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Hard times for Linn

To be honest, there’s actually nothing at all wrong with 16/44.1 PCM, it provides 100dB SNR and 20Hz to 22.5kHz frequency range, do we actually need anything beyond that? I’m pretty convinced that the uprising of “high res” formats is more about re-selling us the music we’ve already bought and of course the hardware to play it on.

Indeed.
 
It’s not the streamers I was talking about, they made a server that was very pricey. And I have no axe to grind with Naim, they make some really excellent products. More my point was that Linn were being jumped on for allegedly making a pimped up pc with an inflated price... even though they haven’t since they discontinued the Kivor Tunebox, whereas naim... https://www.naimaudio.com/product/uniti-core

Explain, what third party options they have locked out? They work with any UPnP media server and have intergration with all major streaming services (Amazon HD excepted which no HIFI streamer does yet), and an endless list of internet radio stations.

PS both Linn and Naim offer a range of streamers at similar price points.
Hi,
OK - the quote aspect seems to have more information than the post i can see - maybe i replied at the time you saved the edited information.

I am not sure Linn were being jumped upon for selling a pimped PC. What the issue is, as far as i can see it, is that they offer a system which is not cutting edge, and lacks capabilities, ability to modify and configure, add to etc., compared to a £35 Raspberry Pi.

I did not search extensively, but the lock in, is that for a free software licence you usually have to provide the source code. I do not see Linn doing this. It may be that they are under no obligation to do so with the FreeRTOS licence. So, for a Raspberry Pi based solution you can add and modify as you wish. The same for my Dune Base HD 3D media player - they offer the source code under the licence.

The Linn system works - but it is not superior, it is an embedded system, similar to the Internet Of Things products modified to meet a specific requirement.

Regards,
Shadders.
 
Imagine a 20Tb NVMeflash drive sat on the network with those sorts of performance figures. Or embedded in an all-in-one type box, small, quiet, cool running.

For me a 20Tb drive would be a complete waste; just about all my music comes from the cloud. Right enough, I’ve rips of all my old CDs, but these are mostly duplicated in Qobuz, sometimes at higher resolution. All my photos, documents, spreadsheets, books and whatever are similarly in either Dropbox, onedrive or iCloud so I think my requirements for local storage peaked awhile ago.
 
Hi,
OK - the quote aspect seems to have more information than the post i can see - maybe i replied at the time you saved the edited information.

I am not sure Linn were being jumped upon for selling a pimped PC. What the issue is, as far as i can see it, is that they offer a system which is not cutting edge, and lacks capabilities, ability to modify and configure, add to etc., compared to a £35 Raspberry Pi.

I did not search extensively, but the lock in, is that for a free software licence you usually have to provide the source code. I do not see Linn doing this. It may be that they are under no obligation to do so with the FreeRTOS licence. So, for a Raspberry Pi based solution you can add and modify as you wish. The same for my Dune Base HD 3D media player - they offer the source code under the licence.

The Linn system works - but it is not superior, it is an embedded system, similar to the Internet Of Things products modified to meet a specific requirement.

Regards,
Shadders.
Right, I see where you’re coming from. In reality, Linn’s and Naim’s systems work really well and both sound fantastic at their relative price points. Okay, you may be able to put a Pi based streamer and an equally capable DAC together for less, but it isn’t as neat or user friendly. A smooth and seamless user experience is pretty important for me.

And yes, I did edit and add to my post.
 
Putting 2+2 together, and probably making 5, I can see a Linn paper https://docs.linn.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Up-sampling showing they used Xilinx Virtex 4 FPGAs and another FAQ confirming it https://docs.linn.co.uk/wiki/index.php/DS_Technical_Architecture_FAQ

A Virtex is a lot more expensive than a Spartan, not unsurprising but Virtex 4 is old by today's standards on I believe 90 nm process. Current Virtex is Virtex 7 on 28 nm process.

I can see Linn have built their own embeded platform round a bunch of Free and Open Source Software https://docs.linn.co.uk/wiki/index.php/ThirdPartySoftwareCopyright and it would seem based on FreeRTOS so it might well be running the Xilinx Microblaze soft core https://www.freertos.org/portmicroblaze.html or a PowerPC 405 soft core https://www.freertos.org/Free-RTOS-PPC405-Xilinx-Virtex4.html

A Microblaze or PowerPC 405 soft core is cool.

FreeRTOS is a capable RTOS, but nothing like as complete as a Linux kernel never mind what most people think of as Linux which is a Linux kernal based *NIX platform. For example no TCP/IP stack, I note for that they use LwIP a common embedded TCP/IP stack I have used before.

All good stuff and impressive they have kept it up to date for a good time period, this looks like proper embedded engineering ... sorry the nerd in me got the better of me and I had to go see what they are really using :)
 
For me a 20Tb drive would be a complete waste; just about all my music comes from the cloud. Right enough, I’ve rips of all my old CDs, but these are mostly duplicated in Qobuz, sometimes at higher resolution. All my photos, documents, spreadsheets, books and whatever are similarly in either Dropbox, onedrive or iCloud so I think my requirements for local storage peaked awhile ago.

I was thinking for movies too, where the space gets swallowed quickly, and remembering that online services and ISPs still get outages etc. Then there is challenge fir on the move or remote mobile data access struggles for some areas. There’s always a need for home storage on the network.

With hybrid on/off premise data moving capabilities and meta data locating services growing and cascading down from the enterprise, I could also foresee hydrid home/cloud models coming down the track for domestic media serving.

I remember A Dell PC WITH 80mb HDD seemed excessive in 1990. LOL
 
Putting 2+2 together, and probably making 5, I can see a Linn paper https://docs.linn.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Up-sampling showing they used Xilinx Virtex 4 FPGAs and another FAQ confirming it https://docs.linn.co.uk/wiki/index.php/DS_Technical_Architecture_FAQ

A Virtex is a lot more expensive than a Spartan, not unsurprising but Virtex 4 is old by today's standards on I believe 90 nm process. Current Virtex is Virtex 7 on 28 nm process.
Hi,
I checked prices for the Virtex 4 and they are very expensive, circa Euro650. Available embedded boards are expensive too at £1,200. Given what they are doing with the system, they do seem to have picked an "unusual" solution such as an FPGA for a streamer. There are many microcontrollers that offer Linux as a target OS, and are cheap, and comparable to the Raspberry Pi.

The page you referenced was modified November 2019 - so it is up to date. Their (Linn) solution seems to be unnecessarily expensive.

Regards,
Shadders.
 
Hi,
I checked prices for the Virtex 4 and they are very expensive, circa Euro650. Available embedded boards are expensive too at £1,200. Given what they are doing with the system, they do seem to have picked an "unusual" solution such as an FPGA for a streamer. There are many microcontrollers that offer Linux as a target OS, and are cheap, and comparable to the Raspberry Pi.

The page you referenced was modified November 2019 - so it is up to date. Their (Linn) solution seems to be unnecessarily expensive.

Regards,
Shadders.
Is that a wholesale price? Surely they can’t be paying that much for them, €650 just isn’t feasible given that the Sneaky DS only costs £1050 retail. I’d say a 10th of that is still expensive!
 
Hi,
I checked prices for the Virtex 4 and they are very expensive, circa Euro650. Available embedded boards are expensive too at £1,200. Given what they are doing with the system, they do seem to have picked an "unusual" solution such as an FPGA for a streamer. There are many microcontrollers that offer Linux as a target OS, and are cheap, and comparable to the Raspberry Pi.

The page you referenced was modified November 2019 - so it is up to date. Their (Linn) solution seems to be unnecessarily expensive.

Regards,
Shadders.

Current V4 FX disty prices down right hand side.

https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/datasheets/xilinxinc/xilinx-inc-ds112
 
Is that a wholesale price? Surely they can’t be paying that much for them, €650 just isn’t feasible given that the Sneaky DS only costs £1050 retail. I’d say a 10th of that is still expensive!

i have £170-£320 per piece depending on spec, bought from distribution as per above link.
 
Xilinx pricing is like double glazing or DFS furniture sales, don't believe the RRP. Also Virtex 4 is a very old device, I'd be amazed if they're still using it in new designs!
 
They may or may not have ported to a newer platform, I note the link I provided before to the FAQ is last updated 27 November 2019, at 11:06 and says Virtex 4 FX. They may well have done a large buy at a much cheaper price but Virtex devices are not cheap devices full stop, this is a premium and not a budget FPGA, albeit an old one.
 


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