Linn - love it /hate it/don't care I'll argue anyway thread!

Record packaging at college.

I know a lot more people than the simple forum spammer I am accused of being.
 
RobHolt said:
They were great in the 80s.
FE definitely but so refreshingly different.

I bought my ES14s there in 1986.
They asked me what system I wanted up front (Roksan and Naim) and then left me alone with some coffee with instructions to shout when I wanted to swap the speakers for something else.

Funnily enough I also had my first cable dem at the same time.
They liked DNM speaker cable, not the newer stuff but the first version that was a flat grey ribbon containing very thin conductors indeed. Five meters of that on ES14s was clearly audible over NACA5 and so I bought it.*

Contrast that to the Billy Vee methods above, and note they chose not to stock or sell Linn.


* Lots of series resistance and very audible.
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Sounds like a great shop and evidence you can't paint everyone with the same brush.
 
Richard Dunn said:
Not a better mousetrap, but better (in capitalist terms) marketing. Dominating and controlling a market place is always tried, and in the US you have anti trust laws to counter it as you suffered from it very early in the capitalist development process. We on the other hand only paid lip service to it, and even the laws that were passed such as the ending of retail price maintenance in the 60's and the sale of goods act at the end of the 70's were never upheld properly.
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Our anti-trust laws are not always utilized (thankfully.) I'm curious...when Sony, Marantz and Pioneer had a head-lock on the US market no one complained. Same for Audio Research, Krell and Levinson. There were hundreds of specialist manufacturers that made equal or superior products yet none complained. They bided their time, improved products and VFM further and eventually gained greater market share. Still, no one complained.

I'm beginning to think Mick Parry was right when he stated the British cannot tolerate success;-)
 
Dave Simpson said:
Our anti-trust laws are not always utilized (thankfully.) I'm curious...when Sony, Marantz and Pioneer had a head-lock on the US market no one complained. Same for Audio Research, Krell and Levinson. There were hundreds of specialist manufacturers that made equal or superior products yet none complained. They bided their time, improved products and VFM further and eventually gained greater market share. Still, no one complained.

I'm beginning to think Mick Parry was right when he stated the British cannot tolerate success;-)
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I tolerate success, even to a degree Naims, I do not tolerate Linn, I know who they are what they are and how they did it. From the company created from a product taken from the designer who died in depression, to copying and manipulating product to create a business, for bullshitting an industry for over 20 years and still trying. For brainwashing a generation of UK audiophiles, and for being the direct reason for a majority of the 80's UK hi-fi industry manufacturers going out of business or being sold to foreign ownership.

I was probably least effected of all by them because I just stuck two fingers up at the UK retailers and went export. Though remember Linn could not have done it without the hangers on, the slurpers - the reviewers and magazine editors but most of all the retailers, they knew perfectly well what was going on and were implicit in it. The naim ones weren't as bad but they still manipulated the market, but off their owns backs and own self interest.
 
Richard Dunn said:
I tolerate success, even to a degree Naims, I do not tolerate Linn, I know who they are what they are and how they did it. From the company created from a product taken from the designer who died in depression, to copying and manipulating product to create a business, for bullshitting an industry for over 20 years and still trying. For brainwashing a generation of UK audiophiles, and for being the direct reason for a majority of the 80's UK hi-fi industry manufacturers going out of business or being sold to foreign ownership.

I was probably least effected of all by them because I just stuck two fingers up at the UK retailers and went export. Though remember Linn could not have done it without the hangers on, the slurpers - the reviewers and magazine editors but most of all the retailers, they knew perfectly well what was going on and were implicit in it. The naim ones weren't as bad but they still manipulated the market, but off their owns backs and own self interest.
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So not bitter at all then? I bet you are just so happy to be building kit in a bedroom and selling on eBay rather then the slurp bullshit of a company like Linn.
 
Richard Dunn said:
This is why I think you are an idiot. I have related the story at least 10 times on forums and you must have read a majority of them, and I do not intend to relate it again. So the truth is meaningless to you, all you look for is angles to attack from. Where I am is deliberate and gives me a lot of freedom to do what I want and be what I want and talk about what I want, including the state of this industry and who Ffff-ed it up.

You, well that is different, just an opportunist who wants to make money off the back of Linn and Naim. Promote them so you can spam your products which are add ons to Linn and Naim products, bits of metal at exorbitant prices, you are just part of the slurp, so it is your agenda and in your interest to try to defend the indefensible, it is in your interest to insult me and try to discredit my posts and opinion. I am afraid the history I relate is fact and will be confirmed by those that observed it and lived through it.
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You cannot conceive the amount of irony in your post!

It's pitiful.
 
Do you know what is the worst thing about this thread? The lack of advice to the OP.
I gave it, the blogs of war came in and trashed it.
 
Your opinion of me . . . is ad hominem

< Andrew, agreed, post deleted and this one edited to remove reference to it > Dev
 
Richard Dunn said:
How do you think Naim started. They sold Capital radio their monitor amps when they got the London commercial radio licence, it was because of a mate of his he got the order and that financed the company into existence. Don't believe the on-line rewriting of history, I was around at the time and saw it and knew him.
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Look at them now; Queens Award x 2 ace!
 
sq225917 said:
So basically mate, stick your questions about your deck choices up your arse, because this lot would rather in fight with each other than give you a sensible answer.

;-)

I have an SME 10 and V you are most welcome to listen to if you ever happen to be coming by Sheffield.
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I've split the thread and hope the OP will receive some proper advice now (well I guess I can hope:().
 
flatpopely said:
So not bitter at all then? I bet you are just so happy to be building kit in a bedroom and selling on eBay rather then the slurp bullshit of a company like Linn.
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Linn out-marketed & out competed a lot of very good but commercially clueless manufacturers.

Also, Richard has always had a, shall we say, robust attitude which got up the nose of some dealers.

Back in the day, the dealer I used rated the NVA products but could not come to terms with Richard.

Regards,

Chris
 
Mescalito said:
Linn out-marketed & out competed a lot of very good but commercially clueless manufacturers.

Also, Richard has always had a, shall we say, robust attitude which got up the nose of some dealers.

Back in the day, the dealer I used rated the NVA products but could not come to terms with Richard.

Regards,

Chris
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Fully agree, I have always been a cantankerous sod, but only with people who mess with me.

Praise where praise is due, if I wanted to start a cult or create a James Bond villain Ivor T would be the first place I would look for inspiration.

Regarding retailers, it is a curates egg and it was the early 90's recession that created most of the problems. Linn decided others would suffer so tied up their dealers with contracts and other big manufacturers like Cyrus etc learned from Linns lead and did the same, this killed off most of the small guys (manufacturers). Now my problem with this is that those dealer contracts are arguably illegal under the abolition of retail price maintenance and sale of goods acts. Linn were threatened with prosecution and I think the contract wording was modified but was still objected to but AFAIK the prosecution never happened.

My problem with retailers was that they took 40 to 50% of the customers price for often doing F'all and even then not paying their bills, as the manufacturers they were contracted to took all the available money. For them it was like being between a rock and a hard place, they needed to provide choice for the customer, and they needed to service the contracts from their large suppliers - the person who lost out on this was you the customer, because lack of competition meant the prices rises over the last 15 to 20 years have reached the level of piss-take instigated by these large companies when small innovative companies and competition dissapeared. I went export and virtually forgot about the UK market until the situation changed, and believe it or not it is only changing now because at last small manufacturers have direct access to their customers on-line, either direct through own websites or via ebay.

It is a new game and playing field now, and about time.
 

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