Linn Klimax_DSM
Linn Akurate System
Linn Kandid Cartridge

Multi-room Systems

Multi-Room means music or video in every room you want it – but connected. You can play the same or different music in every room at the same time, with easy to use controls. Start playing a Movie in one room, pause it, then continue playing it in another one. These days digital streaming means that the lines between a single HiFi and a Multi-room system are blurred, with the streamer effectively linking rooms together.

We have several multi-room manufacturers to choose from, most of which use a standard infrastructure, and so are broadly interchangeable. The Linn Digital Streaming system is one of the best established and offers some of the most flexible audiophile quality sound, controlled from handheld wireless control devices such as a phone or iPad. There are Blusound, Nu-Vo or Denon etc for great for budget systems. For those that prefer the legendary Linn or Naim sounds, we offer the full range of Naim and Linn digital streaming multi-room components.

We believe these provide the finest quality audio coupled with reliability and ease of use. Both Naim Audio and Linn have been at the forefront of top quality audio systems in the UK for many years and are associated with audio excellence.

All of our systems are based on a central music server which distributes the sound via a digital Ethernet (Cat-6) network rather than trying to centralise the players and amplifiers in one place leading to long speaker cables and severe loss of audio quality.  The systems we use are easier to wire up (See our page on Multi-room wiring), use short speaker cables for higher quality sound, and are ultimately much more flexible.  The bonus is that you usually get an improved Home Data Network and WiFi for your computers and tablets as a bi-product of the system installation.

Our Multi-room Systems can also form part of a Whole House or Home Automation System, where you have simple control of lights, Heating, CCTV, TV and Audio in every room you want it; even from the other side of the world, should you require. See our Home Automation Systems page for more details

Linn Multi-room Systems

The Linn DS range of music streamers

Linn Klimax DSM
Linn Klimax DSM

Imagine it, you pick up your iPad, select your favourite music tracks on a simple menu, press play and hear your music better than the worlds best CD player can achieve. That’s the Klimax DS. Simple, elegant, future-proof.

How it works…

Firstly, your entire digital music selection is stored on dedicated audiophile grade server such as a Melco N1Z.

The CD’s are “ripped” onto the drive using software which repeatedly reads the CD until it has a high degree of confidence it has an exact copy. This gives a much more accurate source than a cd player trying to achieve the same thing in a single pass. You can also store your i-tunes library, and 24bit Studio Master Quality Files that are easily downloaded from the Internet from the many websites dedicated for just this.

Linn MajikWe recommend using FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec – see our digital streaming glossary) for storing the CD’s as it does not lose any of the data. and supports full meta-tagging of the music files, so you know what they are. We will set up your system so you don’t have to worry about software. Your controller can be any “universal plug and play” compatible device such as an i-pad, i-phone  Android phone or a laptop PC. Again we can supply and/or set up this device for you so it’s easy to use.

The server and the Linn DS are plugged into a home network ethernet switch such as you’d find in a typical wireless home network. This allows the CD ripping software to find the album artwork and track names etc. from the internet, again free of charge.

Using your  i-pad, the music data is streamed from the NAS drive to the DS and is played back far more accurately than a CD player. The sound quality is astonishing – we’ve yet to hear a better digital source.

Fill your house full of music

The addition of a Linn Sneaky DS or Sekrit DS-i in each room gives you access to your entire music collection without the need for additional amplifiers, as they have their own built in power amps. Simply connect a pair of speakers and plug it into the ethernet network.

Selekt DSM

Your Linn DS does not have to be limited to CD quality playback – you can now download studio master quality music files from the Linn Website (and others) using 24bit resolution and up to 192KHz sample rate. These can be played back in full native resolution – which is quite simply jaw dropping !

Anyone who is a fan of Analogue audio sources should hear this – it will change the way you think about your music.

Make sense of the jargon used with our Digital Streaming Glossary 

Naim Multi-Room Systems

The Naim Digital Streaming solutions, have matured in to a highly capable family of digital streaming players to cover a variety of rooms. From the “Uniti Atom” single box streaming player/amplifier to the ND555 Reference network player, there are seven different levels of digital streaming players to choose from. These are all controlled by Naim’s dedicated control App for the iPad / iPhone (or Android device).

Naim Uniti Atom multi-room system player


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Naim NDS Reference streaming player – part of a Naim multi-room system

naim-muso-and-qube

Naim MuSo and MuSo QB – portable multi-room system players

Naim Control App, available as a free download from iTunes:

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Naim’s nStream App uses the ROVI database, which provides access to the usual CD booklet info and a wealth of other information about the artist, composers, band members etc. complete with discographies and more background information than would normally be fitted into CD booklets.

Bluesound Multi-Room solutions

Coming from the NAD Audio pedigree, Bluesound create an impressive suite of Network coupled Multi-room components:

  • Node – streaming source only
  • PowerNode – combined Streaming player and Power Amplifier
  • Pulse 2
  • Pulse – powered streaming speakers
  • Soundbar
  • Subwoofer

Capable of streaming 24bit high resolution Audio, these are great sounding products for anything from a single room to a whole house audio system. Play local audio, Internet radio, your favourite streaming services or your own music stored on a server, these are flexible audio products which all operate together within the Bluesound ecosystem.

Bluesound products

 

 

Central Media Server for Music – Melco

Melco-N1Z-front-sqThe Heart of the multi-room system is the music server. This could be a dedicated server such as the Melco N1  here, or it could be a more conventional NAS drive or a PC.

The Melco N1 Music server is so slick to use, it’s a bit of a no-brainer when it comes to storing your valuable music collection.

All you have to do is insert your CD into the Ripping Drive (if you have that option), accept the Rip entry on the front panel and wait a few minutes until it has finished. Job Done! It really is that simple.  (meanwhile the Melco N1 has looked up the CD track names, album title, artist, album artwork etc. and added this information to the file so you can easily navigate your collection using either Linn, Naim other compatible controller Apps)

Video Multi-room Systems

Central Video Server for Movies and Music

For storing and distributing all your DVD’s we recommend the Kaleidescape range of servers and players. Like the music server above, you can drop a DVD into the slot, and within minutes it is available to view either locally, or distributed around you whole house network (via Cat-5 computer cable) to your remote players.

Kaleidescape Terra Server

The Kaleidescape Server provides ultra-reliable storage for your favorite movies and music. A single Terra Server can store up to 1500 full 4K Movies (88Tb version) . Multiple Servers can be clustered in a single System to store thousands of movies and albums as a single collection. Start with a single 6Tb compact Terra Server which can store up to 100 full 4K movies, and grow your system.

Kaleidescape Strato C

For more information on the very slick and user freindly operation of the Kaleidescape system click here.