........
 
An AE is £65 so try it and see if the Numerik is better, if it is and the sound is satisfactory, go for it and don't worry about it. Only if it's nasty or harsh do you need to find something better because harshness particularly, is terribly fatiguing.
 
Honestly, just buy an AE and a cheap Toslink cable and try it, I'm fairly sure the Apple Store will even take it back if you don't want it.

If you have an iMac already it's about the most discreet, most integrated (with iTunes/OS X) way of doing what you want you want to do assuming you're not fussed about being able to control it from your armchair, in which case you're looking at Squeezeboxes and similar.
 
Can anyone comment on how good or bad the Linn Numerik is as a DAC ?
Click to expand...

Good IMO. A nice solid sound with great dynamics and detail. Works best when sync-linked to a Linn transport, but I've heard it sound well even when just fed from a PC soundcard using S/P DIF, so should work pretty well from an AE.

A late one with Brilliant power supply is worth looking for.

Mr Tibbs
 
No Numerik in the system as I have an Ikemi at present so I am initially intruiged by the Numerik and it's standing against other DACs - especially as it would need to sit within an all-Linn system.
 
Mr Tibbs

That is reassuringly Ebayable !!!!

My main intention is to stream my 'top rated' tracks 24/7 from the iMAC as it is never switched off.
 
The Numerik went through a few tweaks in its life, but a "III" version should be a good deal. The Ikemi was better than a Karik alone, so adding a Numerik would have far less of a difference. The sound of a late Numerik was fine, as it should be, although some way of isolating the dirty back feedback into the mains of the Brilliant supply (I used a Chord Co Clearway) should be considered - one of the screened mains leads around £40 should do (QED Qonduit perhaps), if they do what they say they do...

At the end of the day, it's ten year old technology and although this shouldn't matter overmuch, things once again seem to be moving forward at a rapid pace (God, I've been out of retail "only" 4 years but feel a total dinosaur...).
 
Worth a punt I think. In fact, If I was going down the streaming route myself I'd personally be inclined to go for a Numerik - If I could get one at reasonable cost.

Years ago when I had a Karik III, I borrowed a Numerik for a couple of weeks to try at home and really liked the sound of it compared to the bare Karik. I nearly bought the thing but instead went for the then newly introduced Ikemi as it seemed to sound better again. TBH I might now prefer the Numerik to the Ikemi!

At the end of the day, it's ten year old technology and although this shouldn't matter overmuch, things once again seem to be moving forward at a rapid pace
Click to expand...

Really?

Mr Tibbs
 
Mr Tibbs said:
Really?

Mr Tibbs
Click to expand...

At this moment in time, I'm an old fashioned kind of guy who likes to hold his CD's and is enjoying messing about with the vinyl religion again.

It would appear that the future is external music storage extracted remotely and accessed with a remote control and DAC equiped speakers.

I'm just not quite ready for this yet, hence my distress in learning that the CD player market is perhaps coming to an end in a very few years.
 
LTD, you only need a £25 converter, they don't affect the sound IME, but ask around.

I'm interested to know how much a s/h Numerik costs ?
 
Seem to recall that on this forum it was declared that Ikemi didn't respond well to addition of Numerik (for whatever reason) -- conclusion was that Karik + Numerik was better than Ikemi + Numerik. But bare Ikemi beat them both. Makes you wish Linn brought out an IkemiDac. May just be bollocks, but Ikemi was marketed as a best standalone player with no bolt-on DAC required.
 
Numerik III are hard not easy to get.
And prices seem to vary a lot.
First I got a karik for 550€, then I wanted a numerik III to it & only got one offered in bundle with another karikIII for 750€ complete.
Couldn't resist because that made the price per unit only 375€.
~270GBP and both late models.

With the mains story...I threw out the filters in both units as my naim stuff seems to react allergic to such.
Much better now...more relaxed, calm and clear.
The feeling of an upcoming headache is no more there.

Dunno if it's worth to buy a karik III for someone owning a ikemi.
As the karikIII+numerikIII combi is said to get pretty close to a ikemi, it means you could have saved money by cosing a karikIII instead of ikemi.
That'll make more sense to me & I guess I would not hang a ikemi on a numerik III as the chipset in the ikemi should be a step further than numerik + I don't know whether they'd synchronise at all.

So I'd either go for K&N III and sell Ikemi or (rather) keep Ikemi & go for a good value dac of todays technology.
I imagine that to be cheaper anyway ?

Numerik III the only dac I ever had I can't say much about comparisons yet.

Fiend o mine said a cambridge dac was worth a shot and operates quite fine even in comparison to numerik.

http://www.audio-markt.de/_markt/

Here's one very late model for sale, but for 650€ I'd first ask him if that's for two of them. :)
 
I have no intention of bolting the Numerik to my Ikemi at all.

The idea of the Numerik was to fit a LinnDAC to my system so that I could use the optical output of the AAE into it and therefore stream from my iMAC.

Since the Numerik has no optical input it makes the idea useless !

The cheap optical DAC route seems worthwhile though as an experiment.
 
Or get an optical to co-ax converter, don't know what the quality is like, but loads on eBay, I use one between my Sky+ box and my AV Processor, seems ok
 
IMO cheaper converters sound "OK" at best (at least those in the £35 area of the market)- no measure data for this, just the experience of feeding secondary sources into a dpa DAC a couple of years ago. I was interested in comparing the sound of optical vs coax cable feed to the DAC. CD was main source. dpa transport at the time sounded best with optical in and deltran sync lock. Coax was not bad per se, almost indistinguishable but I preferred optical for long periods of listening. I had a Sony minidisc and portable as secondary source. Just to "play about" I bought an opt to rca and an RCA to opt converter, the sound was always a little less dynamic when using either. I'd emphasise not bad, just a little different.
If anyone wants an RCA in and Opt put they can have it for £5 but sadly I don't have the opt in RCA out any more.
But back to your question (!) - I'd be tempted to try, say, a Benchmark or perhaps a NOS dac - heard a modded Benchmark - I was quite impressed with its value, havn't heard NOS but they got many good reports.
 
Sorry for thinking that you may wish to use a Numerik with the Ikemi. having compared the karik III/NumerikIII directly with the Ikemi, I'd dispute that the latter is better than the former two boxes, but lets face it, they're both ancient technology now.

Good luck with your AAE...
 
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