| Title: | You get surface noise in real life too |
| Notice: | Let's be conformist |
| Moderator: | GOVT02::BARKER |
| Created: | Thu Jul 28 1988 |
| Last Modified: | Mon Jun 02 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 550 |
| Total number of notes: | 3847 |
Well it would seem the rumers are true ... Linn have been working on a
digital audio product. It's called the Numerik and is a D/A and A/D
converter. But your piggy banks can relax - Linn won't sell you one and
if they did it would cost a cool 25,000 (not 2,500) - makes the new
Naim pre-amp look pretty cheap...
There is an interview with the designer Neil Gibson in this months
(Nov'90) Hi-Fi Review. (A prize for evey rude word said against Linn or
Naim).
The Numerik is a large box (Size of a PDP-8 - Dual height VME bus for
you youngsters). From the PCB layout I'd say its uses Bhur-Brown (sp)
converters and MC68020 CPU in a four card design (2 per channel I
guess).
The Numerik was said to sound - undigital.
They use the new Carol Kidd CD (which was recorded using the A/D side
of a Numeric). The CD transport was a ``top-of-the-range'' player.
What they DIDN'T say was whether the NumeriK was better than LP-12 ...
Don't expect digital products from Linn for at least 2 years - if ever.
They said it (the Numerik) would cost at least 5000-00 if scaled down
(= ULA / ASIC technology (Uncomitted Logic Array / Application Specific
IC))
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 217.1 | Professional Use Only... | SKIWI::EATON | Marketing - the rubber meets the sky | Tue Oct 16 1990 23:00 | 7 |
As I understand the Numerik, Linn have had this product for some time and have sold it to recording studios... Persistant rumours I'm hearing are saying that Linn are developing a *digital* filter for the LP12 to handle the problem of record noise. Anyone else heard these ? | |||||
| 217.2 | Wait, but don't hold your breath.... | BAHTAT::SALLITT | Dave @RKG, 831-3117 | Thu Oct 18 1990 14:00 | 32 |
re .0/.1
I had sight of a Numerik whilst visiting Linn back in April. It looked
about the size of a rackmount DECserver 500, was unpainted, etc. I
hoped I'd be offered a peek behind the covers, but no chance!
The latest copy of Linn's publicity mag "The Record", (and HiFi Review
and Audiophile) have interviews with Neil Gibson, the Numerik's
designer. So far, Linn do not intend to sell these things to studios as
they feel they will lose control over their application; went a Numerik
is loaned to a studio, someone from Linn goes along to check where
degradation can slip in from the studio gear itself, and to monitor eq,
mixdown, etc. to make sure the classy digital master they help to
produce doesn't get screwed up later.
Re the rumour about a digital filter, Ivor Tiefenbrun refers to the
concept in an article in "The Record", but no more than that. Whilst IT
says that current methods for cleaning up old analogue recordings have
many drawbacks, he sees no reason why it shouldn't work, provided the
industry is allowed to produce a product that works, as opposed to one
that'll sell for a big margin now (that was always IT's main gripe
about CD - not that it couldn't work, but that market pressures have
forced the public into accepting an inferior standard). I wouldn't mind
betting that Linn will have something out before long, for reprocessing
old recordings to today's standards; it'll be a pro machine, and better
than anything currently available. Linn seem to know what they're doing
with digital; apparently CDs produced using the Numerik in the studio
sound better than many so-called audiophile CDs.
Dave
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