My formative years were during the Linn/Naim ‘flat earth’ heyday. Unfortunately I was too poor to afford any at the time, but my Rega 3/Cyrus 1 was very much of the same philosophy, which I take to mean musical communication by way of dynamics, rhythm and tunefulness, rather than the alternative approaches which majored on tonal colour, imaging, soundstaging and so on.
I think that is a different thing entirely to the approach of incremental upgrades, external PSUs and so-on, which was part of the Linn/Naim business model, but not really associated with the ‘flat earth’ philosophy per se.
The ‘Flat Earth Society’ was a debating society around at much the same time. It didn’t believe the Earth was flat, it just enjoyed the art and skill of debating persuasively from a contrary viewpoint. I always assumed the name ‘flat earth’ was therefore coined because, at the time, the Linn/Naim approach of PRaT flew in the face of the conventional wisdom, which tended to favour beauty over boogie. I never met them but Ivor was, I think, something of an iconoclast, Julian perhaps less so, but together they fostered an approach which roused hifi from a rather torpid, introspective, sound-focussed methodology, and which still flourishes to this day. Think what you like of their products, and business model, but respect is due for that, at least.
