Linn – are they an irrelevance today?

[Neil McCauley]

Hi Howard,

Apologies for not responding earlier. My comment was a response to using a company like Linn as a thread heading and using them questioning them as an irrelevance. Which I dO think is silly for a thread and some of the points on this thread made by yourself and others have proved the point to me.

first, am I a dealer in disguise ? Sadly, no. I'm a computer programmer sat in a hot stuffy office typing this in now. Have I ever in any way been attached to a dealer or a manufacturer, NO, never have and I doubt I ever will.

There was no arrogance in my response, or at least I didn't think so.

I'll try to explain myself better.

Linn as mentioned have the iconic LP12 but why do they need to continually have iconic gear ? Few companies have and most never even produce an iconic piece of gear.

Linn produce the rather wonderful ClassiK, one of the first all-in-one systems by a major manufacturer, bring a taste of serious hifi to the masses, other companies have followed suite now and I know many people who have got into serious hifi based on this first purcahse.

As mentioned by Marco they produced the Karik/NumeriK combo using their own mechanisms and the cost of r 'n' d that produces, same with the Ikemi which was a wonderful cd player. The CD12 was developed from the ground up by them, not just going to purchase off the shelf goods by bigger mass-producing manufacturers and if it had a bit of unwanted cleverness due to the control system then why not ? It cost £12k and surely if spending silly money you want something extra as a customer.

I agree that doing away with the LK range was a bit silly and means that entry level is now at a price far outside of what most peiople can afford but the Majik system will compete with most systems at that price if the Linn sound suits you, and it does for some people even more than other people prefer it. The upgradability to active allows you to improve the sound while retaining the same gear and hate it or love it they have still looked at modern ways of improving the LP12 without the owner needing the sell it (ok some of these are expensive)

As for Linn being an irrelevance to the modern audiophile, the Klimax is an excellent set of amps, affordable compared the serious high end, filled with a lot of modern thinking technology. the Unidisk was the first time a serious hifi company decided to have a go at performing a serious universal player from the ground up, the Klimax DS is taking the dreaded downloads to a new level and proving it will beat cd replay in the future and as a record label they are allowing full studio masters to be downloaded and allow true high end sound available to the masses.

I mentioned dealers due to Linn tying themself in to dealers and expecting the dealer to do nicities such as installations and actually show the buyer how to use the gear. That was why I was mentioning dealers with regards to Linn, more companies should put more emphasis on dealer servicing.

So Linn are irrelevant to audiophiles ? This is why I think this is a silly thread.

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Thank you. Too much subjectivity and nostalgia, when objectivity is surely the rational response here? I appreciate your passion, but I remain unconvinced. Actually, even more unconvinced. My view remains that Linn and their ilk see customers as walking wallets on a continual basis and while the public are far from irrelevant to them - the reverse is true. For example, it seems that by common consent, other than the Linn Mujahadin of course, that a modest third-party company (Funk Firm) can do a better job of extracting music via the Linn than Linn can - and for very much less money.

As for the CD12, as far as I can recall, the World yawned - other than a few fawning reviewers of course.

The Unidisk? Surely an investment based on ego and very little else? What's the point of attempting to build (if you'll allow the analogy) the World's finest slide rule in the era of hand-held calculators? Bonkers.

Almost finally, if indeed as you seem to suggest that Linn are meeting the desires of their target market, how would you explain the massive redundancies last year? Some 30% of the unfortunate work force I believe. Meanwhile Rega. Meridian et al go from strength to strength?

Finally, all of this conjecture (including mine of course) and in your case, what seems like sincere albeit misguided corporate flag waving is irrelevant. Market forces will prevail. I leave you with this extract from a piece I wrote following the announcement of the Linn redundancies.

"It’s possible then that the people least responsible for the situation are the ones to pay the heaviest price? You know the answer. We all do. Axiomatically then, unless there is a wholesale sacrifice by the upper echelons of Linn, the very people on whom the workforce relied for continuity of employment will, other than short term embarrassment, have no price to pay.

Contrition? No. Accountability? Err, no, not that either.

As yet Mr. T has not publicly offered any contrition. Perhaps he feels no need. What we do have though, and this is what really sticks in my craw is that apparently it’s everyone else’s fault in general and The Labour Party in particular. Consider this rather obvious spin:

“Our approach has never been to give up and outsource to China or wherever. You might call it a genetic flaw on my part,” said Tiefenbrun.”

Fair enough you might think. However the word ‘never’ might cause some raised eyebrows when you remember that many Linn arms and cartridges were sourced outside the UK, and possibly still are.

I have searched for any commentary so far from the company in relation to this that uses the word ‘value’.

There are the buzz phrases such as “even higher quality products, specifically aimed at the premium end of the consumer electronics market” and “developing more goods to appeal to wealthy consumers.” One can only speculate as to the implications for current end-users re this. Nevertheless, the absence, from this highly intelligent and peerlessly articulate man of the word ‘value’ is for me puzzling."


The full piece can be read here: http://blog.listencarefully.co.uk/?p=1050

[griffo104]

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Thank you. Too much subjectivity and nostalgia, when objectivity is surely the rational response here? I appreciate your passion, but I remain unconvinced. My view remains that Linn and their ilk see customers as walking wallets on a continual basis and thus the public are far from irrelevant to them - but that arguably, the reverse is true.

As for the CD12, as far as I can recall, the World yawned - other than a few fawning reviewers of course.

Finally, if indeed as you seem to suggest that Linn are meeting the desires of their target market, how would you explain the massive redundancies last year? Some 30% of the unfortunate work force I believe. Meanwhile Rega. Meridian et al go from strength to strength?

Well I can't comment on the redundancies as I have now knowledge on the business and how it was being run. As mentioned I do think the biggest mistake they did was ditching the LK range which was affordable, and something I still own, (Majik, LK100,LK140 active into Keliedhs which is now all the Linn gear I have).

I think a lot of hifi manufacturers can fall in to this mistake qs regarding their customers as just walking wallets, and I wouldn't argue totally with you with regards to Linn in some respects, but from where I sit and look in they have a set of ranges which improve on each other, and at some cost and it is easy to see this hierarchy pf products, now take someone like Musical Fidelity. continually bringing out gear that is almost identical to the one it replaces, charging a little more and making huge boasts about it while geting it all built offshore and considerable cost savings to themselves.

which company really takes it's customer base for a ride in that situation ?

As for the CD12 I still regard it as one of the best cd players I've heard. Overpriced ? Yes a little but what it did is produce a sound which lacked any digital harshness and produced a more natural flow from cd than any other player I had heard at the time. Does it compete with the Esoterics, Weiss or DCS gear ? No probably not. It all depends how you wish to listen to cd replay.

As for the new Majik turntable. Well foronce Ithink the price of this is silly, and the point of it. It neither sounds or looks, or has the quality feel of a Gyro SE, Kuzma Satbi S, and yet costs more than either of those decks.

I still think one of the best bargains out there in hifi land is a good 2nd hand LP12.

With regards to Rega, will I only leave about 5 mins from the factory and the fact they still produce such affordable gear with the quality of back up is still outstanding, but Merdian ? I can't really see any affordable gear they make, even their fancy clock radio is stupidly expensive and as a radio doesn't beat the good ol' Tivoli at a fraction of the cost. And trust me, for some of my music tastes, they don't make a decent bit of gear.