Everyone wants the latest ‘cool’ technology, but they have to be willing to pay for it. Stephen Dawson looks at the latest sleek-yet-pricey network audio player from Linn.

Famed British hi-fi equipment maker Linn is back with a new network audio system, this time its entry level model. Sticking with its theme of having a ‘K’ in its product names, this is the Sneaky.

I’m not sure what, if anything, that is meant to imply.

What is it?
The Sneaky DSM is kind of a dual purpose device: it acts as a mini, two channel amplifier with video switching capabilities, so you can use it with a Blu-ray player or digital TV receiver (or both; there are three HDMI inputs). HDMI is the only video that is handled, and this is just passed straight through with no processing, aside from the audio being extracted for amplification of course.

In addition to HDMI audio, though, you can plug in a single analogue device or provide digital audio in the form of either optical or coaxial.

But it’s the other function, the network part, that this unit is primarily about. Essentially you can stream music to it from various devices – it is both AirPlay and DLNA compatible – and also use it to grab internet radio stations.

Aside from the hard-wired power switch on the left side, there are no controls on the unit proper, indeed not any display either. There’s just a single LED that has three states: bright, dull or flashing (the latter only while the system is booting up when switched on). Instead you control it using a computer or portable device that feeds music to it, in conjunction with the supplied remote control.

Your network connection must be wired. Despite the not inconsiderable cost of this unit, it does not support WiFi.

The unit is stereo only, too, and has two speaker outputs. It is rated at 33W per channel. If you find that too limiting it also offers a pair of analogue line outputs, which are volume controlled by the unit, so you can use whatever power amplifiers or active speakers you prefer.

Setting Up
The only documentation provided with the unit is a multi-language ‘Safety Information’ booklet, of the kind made necessary by litigious practitioners in various countries. There’s nothing about how to set up the unit nor even what it does.

Fortunately I know that with these kinds of products Linn provides the information online, so I looked through the container for the web address, then examined the carton. Nothing. Second time around, though, I finally spotted it in black text on a transparent sticker adhered to the inside top of the carton.

Seriously, when you’re spending $3,500 on what may well be your first ever network streamer, a little bit of comfort in the form of a prominent card describing how you set up the system by going to whatever web address wouldn’t be amiss. Just one little card.

Upon going to the specified address you find a wizard to download (there are separate Windows and Mac versions). It’s a 40MB download in the former version. Run that and you find it’s actually an installation program for the wizard. When it’s finished, run the wizard itself and it will guide you through setup, step-by-detailed-step. There are separate pages for plugging in the power cord, for example, and for switching the main power switch.

There’s also a useful page on making speaker connections. The unit uses Neutrik Speakon connections for the speakers. These are the kind of things you see on some pro-audio gear. You get two plugs in the box and the wizard shows you how to wire them up.

It guides you through connecting sources, giving opportunities at various points to make sure the connected things are working properly. Don’t think you can skip this. I’d set it up just for a single HDMI input. Later I wanted to check its digital audio handling. I spent twenty minutes trying to get a coaxial digital, then an optical digital, signal to work with the unit. Remember: no display to show what input was engaged, and no instructions so it was unclear which input key selected these. So I just cycled through the inputs and waited for sound to emerge.

Which it didn’t. Until I remembered to re-run the wizard and this time select optical input as being in use. It could be a good idea when you’re running the wizard to specify all the inputs you may potentially use in the future.

Oddly, when I had done this it was easy enough to switch from music streaming from iTunes to the optical input, but I could not switch back to the stream… using the remote anyway. The work-around was to go back to the computer, switch in iTunes to another playback device, and then switch back to the Sneaky.

Streaming
Really, streaming is what the Sneaky is all about. There are many different ways to stream music to the unit. Or seemingly, but they actually boil down to three separate functions. The first is by using the ‘SongCast’ application available from Linn. This basically intercepts whatever sounds your computer is producing and sends them through your network to the Sneaky. That is useful for playing YouTube videos and so on. But remember, your computer may well produce many sounds that you don’t particularly want streamed, such as ‘mail received’ notification noises and the like.

If you only want to use the Sneaky for high quality music reproduction, then it’s probably best to skip SongCast and instead go for DLNA. Use third party DLNA server software to feed high resolution FLAC files and the like to the unit (Windows Media Player doesn’t support FLAC, and virtually nothing supports its own WMA lossless format).

If your music is mostly ripped from CDs, then you can happily stick with Apple’s iTunes or Windows Media Player. The unit supports AirPlay streamed content from the former, and DLNA content fed from the latter. You can use Linn’s Kinsky app on both Apple and Android devices to control the latter. And you can stream via AirPlay with the former.

From Windows 7 on, Windows Media Player provides ‘Play To’, an AirPlay-like push function for streaming, which also works with the unit, allowing you to easily set up playlists, or manually create ad hoc lists of songs for playback by dragging songs and albums into the list.

Sound
All that worked as it should. Linn has engineered the system so that when things are switched there are no harsh jumps, let alone clicks, just a ramping down volume from one source, followed by a ramping up of the volume from a second.

I used three different sets of speakers: tiny active ones plugged into the line outputs, old bookshelf speakers driven by the unit’s own amplifiers, and heavy, $10,000 floor-standers, also driven by the unit.

The better the speaker, the better the performance by far. The Sneaky was perfectly happy driving the large speakers (they have a 90dB sensitivity rating). And it sounded very good indeed with them. Good volume levels were achievable without stress, and the bass control was solid.

If you’re using the unit for audio from physically connected sources, it seemed to be limited to PCM inputs. HDMI will manage this automatically, but when I tried the optical input, neither Dolby Digital nor DTS worked. I set the DVD player to down-convert to stereo PCM and it worked fine. It was perfectly happy, too, with the 96kHz, 24 bit stereo PCM I fed to it.

Conclusion
The problem with this unit is, well, price.

Linn has, of course, an awesome reputation. But seriously, for $3,500 you can buy some extremely impressive equipment that, while nowhere near as cool, will kill this unit for performance. I include in that category the top-end home theatre receivers from several brands which are perfectly happy streaming high resolution audio – with AirPlay and DLNA support built in – and provide a great deal more grunt (in stereo mode, 140W per channel) and other conveniences, such as USB inputs.

But, hey, cool does cost. And those receivers are bulky and, well, try as their manufacturers might, just plain ugly. This simple little while box is neat and, to your non-technically-au fait visitors, will seem just like magic.