'With the ability to stream CD, DVD-A and SACD quality audio across a home network, does Linn’s Majik DS spell the end of conventional disc-based formats?

Last year Linn Records began to offer DRM-free hi-res music downloads and the initiative has proved a great success…Linn is leading the way on the hardware side too…It introduced the first [streaming network player], the Klimax DS, less than a year ago and such has been its success that there are already three others in the range: the Akurate DS, Majik DS (reviewed here) and new Sneaky Music DS which combines a streaming player and amplifier in one box.

In…choosing to make network audio players instead, Linn is quite deliberately leaving hard disk technology out of the design equation so that it can concentrate on the job it knows best, making good sounding audio electronics. It has also quite deliberately chosen to use open-source computing solutions throughout. The network technology is standard, UPnP is used to provide seamless device compatibility, Linn’s hi-res downloads are losslessly compressed using the FLAC algorithm, and even its own DS player software is open-source, allowing code-capable users to develop enhancements (see http://oss.linn.co.uk).

What Linn supplied for this review was a network set-up in miniature: the Majik DS itself, a Netgear NAS (network attached storage) drive, Toshiba laptop and a 3Com router via which everything was connected using short Ethernet cables.

Anyone who has used media player software will be familiar with the approach Linn has adopted for its own music streaming application, Linn GUI. Track files from hard disk folders are first added to a playlist, and these shortlisted files can then be replayed. Playback is controlled via the software itself or a hand-held remote and scrolling dot-matrix display on the front of the Majik DS.

…the Majik DS is compatible with 16- or 24-bit files of up to 192 kHz, in WAV or AIFF uncompressed PCM formats or FLAC losslessly compressed format. It will also play MP3s.

Among the tracks I used for this part of the listening were two fine, minimum-intervention recordings that put a premium on system clarity and control. On these two tracks the Majik DS excelled, its ability to dissect out the minutiae of the performances winning me over….If the Akurate DS and Klimax DS can improve on this, I really can’t wait to hear them.

Verdict: Editor’s choice

For those willing to embrace computer network technology, the Majik DS offers a taste of audio’s future today…it delivers a detailed, analytical sound that vies with that of conventional high-end sources and sets it apart from lesser streaming players. It’s gratifying to see a respected audiophile name entering this increasingly important market. '