System Configuration
Basic Upsampling
The toggle switch installed on the rear of the LINK allows upsampling to be turned
on or off. The option LED on the front panel indicates “Upsampling on”. The basic
upsampling provides a new digitally sampled signal at 96 kHz. This signal is de-
coded by the internal LINK DAC at 96K and the 96K LED will also light up ONLY
when an active source is being played. When no source is active, such as when a
CD is paused, the input LED will light, but the frequency LED will not light. As soon
as play is resumed the frequency LED will again light up. This is different from a
LINK DAC without upsampling. It indicates frequency even if the source is not
actively playing.
Higher Rate Sampling
An extra oscillator is installed on the upsampling board, and can be selected instead
of the standard oscillator to increase the sampling rate from 96 kHz to 132.3 kHz (3
times the CD rate of 44.1 kHz). This is the highest rate the LINK III can upsample to.
No frequency LED lights up when the 132 kHz frequency is selected. Admittedly,
we are driving both the decoder and DAC beyond their design limits, but our
experience at normal room temperature conditions has shown the higher speed
upgrade too works very well. If your environment is too hot (the LINK sits on top
of your amplifier), you may need to install the normal 96K oscillator.
To change the frequency, follow the instructions to open the cover of the LINK.
Inside the LINK notice the small upsampling board installed in the main board,
shown below. Two jumper positions are available between the large metal oscilla-
tors. They are labeled 96K and 132K. As shipped, the jumper is located in the 96K
position. Remove the jumper and move to the 132K position.
Balanced Input Selection
The XLR input can be used as either an AES/EBU balanced digital audio input or as
the MSB Network (192 kHz) input. As an AES/EBU input it can be attached to any
standard transport that provides a XLR digital output. It can handle all the same
sources as the single-ended inputs but with better audio quality.
As an MSB Network Input, it can only be attached to Transports with MSB Net-
work outputs, which include DVD-A transports with the MSB modification or any
digital source with the MSB 192 kHz upsampler upgrade. It must be connected with
a twisted pair cable such as CAT5. Most audiophile balanced cables will NOT work
with the MSB network.
To change the input, open the cover. Unplug the cable running from the XLR
connector to the Upsampling board and switch to the adjacent connector. From the
factory it is plugged into the connector labeled “Balanced Input”. For the MSB
Network, move it to the connector labeled “192 Input” (see diagram).
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