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Linn bloody Linn

denni55 said:
i' have owned Linn equipment for over 30 years i.e. my Linto mc preamp , LP12 and my Akurate C4200 amplifier is still going strong since it was new years ago.
i'm sure i am not unusual in never having had any faults with my Linn equipment.
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Denni

I am glad you kit still works like many many others. As for me I had Brilliant SMPS failures (normal) which are unrepairable (by Linn) and have only a 30 to 40% success rate if I could have found an engineer in the UK. I was told it wasn’t financially viable for them to work on them at £100 an hour with a 4 hour estimate (if all goes well).

Then my Kairn died - display board - normal fault - cheap battery (who knew), circuit board corrodes SM caps burn out - no display board - no pre amp. Couldn’t find an engineer to consider looking at that. Oh as for the Numerik - the estimate was more than buying another new DAC (not Linn).

So I am Katans (working), Sizmik (working), Kairn (back working - I fixed the SMPS), Klouts (working) Sondek/Lingo - working.

Hope your stuff lasts forever as I suspect it was an ‘investment’. I’ve got offers in for a YBA DAC, I bought a YBA pre and if all goes to plan, I’ll get a YBA CD. Marry them all to the above kit and my Squeezebox with network WD archive and bingo… At my age my hearing loss (it’s natural) for the upper register means I still enjoy music but don’t know which segments I am missing😜
 
Nigel said:
Dear oh dear, everytime I view the forum recently there's talk of more faulty Linn equipment!
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It’s only ONE string, I don’t post on anything else.

Woodface can rant all he wants. And to be honest, now I have informed ‘people’ of the actions/plans and viability of Linn kit I am happy to report stuff the repairs to the Numerik (won’t happen) stuff the repairs to the Kairn (won’t happen), I have ‘invested’ a YBA preamplifier and a YBA DAC based on the work of Professor Hawksford.

So far nothing negative to report and the imaging is superb.

My new (old) DAC will actually stream from an Apple device automatically it also operates as a headphone amp and as a direct pre amp from the data stream to my power amps (Klouts) so I have a double winner.

Bye bye
 
d16b said:
Call it an FYI moment and a grumpy old man's moan.

I have been struggling with repairs of SMPS 'Brilliant' on my Karik, Numerik and Kairn, they all gave up the ghost within 6m of each other.

Struggle is the word but thank heaven for Pinkfish and those who contribute on line.

Because of that I got one Brilliant fixed so my Karik is working but the Numerik and Kairn are still dead regardless of both their power supplies being 'fixed' (values are ok) (don't listen to you nuclear physicist son warning you off, provided you use PROPER cap discharge systems and
measure with your left hand in your pocket and feet on a wooden floor. I understand his worry (I have electrocuted myself and his research companion died when a HUGE cap was thought to be discharged (having been removed from an instrument) and it wasn't). He bought me a pair of pink 10,000v skin coloured gloves for the next time I changed a mains ceramic fuse!

My Kairn's death appears to be down to an area of cooked circuitry around the battery in the display board. With the Numerik, my research continues.

Anyway long story short. No schematics with true values available. SMC's all have values on with the exception of the capacitors (some of which are very clearly cooked along with a 1001 resistor). So a call to Linn to see what I could find out about the little beige blocks was a nightmare. I managed to beg 3 values form them for identifiable locations on the board. Effectively, unless I misunderstood:

1. Everything before Akurate is now redundant and unrepairable (by Linn) and Akurate and others are falling off the fixable list shortly.

2. Linn don't release diagrams/values (they don't want people touching their kit - for safety or?) at best - ask a dealer they may let you have one.

3. Caps appear to be Linn's little secret that they hang onto like grim death. Effectively, without values and current we all know what that means.

4. I asked about 5103's, DS to replace the Kairn etc - Linn's advice don't buy second hand they are now totally beyond repair and if you think fixing a Kairn is difficult those are impossible spend £9k on new one. Their words included 'and LK are totally unrepairable now).

5. It wasn't just Akurate but another model that will shortly be dropping off the repairable list.

6. I should have remembered that when my Sizmik died I was told by Linn to buy a new one, I opened the amp and saw it was a Mosfet that had blown. I asked Linn and was told it was unobtainium and as such, dead. I found an online photo of board, took the component number, ordered the Mosfet from a electronics firm and that simple replacement saved me thousands (I'd bought a temporary REL as a standing!).

Being told that Linn will now be making their own chips (aka Apple) and their top end bursting through the bugger me price barrier doesn't fill me with anything like glee

How many people have anything like £100k of disposable income which will have to be replaced relatively shorty (in hifi terms) in the Scottish world of unobtainium parts etc?

Real question, is Linn the ONLY UK high end hi-fi manufacturer that is of the opinion people have the money to buy tens of thousands of pounds on exotic kit, have known vulnerabilities and have to be written off when a component blows when firms such as Quad, Naim, NAD, YBA etc etc are all eminently serviceable/repairable?

From a hifi point of view, my recollection of British culture is one of trading up as funds, experience, understanding and high end disposable income increases.

I started my hifi journey at 12 with pocket money purchasing Goldring Lenco, Shure, Rogers and Wharfdale. I moved on from there seeking the
best with many exotic and many stupid purchases (like getting rid of vinyl for both Mission and Quad CD's). I have many sad memories of kit I traded that I wish I hadn't - Transcriptors Reference, a REAL misery from trading up from Nottingham Analogue Spacedeck to LP12 (I lost my deep 3d imagery - it was the only deck I've had that did that (yes, the LP12 is a very musical replacement but just variant of the TD150 (another one I owned, like Ariston), then there was the FAMCO Nuance preamp, my Spendor BC's, my SME 3009, my Audiolab, my IMF transmission lines etc etc (all still recommended kit and all very repairable)

Oh and no, if any part of my formerly many £k kit is to be replaced it will NEVER be with ANY new LINN kit even IF I won the lottery

Talk about a manufacturer alienating a client base

It's like Brexit, a real Ratners moment to me.
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Linn might be programming FPGA chips but as for designing their own, forget it, it costs a million dollars before arm will even talk to you and about the same for a wafer fab, development costs run into tens of millions. Getting the manufacturer to laser write “Linn” on the package is most likely as near as they will get to making their own chips.
 
russel said:
Linn might be programming FPGA chips but as for designing their own, forget it, it costs a million dollars before arm will even talk to you and about the same for a wafer fab, development costs run into tens of millions. Getting the manufacturer to laser write “Linn” on the package is most likely as near as they will get to making their own chips.
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You are right of course but, but since AKM are making the bespoke chips for linn with Linn's bespoke architecture then the only source of replacement chips would be, er, Linn and, as when Linn (like Apple) decide to move away from bespoke or, decide in upgrading design there will be a ’new’ chip or they return to the fold, the earlier bespoke chips will become that rare element - unobtainium.

As ‘maintenance’ and service (should a fault arise) will place reliance totally on Linn still producing or being capable of producing earlier boards architecture. I am certain, from my conversations with Linn support it indicates their forays into the exotic will be short lived.

There is a post on this thread from someone who bought a streamer (current?) no doubt expensive, advertised as playing TIDAL and bought for that purpose, where the contributor says it won’t, it was returned for warranty repair, Linn ‘can’t’ repair it (therefore current but defective) and Linn blame TIDAL for what I believe is the over complex data stream its high end audio requires. Ticket ignored, shipped back to purchaser.

I don’t know if it was a £10k or more piece of kit (could be) but it makes my point exactly

I understand Linns reticence in maintaining old kit - Problems - part storage, part sourcing, engineers time and operational plans eating into profit margins.

The ‘just buy new’ philosophy works if customers are rich and having bespoke is their goal. They will never alienate those.

Plebs like me trade up into exotic kit which, with other system manufacturers, can and often are maintainable.

In Linn’s case they openly admit when their window of service closes it is closed. Now was it exotic or accurate that falls off the Putin window cill this year, let me check my telephone recordings/notes

No more off-the-shelf: Why we bespoke our DAC to the extreme | Linn International

www.linn.co.uk www.linn.co.uk
 
Iain Docherty said:
... 73 messages (and counting) and all except one on one of two rant threads...
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What a put down.

I thought SM was there to be informative and lead to debate even if the comments relate to working practices that many
will face. Some of you may be young (and rich) enough to bypass the problem and consign £5k of kit to the bin (current second
hand dealer prices).

Some of us oldies can’t afford to do that

Sealioner by any chance?
 
Iain Docherty said:
... 73 messages (and counting) and all except one on one of two rant threads...
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21 minutes from the factory, ah, employee by any chance?

If you don’t like my string, comments or information you have a choice you know, you can stop reading and posting unless you want to diss me and / or the information to stop others being informed.
 
d16b said:
You are right of course but, but since AKM are making the bespoke chips for linn with Linn's bespoke architecture then the only source of replacement chips would be, er, Linn and, as when Linn (like Apple) decide to move away from bespoke or, decide in upgrading design there will be a ’new’ chip or they return to the fold, the earlier bespoke chips will become that rare element - unobtainium.

As ‘maintenance’ and service (should a fault arise) will place reliance totally on Linn still producing or being capable of producing earlier boards architecture. I am certain, from my conversations with Linn support it indicates their forays into the exotic will be short lived.

There is a post on this thread from someone who bought a streamer (current?) no doubt expensive, advertised as playing TIDAL and bought for that purpose, where the contributor says it won’t, it was returned for warranty repair, Linn ‘can’t’ repair it (therefore current but defective) and Linn blame TIDAL for what I believe is the over complex data stream its high end audio requires. Ticket ignored, shipped back to purchaser.

I don’t know if it was a £10k or more piece of kit (could be) but it makes my point exactly

I understand Linns reticence in maintaining old kit - Problems - part storage, part sourcing, engineers time and operational plans eating into profit margins.

The ‘just buy new’ philosophy works if customers are rich and having bespoke is their goal. They will never alienate those.

Plebs like me trade up into exotic kit which, with other system manufacturers, can and often are maintainable.

In Linn’s case they openly admit when their window of service closes it is closed. Now was it exotic or accurate that falls off the Putin window cill this year, let me check my telephone recordings/notes

No more off-the-shelf: Why we bespoke our DAC to the extreme | Linn International

www.linn.co.uk www.linn.co.uk
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The DAC shown in the picture is an AK4497 which is freely available.
 
chiily said:
Interesting read. One of those reads where by the fact that some of the statements are a little dubious throws the credibility of the whole thing. Could be just me though. :)
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Na, I watched a new Linn promotional video yesterday and it was actually a bit sickening. Very nice video, well produced etc, but the only things missing were staff holding babies and subliminal shots of puppy dogs. Which might have been in there of course.

Living were I do I know a little more about Linn than some people and I ain't falling for their bullshit.
 
linnfomaniac83 said:
I understand the frustrations of the OP but there are options. I’d call Peter Tyson’s or Kevin Green, both are very, very good with old Linn kit and if it can be fixed, they will fix it… usually it can.
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Quick shout out to Kevin Green for servicing my LK280. He also fixed a DC-overload issue (not sure that's the correct term) that was causing some serious overheating. Collected this morning and sounds very good already - that's compared to an unserviced 2001 Klout with caps still within spec.

On the topic of CD12 servicing, it's a shame Linn built that second run of players sometime in the 2000s using spares stock. Don't think they built very many - half a dozen perhaps. Can only assume they needed the cash at that time - don't think it's always been plain sailing.

Not sure it's been mentioned but Linn do still provide their service agents (e.g., Class A) with Valhalla repair kits so that's a 40+ year old product. Similarly, they also provide Lingo kits and that's a 30+ year old product so there is limited servicing support for the LP12. Ekos 2 arms above a specific serial can also be repaired - can't remember the actual serial number.
 
Charlie_1 said:
Not sure it's been mentioned but Linn do still provide Class A with Valhalla repair kits which is a 40+ year old product.
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Everything on a Valhalla is off the shelf and mostly available cheaply from loads of places. I'm surprised anyone would have to go to Linn to get the bits?

The CD12 is a weird one. Big fanfare, big price, vanished without a trace. We're still talking about Naim CD players that were made before the CD12 but no one seems to want, care about or remember the big shiny Linn paving slab. I figure that it really wasn't all that great or we'd hear more about it.
 
Mr Pig said:
Everything on a Valhalla is off the shelf and mostly available cheaply from loads of places. I'm surprised anyone would have to go to Linn to get the bits?

The CD12 is a weird one. Big fanfare, big price, vanished without a trace. We're still talking about Naim CD players that were made before the CD12 but no one seems to want, care about or remember the big shiny Linn paving slab. I figure that it really wasn't all that great or we'd hear more about it.
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I would imagine that Valhalla could be maintained pretty much indefinitely.🤔
It uses very commonly available components and is simple in concept too.
I use a Hercules, partly for this very reason.
I also happen to think that it sounds excellent, but YMMV.
Hercules had some upgraded parts over Valhalla, which is nice and of course, the ability to play 45s.
As with Valhalla, the only real problem I could see in the long term would be damage to the PCB, either from heat or from cack handed component removal.

Wasn’t CD12 reckoned to be one of the very top CD players at the time?
I read some excellent reviews of it but never heard one.
Karik Numerik were pretty good.
I had the pair on loan for a month and thought they sounded excellent together but even then the remote had a broken battery cover that the owner said he couldn’t get parts for.🙄
He ended up selling the pair on eBay for £400 in about 2009.
I did consider buying it but the sound quality difference between it and my original Rega Planet wasn’t enough for me to justify it.
 
chiily said:
Interesting read. One of those reads where by the fact that some of the statements are a little dubious throws the credibility of the whole thing. Could be just me though. :)
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It does read like Linn modified an AKM DAC. Could they really be doing something like this:

www.amazon.science

New method for "editing" fabricated chips enables more-efficient designs

Reducing the energy of ion beams used for editing eliminates the need for “sacrificial” areas between electrical components and improves precision.
www.amazon.science www.amazon.science

I suspect they added external circuitry, like everyone else does.
 
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