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Hard times for Linn

All of my friends and pretty much everyone I know wouldn’t go any further than a £500 Bluetooth mono sounddock. Most of these folk have good jobs in London and have never walked into a hifi shop. They’d rather spend hifi money on a holiday or save for a car. It’s just not on their radar. For good or ill, times have changed. Impressed that companies like Linn still thrive.
 
guest said:
Whatever Alexa tells them to.
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Yes.

My parents are very against the idea of having a proper hi fi in the living room. But they enjoy the Amazon Echo I got them for Christmas.
The sound quality is not as bad as I feared. Not audiophile but I don't turn my nose up to it either at only £60.

I know Amazon do a £200 dac/streamer thing with Alexa that can be connected to an amp. But sadly it gets bad reviews for sound quality.

If a company like Linn could integrate Alexa on to e.g. the new Selekt DSM or Series 3 Wireless speaker that would expand the audiophile market.
At a lower price B&W could do something similar with their Zeppelin speaker.

I realise this would need the agreement of Amazon's legal team and third party companies would have to pay a licensing fee. So not going to happen anytime soon
 
piccadilly said:
Yes.

I realise this would need the agreement of Amazon's legal team and third party companies would have to pay a licensing fee. So not going to happen anytime soon
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There are already a couple of "audiophile" wireless speakers that either have full Alexa capabilities (including a mic) or are "Alexa Aware". I've got Audio Pro speakers with Alexa.
 
adsw said:
These disrupters have done a great job at doing that .. disrupting ..but when the music we loved cannot be listened in any other format than MP3..in a quailty they choose ..when they choose ..or what content they choose ..at a price they choose .. we won't have an option to know what it could have been like in a real system that linn and ourselves love ..owning the music to listen when we want and how we want .

www.onixdna.com
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Hi,

Except some of us will still have vinyl :rolleyes:

Excellent post above, however I would add that in the late 70's and 80's HiFi was not the go buy product.

There were other interests around like being able to buy your own council home and CB radio that people were more interested in.

I had been into HiFi since I was at school but only two people I knew in my area, that is work and outside were even interested in HiFi and those two not at the Linn level, so nothing has really changed.

As for prices being very high at the minute, back in the late 70's the price of a good HiFi was high compaired to what you could buy in Currys or Comet, so again nothing has changed.

Linn make affordable systems, just people overlook them, a Linn Majik DSM with Majik 109 speakers is about £3500 and that is not expensive for a complete HiFi when some pay that for a power supply!

Cheers

John
 
Alex S said:
About as many weed smokers who graduate to crystal meth.

What music systems do footballers buy?
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They tend not to buy hi-fi systems as such if the experience of my friends who've supplied a good number of them is anything to go by. Lots of cinema rooms and Sonos multi-room systems with integrated heating and lighting control from the likes of Crestron or Control 4.
 
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Some interesting posts above. For e.g., that the big stores are reducing choice. I had that exact argument years ago when I complained to someone in work that Tesco were now selling CDs at cut price. She queried my reasoning and I pointed out that Tesco were only selling the 'top 20', taking the 'bread and butter' sales from the specialists, who were going to go out of business and stop selling their much wider range of product.. limiting choice.

As for 'hi fi' I got married in the early 70s and back then newlyweds purchase priorities were: 1. A house, 2. a car, 3/4 a decent TV/Hi-Fi. By the late 90s Hi Fi World were quoting some survey as showing that hi-fi had dropped to No. 14.. Now clearly the advent of computing/gaming etc., has no doubt had some effect.. but most people still like their music. It's just that they've been told that 'digital' is perfect.. and by implication that any digital is perfect. Many people I know have absolutely no grasp of the meaning and practice of 'quality' audio..
 
Smartphones are the HiFi market killer. Acceptable audio quality and a two year replacement cycle eating up budget
 
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Mullardman said:
Some interesting posts above. For e.g., that the big stores are reducing choice. I had that exact argument years ago when I complained to someone in work that Tesco were now selling CDs at cut price. She queried my reasoning and I pointed out that Tesco were only selling the 'top 20', taking the 'bread and butter' sales from the specialists, who were going to go out of business and stop selling their much wider range of product.. limiting choice.

As for 'hi fi' I got married in the early 70s and back then newlyweds purchase priorities were: 1. A house, 2. a car, 3/4 a decent TV/Hi-Fi. By the late 90s Hi Fi World were quoting some survey as showing that hi-fi had dropped to No. 14.. Now clearly the advent of computing/gaming etc., has no doubt had some effect.. but most people still like their music. It's just that they've been told that 'digital' is perfect.. and by implication that any digital is perfect. Many people I know have absolutely no grasp of the meaning and practice of 'quality' audio..
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Yes back in 1987 when I got wed it was house/car/hifi/tv and that was it mostly, even purchase of music was limited to budget, no streaming tunes for free. I think I enjoyed the music more then as it was really quite exciting getting a new cd or record, more so than now. Getting home to play the latest purchase. No computer or mobile phone or internet to pay for. No satellite TV, even the car was easy fix yourself.
 
adsw said:
Hi

I read this thread with interest and many have overlooked that although things change ,linn like ourselves have always been about sound quality and music not just making money by exploiting a market place . All companies need to make money but ethics kicks in . They didn't go to China to make stuff .. I respect that ...we both make great products in the UK .

The fact is the world has changed and people do not listen the way they used to ..they don't holiday the way they used to
They don't buy cars the way they used to or even socialize they way they used to . People have changed.

Products have changed and as humans we forget what we want to forget, and we remember what is good to remember .

Linn like every industry has fought corporations that generate money from thin air like Amazon, Google and Facebook. They are parasitic companies that make nothing living of data of others . Companies we have allowed to dominate out lives . We did it let's not forget that .

Today I was told I have run out of space I need more , now I need to pay for. Google one ..yep the 2 billiion free google accounts are not free any more . Surprise surprise .

These disrupters have done a great job at doing that .. disrupting ..but when the music we loved cannot be listened in any other format than MP3..in a quailty they choose ..when they choose ..or what content they choose ..at a price they choose .. we won't have an option to know what it could have been like in a real system that linn and ourselves love ..owning the music to listen when we want and how we want .

Those days are looming, and we all allowed them to take us in to their fold . I along with linn know where it's all going but the buyer will miss it when it's totally gone. That of course if they ever knew it was there .

We are a small company and so is linn . We need a really low number of followers to thrive , us many less than linn . We can still enjoy with less people and thrive for years, but if we decide to stop..then what ..choice will be gone.

Lidl has 120000 items in its store Tesco 420000 ..I know they want to rival lidl and reduce choice ..yep we the public are doing this. We will suffer lack of choice of that be certain.

The problem is no one is picking the audio batton up, so age and changes even with 7 billion on our planet give all of us chalanges . The new generations have no idea what good sound is ..some of us older guys teach them but most don't care .

Linn will survive this bump of that I am sure , but will what they stand for survive ? That I am not so sure .

In 50 years someone will find a great system in an attic all boxed up and it will fetch huge money .. I would love to see the gavel crash down and smile from above . Then see the face of a young person listening to music on a black vinyl plastic disc with an anolugue amp and some real speakers cables ..music will be heard and who knows it may start again .

In the mean time it's what we still have the option of doing . Let's enjoy it ...I do

Adam W

www.onixdna.com
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And as long as companies such as yours are still alive and kicking Adam we’ll still be able to enjoy our hobby and listen to music with good sound. Really looking forward to my Onix OA21icon! Hope they’re still on for end Jan
 
Eyebroughty said:
Hi,

Linn make affordable systems, just people overlook them, a Linn Majik DSM with Majik 109 speakers is about £3500 and that is not expensive for a complete HiFi when some pay that for a power supply!

Cheers

John
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I hope Linn aren't in big trouble, as they're a major employer in my neck of the woods. I have to say, though, that £3,500 is a pretty expensive entry point. Other big UK based players in the audio market (Naim for example) start a good bit lower down (and you can buy Naim stuff in John Lewis these days).
 
amazement said:
Yes back in 1987 when I got wed it was house/car/hifi/tv and that was it mostly, even purchase of music was limited to budget, no streaming tunes for free. I think I enjoyed the music more then as it was really quite exciting getting a new cd or record, more so than now. Getting home to play the latest purchase. No computer or mobile phone or internet to pay for. No satellite TV, even the car was easy fix yourself.
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Yeah but ... you did have a house. Lots of young people nowadays are priced out of the housing market, especially in London. Even when I was a student, my student digs were in old tenements - nice big hi-fi friendly rooms. I could live with over the sink water heater and paraffin stove heating. Now student digs are micro cupboards. All mod cons maybe, but nowhere to put your stereo, let alone have a party. And the tenements where I had my digs were gentrified years ago.
 
I wouldn't give up on the current generation, I think that the vinyl revival is evidence of that. There are a number of them who aren't satisfied with what they can play on their phones. For their favourite music they want something more than just a file somewhere in a computer and a tiny picture, they want something they can touch and look at, something that shows their appreciation more.

There's enough of them at the moment to support some independent record shops, it can't all be old fogeys like me.

I wonder if Linn haven't suffered a lot because of Ivor's illness. I think that their decision to move the company up market some years ago was disastrous. They left a lot of their traditional fan base behind them, like the debacle of the pricing of the Keel. They should have launched the Kore at the same time, then they wouldn't have encouraged all these other people to come in and fill the gap.
 
2ManyBoxes said:
I wouldn't give up on the current generation, I think that the vinyl revival is evidence of that. There are a number of them who aren't satisfied with what they can play on their phones. For their favourite music they want something more than just a file somewhere in a computer and a tiny picture, they want something they can touch and look at, something that shows their appreciation more.

There's enough of them at the moment to support some independent record shops, it can't all be old fogeys like me.

I wonder if Linn haven't suffered a lot because of Ivor's illness. I think that their decision to move the company up market some years ago was disastrous. They left a lot of their traditional fan base behind them, like the debacle of the pricing of the Keel. They should have launched the Kore at the same time, then they wouldn't have encouraged all these other people to come in and fill the gap.
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According to this there has been a “revival” in horse riding, but I don’t see cars disappearing any time soon! Nor is the vinyl “revival” anything significant. I am an old fart, and love streamed music, and have absolutely no need of anything physical. I can have artwork, artist information, libretti on my iPad at far higher quality than I ever had from vinyl or even worse cd, and I can have a lossless copy of the master file instead of a poor copy, and I appreciate more music more every day. But I am lucky; I have somewhere I can listen to a good hi-fi. For many people on the planet a room of their own is a dream, and a phone is an extraordinarily levelling way for a lot of people to experience music, so I wouldn’t knock it.
 
I don't think it's so much about 'knocking' the positives of the new.. as bemoaning the easy disposal of the old..
 
AndyU said:
According to this there has been a “revival” in horse riding, but I don’t see cars disappearing any time soon! Nor is the vinyl “revival” anything significant. I am an old fart, and love streamed music, and have absolutely no need of anything physical. I can have artwork, artist information, libretti on my iPad at far higher quality than I ever had from vinyl or even worse cd, and I can have a lossless copy of the master file instead of a poor copy, and I appreciate more music more every day. But I am lucky; I have somewhere I can listen to a good hi-fi. For many people on the planet a room of their own is a dream, and a phone is an extraordinarily levelling way for a lot of people to experience music, so I wouldn’t knock it.
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Well bully for you :p

I was talking about the younger generation so people under 35, not old farts like you. There are not many but they do exist.
 
Linn are to be lauded for employing and producing in the UK
But the have to be realistic about what the market will bear price wise (£50 for a belt anyone?)
I really hope Linn turns thing round...
 
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