Lina Headphone Amplifier - Show Demo Unit

Open Box Customer Review unit

Includes Full 3 Year dCS Warranty - Like New - Final Sale

dCS's powerful solid state amplifier is designed to drive even the most sensitive headphones to their full potential.

• Drives a vast range of headphones, including IEMs and planars
• Complements virtually and headfi setup
• Unique design offers exceptional sonic and measured performance

KEY FEATURES

• Low output impedance ensures optimal sound with a huge range of headphones - including highly sensitive models
• Solid state design provides consistent, clean performance
• Choice of inputs caters to a variety of digital sources and audio setups
• Class AB design with DC server system delivers high power efficiency and excellent linearity
• Solid aluminium chassis reduces risk of electromagnetic interference
• Transparent performance faithfully mirrors the sound of your chosen music and headphones

ABOUT

Whether you’re listening with custom IEMs or reference-level over-ears, the Lina Headphone Amplifier will ensure you experience the full impact of your chosen headphones, and your music. With its ultra-low output impedance, it confidently drives a vast range of designs, and adapts to suit their unique requirements and characteristics for optimal performance.

dCS's first ever standalone amplifier, its design builds on learnings gained from their experience working at the forefront of audio design and engineering, and developing a custom Class A headphone amplifier for the award-winning dCS Bartok Headphone DAC. Following the Bartok’s release, dCS set out to further their work in headphone amplification, and engineer a standalone component that could be used separately or as part of a complete dCS headfi system.

Through exhaustive development, extensive testing, and creative thinking, we developed an all-new design that combines tried and tested features with novel innovations engineered to further enhance performance and efficiency.

The result is an exemplary headphone amplifier that delivers plenty of power and grip, while maintaining complete neutrality. With its low noise floor, wide dynamic range and excellent linearity, it delivers a compelling, dynamic experience that reveals the true sound and character of your music and headphones.

Choice without compromise

Different kinds of headphones require differing amounts of voltage and current, depending on their efficiency and impedance. The Lina Headphone Amplifier is specifically designed to cope with widely varying loads and deliver an outstanding performance with a huge range of headphones - whatever their individual requirements or characteristics. This is achieved through a range of features and factors, including a low output impedance design, low noise floor, wide dynamic range, and an adjustable gain switch which removes the risk of hiss when listening with highly sensitive equipment.

Perfect neutrality

All dCS products are carefully engineered to provide the highest level of transparency, and the Lina Headphone Amplifier is no exception. dCS went to great lengths to create an amplifier that drives your headphones to the best of their ability, while honouring their unique character - be it neutral, warm, bright, cool, or anything in between. Developed and tested with a variety of headphones, it is an amplifier that preserves and celebrates the sound of your chosen equipment, so you can experience your headphones exactly as the designer or manufacturer intended.

Ambitious engineering

A truly ‘ground up’ design, the Lina Headphone Amplifier is engineered to deliver the highest levels of performance, quality and reliability. This is reflected in everything from the arrangement of internal components, to the design of its circuitry, electronics, and solid aluminium casework (selected for its excellent acoustic and electromagnetic properties.) dCS has relentlessly studied and questioned every aspect of headphone amplification, developing new features and techniques, while pushing existing technologies to their limits, with the sole aim of creating the finest headphone amplifier available.

A perfect companion

The Lina Headphone Amplifier’s variety of balanced and unbalanced inputs make it a perfect addition to virtually any high-end headfi setup. Buffered and unbuffered options make it compatible with both high and low impedance digital sources, and guarantee the best possible sound from whatever source you choose to connect. Pair with the Lina Network DAC for the ultimate headfi experience, or use it individually with whatever system you desire.

A novel approach

The Lina Headphone Amplifier features a unique Class AB output stage that allows us to maintain a high degree of linearity and efficiency. Its design offers the fidelity of Class A system with the thermal properties of a Class B, meaning less heat generation, higher efficiency, and none of the crossover distortion problems typically associated with Class B designs. To achieve this, dCS developed a DC servo system with novel error correction technique, which allows us to maintain a clean signal path and correct incoming voltages at source. This approach provides all the performance benefits of a Class A system, while keeping also keeping heat and power usage under control.

Enjoy the full Lina experience with a Network Streaming DAC, Class AB Headphone Amplifier and Grade 1 Master Clock.

• Designed and hand-assembled in the United Kingdom
• Purpose built for headphone playback
• Engineered for the purest expression and the finest possible sound

• Solid state Headphone Amplifier ensures optimal performance with a vast range of headphones, from IEMs through to reference-level over ears
• dCS Ring DAC and Digital Processing Platform guarantee exceptional sound from all digital recordings - whatever the source, genre or audio format
• Network DAC supports streaming via Roon, Spotify, Deezer, Qobuz, TIDAL, Internet Radio and Apple AirPlay
• Lina Master Clock delivers precise and stable clocking reference, for enhanced synchronisation and improved sound quality when streaming or listening via USB
• Modular three stack design allows you to configure your system to suit your space, arranging units horizontally or vertically
• Flexible, FPGA-based architecture ensures long product lifespan, with new features and enhancements delivered via simple software updates

ABOUT

With a dedicated Network DAC, Headphone Amplifier and Master Clock, Lina is the first dCS system purpose built for headphone listening. Designed to drive a vast range of headphones, and deliver incredible sound from all digital recordings, it offers the ultimate sonic experience for headfi connoisseurs.

A bold vision

Lina began with a desire to create the definitive system for headphone playback - one that reveals the full potential of your chosen headphones, and the full breadth of detail and emotion in your music. Drawing on our extensive experience developing pioneering audio products and technologies - including the multi award-winning dCS Vivaldi, Rossini and Bartók - we set out to engineer a brand new series that embodies our singular approach to sound reproduction, while reflecting the unique needs and demands of headphone listeners.

Rooted in heritage

Lina is a product made possible through three decades of relentless innovation - a tireless pursuit to advance the standard of sound reproduction, and bring people closer to the music they love. Informed by 35 years of continuous development, it combines state-of-the-art hardware and software with a technical lineage that can be traced back to the advent of digital audio, and the creation of the world’s first ever high-resolution digital converters.

A custodian of sound

Offering technical precision, transparency and musicality in equal measure, Lina reproduces each aspect of a recording - from the subtlest of sonic details, to the sense of rhythm, movement and harmonic flow - with absolute integrity. Whatever your chosen track, it delivers a performance that feels vividly detailed, effortlessly natural, emotionally compelling and always faithful to the music. Put simply, it brings a new level of realism and purity to headphone playback.

High performance, small footprint

Lina uses state of the art circuitry, electronics and digital processing to deliver a huge range of features in a compact and elegant format. Its unique flexible circuit board allows us to provide all of the functions you’d expect from a dCS system in a much smaller footprint, without compromising on sound or performance. Our smallest product series yet, it is designed for use in a wide range of environments, from shared offices to home studios, bedrooms and smaller living spaces.

Tailor made

Every element of Lina’s design - from its touch screen UI to its tactile painted coating, understated aesthetic, and slimline, modular form - has been carefully considered and developed with headphone listeners in mind. This ‘purpose built’ ethos extends not just to external features, but internal circuitry, components and software. Unique in its design, sound and capabilities, it combines our renowned playback technologies with a wealth of innovations developed exclusively for the headfi community.

Designed for you

Lina provides the freedom to listen however you choose, without compromise. Together, its Network Streaming DAC, Headphone Amplifier and Clock provide a complete digital audio system that confidently handles each aspect of the playback process. With its wide range of inputs and outputs, powerful streaming platform, and flexible settings, it delivers a stunning experience, whatever your listening preferences, equipment or musical tastes.

Press and Reviews

Moon Audio

by Drew Baird
May 2022

LINA Introduction

by dCS
June 2022