Linn Majik DSM (5th Gen)

Design

• Crisp monochrome display
• Even crisper glass-and-LED control dial

One person’s minimal is another’s featureless, I realise – but for my money the broad strokes of the Majik DSM design work really well. It’s only available in one finish – black – and when it’s not operating, the fascia is equally black, with only a 6.3mm headphone socket and some small type confirming the brand and model of the device breaking the darkness.

The chassis is formed from a single sheet of powder-coated aluminium – it’s 2mm thick, finished to a satin-like sheen and is punched, cut and folded at Linn HQ in Glasgow. The standard of fit and finish is impeccable, and if anything it makes the Majik DSM look and feel like an even more expensive product than it actually is.

This impression of sophisticated understatement is enhanced by the company’s signature cut-glass control dial which sits on the top of the box (there’s a central foot of identical dimensions at the bottom, which makes it look like one continuous tube).

It features 100 LEDs that illuminate to indicate the amount of volume that’s been dialled in, and casually carries the company logo in the centre. Iconic is a word that gets overused these days, but I’m struggling for a more apt description.

About the only false note where design is concerned centres around the fascia display. Sure, it’s bright and crisply rendered, high-contrast and legible, and it hands over all relevant information – and it responds to commands from the full-system remote control handset rapidly and reliably.

But these days, streaming amplifiers use their display to, well, display other things too – album artwork from music streaming services or network-attached devices, say, or virtual VU meters. Nothing essential, I know, but definitely among the nicer of the ‘nice to haves’ – and it’s in this area alone that the Linn’s minimalism is anything less than welcome.

Features

• 50 watts of Class D power per channel (at 8 ohms)
• DSD256 and 24-bit/384kHz digital audio resolution
• Moving magnet and moving coil phono amplification

I’m moving away from minimal now. The Majik DSM is a thoughtfully specified device, one that has the hardware, as well as the inputs, that make it well capable of supporting an extensive system.

On the inside, Class D amplification built around TI modules and derived from the circuit developed for the much pricier Selekt DSM twists out 50 watts per channel into an 8-ohm load – and that figure doubles as loudspeaker impedance halves.

Digital-to-analogue conversion is based on the company’s Katalyst DAC that first saw service in the even-pricier-than-Selekt Klimax DSM – 24-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256 resolutions are catered for. The technology in the latest Majik DSM has not so much trickled down as poured.

As far as inputs are concerned, the Linn is not short. There are wireless options, of course – dual-band Wi-Fi means internet radio, Apple AirPlay 2, and the Connect version of Spotify is available, and it allows the Majik DSM to be Roon Ready too.

Bluetooth is available too, in rather antiquated 4.2 version – but let’s face it, for a product like this Bluetooth is little more than a courtesy.

The physical stuff consists of an Ethernet socket, naturally, and there’s an HDMI eARC socket in case you want to involve your TV in your Linn system. There are further digital options in the shape of a USB-C slot, a digital optical input, and an S/PDIF connection that can be configured as an output rather than an input if you so desire.

A couple of line-level inputs are on RCAs, and there are two phono stages too – one moving coil, the other moving magnet. So don’t say you don’t have options.

Outputs consist of a line-level analogue output on a pair of RCAs, a couple of pre-outs for use with subwoofers, that headphone socket I already mentioned, the S/PDIF output if you’ve configured it that way, and binding posts for a pair of loudspeakers. 

As well as the remote control handset (which features assignable shortcut buttons as well as headline functionality), Linn’s control app is available for iOS and Android. The app is comprehensive, clean in the way it’s presented, and allows integration of some of the better music streaming services out there as well as offering complete system control.

It can occasionally be forgetful, though, and equally occasionally will insist on having a long, hard think about what you’ve asked for before getting around to giving it. 

Ownership of the Majik DSM (5th Gen) also gives access to Linn’s Space Optimisation software – and if there’s a more thorough way of making sure your system is as fully attuned to your listening area as possible, I’ve yet to encounter it.

Tell the software everything about your space (and I mean everything, from the type of speakers you’re using and the dimensions of the room to the space’s humidity and the materials used in its construction) and the system will  automatically calibrate itself accordingly.

Performance

• Rapid, detailed and unified sound
• Great powers of control and resolution
• Direct and positive in all circumstances

Obviously it concerns itself with every aspect of music reproduction, but Linn’s major preoccupation concerns time-alignment.

Music sounds more convincing and more complete, goes the reasoning, if every scrap of frequency information in a recording is delivered to the listener’s ears at exactly the same time. If it doesn’t, the idea of unity and of performance goes, to a lesser or greater extent, out of the window.

Given that the Majik DSM (5th Gen) offers an extremely persuasive suggestion of togetherness, of performance and musicality, it seems reasonable to assume Linn’s powers where time-alignment is concerned are as strong as ever.

This impression of a unified presentation is apparent no matter what you’re listening to or from where you source it. During the course of this test I listen to vinyl via a Technics SL-1300G equipped with a Goldring 1042 cartridge, CDs using a Rega Apollo, and stream music from TIDAL and via a Buffalo NAS device.

I listen to music as varied as Andrew Weatherall’s Qualia, Michelangelo Dying by Cate Le Bon and John Coltrane’s My Favourite Things. And every time, the Majik DSM (5th Gen) delivers a confident and utterly convincing presentation.

The soundstage the Linn creates is spacious, properly defined and allows every element on it all the elbow-room it needs to express itself. There’s more than enough dynamic headroom available to make the numerous fluctuations in volume and intensity in the Coltrane recording absolutely apparent. And where tonality is concerned, the DSM seems more than willing to get out of the way of a recording and allow it to dictate terms.

At the bottom of the frequency range it’s capable of impressive extension, genuine weight and stunning rapidity – the Linn controls bass sounds with such authority that recording fairly blaze along, expressing rhythms with absolute positivity. Some may hanker after a little more meat on the low-end bones, but anyone who values momentum, impact and variation at the bottom end will find plenty to excite them here.

At the opposite end of the frequency range the Majik DSM (5th Gen) comes this close to overplaying its hand. Treble sounds are just as detailed, just as substantial and just as loaded with variation as every other part of the frequency range, but if handled carelessly where system-matching is concerned it’s not difficult to imagine them becoming rather too assertive and forthright. Avoid speakers (in particular) with a propensity to hit treble sounds especially hard, and you should be fine.

In between, the Linn communicates the midrange in the most decisive and eloquent way. It’s such an articulate, expressive device where voices are concerned that all of the secrets of tone and technique, of character and attitude and emotional state, are made absolute plain. The sensation of disclosure, of the whole story being told in the most explicit fashion, is extremely strong.

Should you buy it?