Support question

On lina Amp. The two 3 Pin HP connections and the one 4 pin connector. Can you use both at the same time IE have two headphones plugged in at the same time so you don’t have to switch each time you choose a different HP?

How many heads do you have? :thinking:

You could be listening with someone else.

Sorry Leo, now you are clearly losing the plot… :rofl:

Some might say i lost it a long time ago😀

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Many of us have multiple cans we use and you don’t want to change the connection often and exposure it to damage from removal and reinserting into the pins. Lina amp provides options for connecting with the 3 pin type , hence the question.

My second head needs a longer cord…

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Good question Anthony. Likewise, I have a custom IEM on unbalanced connected at the same time as my Susvara.

As the Lina Amp has discrete drivers for each of the ports, I belive there’s no harm leaving multiple headphones connected in all the time.

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IIRC you are using a Vivaldi stack @Anupc, correct? If so, which headamp are you using? Do you have an amp and speakers or are you cans-only? Apologies if you posted all this in the ‘Showing off…’ thread, I don’t recall seeing it.

I’ve got the full Vivaldi stack in my main listening room, and a Lina stack in my home-office.

Ah, I see. What do you have downstream of the Vivaldi? Have you posted this anywhere? Apologies, playing catch up here.

You can have multiple pairs connected at the same time, but it’s not advised. Not going to damage anything, just might lower the performance of the amp, especially if you are connecting two pairs of inefficient headphones.

One pair and some IEMs is likely negligible from an amp performance perspective, though when you get the amp up to the levels you need for Susvara, the IEMs will probably have spat their drivers across the room if they’re still connected :grin:

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Thanks all, I appreciate the info and it satisfied my question

The Lina HeadAmp should drive two Utopias easily. First, it’s a very punchy and dynamic headphone, and I noticed that it sounds loud enough for my hearing with the volume dial at around 10.30 when the 6V output on the Lina DAC is used.

Second, I found this write-up on headphone sensitivity which I‘m quoting from. https://homestudiobasics.com/what-is-sensitivity-in-headphones/

“A headphone like the HD600 has 97dB of Sensitivity and a 300 Ohm Impedance.”

“This basically means that it requires around 20mW of power to reach this ceiling of 110dB that we talked about.”

“I have already demoed the Utopia’s on many occasions and to this day they are still the best headphones I’ve ever heard.” [I totally agree]

“I was using the fantastic NAIM DAC-V1 and first started with the LCD-4.”

“It took quite a bit of knob-turning to get the music to an optimal listening level. Why? Because it’s not very efficient. Its Sensitivity is 97dB.”

“The Utopia’s Sensitivity is 104dB/mW, so it needs less juice to reach optimal levels.”

“You can easily tell since the volume must be turned back down before listening to the Utopia. It simply doesn’t need a whole lot to get pumping.”

“So with a headphone that has a 105dB of Sensitivity, only 2.5mW of power is required to reach optimal loudness (110dB SPL).”

The Lina HeadAmp with the Lina DAC output at 6V drives two Utopias easily so two people can listen at the same time. The volume dial at 11 to 12 o’clock is perfect for the balanced signal, it’s probably around 6 dB less loud with the unbalanced cable but one can use the dual 3-Pin connection for equal volume level.

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6V is 6V line output single ended or balanced. Of course if the balanced cable that you use sounds quieter than the single ended one then that may be because of the cable’s sensitivity e.g resistance rather than Lina. It also means that your experience is nit necessarily repeatable in other circumstances.

An alternative to this could be that setting an output voltage is not applicable to all outputs ( single ended or balanced are different ports). In which case check the output setting when selecting either output.

It’s a misunderstanding. I stated the opposite.

Quote from this link https://www.boxcast.com/blog/balanced-vs.-unbalanced-audio-whats-the-difference#:~:text=Because%20balanced%20signals%20send%20two,what%20unbalanced%20signals%20can%20provide.
“Because balanced signals send two in-phase signals, they’re also louder (roughly 6–10 dB) than what unbalanced signals can provide.”

Even if I got it round the wrong way round the answer is basically the same. If the output is 6v it is 6V irrelevant if it is single ended or balanced.

The reason why many find that single ended sounds quieter than balanced is because the amp designers often use the most economic way of deriving the single ended signal. As you probably know a balanced signal sums two signals in opposite polarity. This doubles the resulting voltage. For a single ended output if the same circuit is used but with only the + or - signal this produces half the voltage compared with balanced ( -6dB) as there is no summing.

fdCS have not used this method in other products as they have built totally different circuits for each output mode. Hence they are able for both to produce identical output voltages. The Lina specifications are not clear on this but you will see that if 6V output is claimed accurately for both then the resulting SPL will be the same. However if using only one half of a balanced circuit is used for single ended then if balanced is set at 6V then single ended output has to be 3V. However the output settings quoted by are 0.2V, 0.6V, 2V and 6V. there is no specification for 0.1V, 0.3V, 1V or 3V. So perhaps Lina uses the same system as all of their other products ? dCS do not normally give inaccurate or incomplete specifications.

Ok, thanks. I will give it a more careful listen later in the week when I’m less tired. My impression today was that the single ended was definitely quieter. It could be because one was the stock cable and one the Cardas Clear Beyond. I will eventually get a dual 3-pin XLR cable and see what happens when both balanced connections are used. At the moment, I’m quite happy that there is no negative impact on SQ and that the Lina has more than enough power to drive two or even three headphones at the same time.

Hello DCS community, owner of a transport cd and a Paganini clock I would like to know if it would be interesting for the sound quality of the CD transport to invest in a Paganini Upsampler we listen to a lot of cds but not a lot of files… for your information my DAC is a Linn Akurate DSM Katalyst which does not read the DSD so the importance of my question is that the signal going through the Upsampler will go from 16 to 24 bits not having this DSD function Thank you for your answers

Hi Sylvain, Yes, you can choose to stay in the PCM domain with appropriate filter settings on the Upsampler and not transcode to DSD.