91%
dCS Audio Lina Network DAC
The heart of your dCS Lina system, our powerful network streaming DAC delivers extraordinary sound from any digital source
- Compatible with all digital audio formats
- Supports hi-res streaming from Roon, TIDAL, Qobuz, Spotify, Deezer, AirPlay & more
- Features our renowned dCS Ring DAC TM and Digital Processing Platform
Key Features
- dCS Ring DAC™ system and Digital Processing Platform ensure audio is reproduced with absolute integrity, for a highly detailed, musical and deeply natural sound
- dCS Mosaic platform supports hi-res streaming via Roon, Spotify, Deezer, Qobuz, TIDAL, Internet Radio and Apple AirPlay
- Patented dCS Expanse technology offers enhanced headphone optimisation, for a more natural and immersive experience when listening to a wide range of stereo recordings
- Touch screen UI with customisable menu allows listeners to easily control playback and adjust system settings
- Flexible firmware provides unlimited scope for future upgrades, with new features and enhancements delivered via simple software updates
- All-new electronic and mechanical design delivers a vast range of features in a compact and elegant format, while digital volume control function removes need for separate pre-amp
About the Lina DAC
The Lina Network Streaming DAC is both a continuation and a new beginning. Its design combines renowned dCS technologies and all of the benefits listeners have come to expect from a dCS DAC with a wealth of new innovations, including an all-new mechanical design, plus new technologies developed specifically for headphone listening. It is a complete reimagining of form and function, created with the same relentless focus and ambition as our world-renowned Bartók, Rossini and Vivaldi DACs.
The DAC utilises proprietary dCS playback technologies, including the famous dCS Ring DAC™ and our endlessly flexible Digital Processing Platform, to deliver a deeply natural, highly detailed, and profoundly musical sound. With its wide dynamic range, crisp, clear playback, expansive soundstage, and tonal neutrality, it delivers a highly revealing and compelling performance that uncovers the true depth and essence of a recording.
Its powerful flex-rigid circuit board enables us to deliver a huge range of features in a compact chassis (our smallest yet). The result is a supremely capable product that caters to a wide range of settings, including rooms where space is at a premium.
Add unique headphone optimisation technology, a high-performance streaming platform, and digital volume control enabling use in systems without a preamp, and you have a hugely versatile source that delivers a spectacular performance in a vast range of setups. Designed to inspire, inform and entertain, it will give you a whole new perspective on the artists and recordings you love.
Effortless listening
While the Lina Network DAC offers a vast range of features, it is designed with simplicity, convenience and ease of use in mind. Its streamlined user interface allows you to easily navigate system settings, select music and manage your playback experience, while the dCS Mosaic app offers an intuitive and painless way to browse and access music from multiple sources and audio libraries. With a choice of inputs and outputs, and user selectable filters, it allows you to seamlessly enjoy audio from any source, in any format, without compromise.
Scrupulous design
Crafted from billet aluminium (a material selected for its excellent acoustic properties), the Lina Network DAC has been meticulously designed to deliver the finest possible sound, with the lowest possible levels of distortion and noise. Each aspect of its design - from its billet aluminium casework, to its internal fixings and components, and proprietary hardware and software - is carefully engineered and exhaustively tested to ensure it provides the best possible experience, and the highest levels of quality and reliability. This holistic approach and obsessive attention to detail is one of the reasons that dCS DACs sound so sublime.
Unlimited potential
The Lina Network DAC’s performance is driven by a completely flexible control board - the dCS Digital Processing Platform. This powerful, robust and highly intelligent system operates on code written by dCS engineers, and it can be endlessly updated to deliver any number of new features and enhancements. This means we are able to continue upgrading Lina’s performance over time, and ensure that each system delivers a state-of-the-art experience long after it’s purchased.
Incredible sound
At the heart of all dCS DACs is the Ring DAC™: a proprietary digital-to-analogue conversation system renowned for its ultra-wide bandwidth, technical accuracy, and ability to reveal astonishing levels of detail in digital recordings - from the subtlest of sounds, to the sense of time and harmonic movement, and the atmosphere that surrounds a musical performance. This unique component is an integral part of our systems, and remains unrivalled in its sonic and technical abilities.
Extraordinary technology
At the heart of Lina’s design is a powerful flex-rigid circuit board housing over 2,000 individual components. Designed by dCS engineers, this extraordinary piece of technology allows us to combine all of Lina’s core functions and features on to a single circuit. This not only saves space, it also allows us to deliver an incredibly clean signal path, which is essential for great audio.
Enhanced optimisation
Available to all Lina Network DAC owners, dCS Expanse is a unique headphone processing platform which offers an enhanced version of crossfeed optimisation. With its unique multi-stage processing method, Expanse optimises audio while preserving the reverberation in a recording (something that is crucial to helping us localise sounds, and establish a sense of space and depth.) Accessed via two optional settings, it can provide a heightened sense of realism when listening to a wide range of stereo recordings.
WATT RECOMMENDS
Save your favorites. Compare them anytime.
Create a free HiFi Hub account to save products to your Wishlist and compare your favorites side by side.
Professional Reviews 91/100
Deliciously Crispy
Sound Quality
93/100
Build Quality
91/100
Features Connectivity
90/100
Value for Money
89/100
The Lina Network DAC combines uncluttered transparency with weight, warmth and exceptional control, opening dense mixes without sacrificing their musical flow. What Hi-Fi? highlights its focused, layered imaging and deft dynamics, while HiFi News praises its revealing yet glare-free detail. Flexible streaming, variable outputs and Ring DAC refinement make it a formidable digital hub.
What Reviewers Are Saying
Pros
Exceptionally clear, resolving presentation separates dense musical strands while preserving cohesion and natural expression.
Stable, beautifully layered soundstage with taut bass, refined treble and skillful handling of both large and subtle dynamic shifts.
Versatile network DAC with strong streaming performance, direct-to-power-amp volume control and extensive filter, mapper and output-level adjustment.
&
Cons
No Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Chromecast support; a wired network connection is required.
Mosaic control app is comprehensive but reviewers found it can feel slow and clunky.
Its highly revealing balance exposes flaws in poorer recordings rather than smoothing them over.
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 93/100
Reviewers consistently describe an exceptionally clear, composed and musically communicative presentation. The Lina combines high resolution, strong organisation and precise transient definition with a natural sense of weight, emotional expression and freedom from glare.
Tonal Balance and Musicality
94/100
Reviewers variously call the Lina neutral and even-handed, richer than average, and naturally warm, but agree that it remains faithful rather than artificially sweetened. Tracking Angle found it delivered the music's emotional message, while Audiophile Style called it deeply engaging and inspiring enough to serve as a reference DAC.
Resolution and Detail
93/100
Detail retrieval is a recurring strength: Hi-Fi+ says it pries open dense orchestral music, and HiFi News praises its ability to expose texture, percussion detail and individual strands without smoothing rough recordings. What Hi-Fi? similarly found excellent detail, clear articulation and convincing note attacks, while reviewers stress that its resolution does not come at the expense of musical flow.
Digital Performance
92/100
The Lina is widely praised for uncluttered transparency, absolute clarity and a glare-free treble. It stays calm and coherent with dense or rough-edged material, and reviewers found its streaming implementation fully competitive with its conventional digital inputs rather than a weak link.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
91/100
The compact alloy chassis is repeatedly described as solid, elegant and unusually substantial, with the vibration-conscious plinth and thick base pads receiving specific praise. What Hi-Fi? was impressed by the internal construction and circuit layout, while Hi-Fi+ noted careful execution extending from the casework to the supplied cabling.
Features Connectivity
90/100
This is a comprehensively equipped network DAC, with dual AES/EBU, BNC and RCA S/PDIF, optical, USB-B and USB-A inputs, plus balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA outputs. Roon Ready streaming, AirPlay 2, local playback, service integration, selectable filters and mapper settings, DSD upsampling, variable output levels and remote capability make it adaptable to both desktop and conventional hi-fi systems; reviewers do note the absence of Bluetooth, Chromecast and Wi-Fi, and describe Mosaic as somewhat slow at times.
Value for Money
89/100
At roughly $13,650, the Lina remains a substantial purchase, but reviewers see it as bringing a convincing share of dCS performance to a lower entry point. HiFi News called its performance “bang on the money”, and Audiophile Style judged it an incredibly capable standalone component relative to the considerably pricier Rossini APEX and Bartók APEX, although Hi-Fi+ notes strong competition and diminishing returns when adding the optional clock.
Reviews
Online Reviews & Mentions
YouTube Reviews
Forum Mentions
No forum mentions found yet
Verified Dealers
Online Dealers
All Dealers
Zoom out the map to see more dealers
Authorized dealers for dCS Audio Lina Network DAC
- Resolution A/V — in-store — New York City, New York, United States (website)
- 3mA Audio — online and in-store — Houston, Texas, United States (website)
- A 10 Audio Room 4 Music — in-store — Amsterdam Nieuw-West, Noord-Holland, Netherlands (website)
- Absolute Sound (SG) — online and in-store — Singapore, Singapore (website)
- Absolute Sounds — in-store — London, England, United Kingdom (website)
- Abt Electronics — online and in-store — Glenview, Illinois, United States (website)
- Alen Audio — in-store — Extramurs, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain (website)
- Alpha High End — online and in-store — Brasschaat, Vlaams Gewest, Belgium (website)
- Analogue Seduction — online and in-store — Whittlesey, England, United Kingdom (website)
- Audible Images — in-store — Melbourne, Florida, United States (website)
and 89 more verified dealers