LINN – A Leading Name in British High-End Audio, from All-in-One Systems to the £12,000 Sondek CD12

It may be slightly presumptuous of someone like me — a perpetual budget Hi-Fi enthusiast with distinctly low-end leanings — to write about LINN, though I hope the casual, sandbox-like spirit of this blog will be taken as sufficient excuse. LINN, based in Glasgow, Scotland, and headed by Ivor Tiefenbrun, is quite literally one of the high-end brands that represents not only Britain but the world. It is currently the only Hi-Fi component manufacturer to hold a Royal Warrant of Appointment (from the then Prince Charles), and even among those who know little about pure audio, it is surely one of the names well known to people who aspire to a genuinely refined way of life.

Given the high prices and its value as a status symbol, one might say brand image has a tendency to precede sound quality — and it would not be entirely wrong to say so. Yet even when evaluated without the tinted lens of price or brand, LINN’s sound quality is by no means the dubious thing some whisper it to be; viewed purely as hi-fi, it is thoroughly sound in quality, precise, and musically satisfying.

Even as a high-end audio brand, LINN does not build the sort of products that resemble great armoured tanks. True to the tradition of classic British brands, everything is smart and compact. The chassis is smaller than a standard full-size audio component (approximately 43 cm) — roughly LP-record sized (32 cm at the time of writing; current products are 35 cm) — and even the UNIDISK 1.1 universal player, which costs well over 1,500,000 yen, weighs less than 5 kg. The makers clearly understand that for an acoustic instrument, building compact, light, and simple contributes more genuinely to sound quality than trying to suppress vibration through sheer mass and bulk. Even among British audio manufacturers — where this rational philosophy is fairly mainstream — LINN stands apart in its willingness to scrutinise parts quality and precision with an attention that surpasses even Japanese manufacturers, while incorporating cutting-edge technology and building everything with great care… LINN carries that kind of honest, earnest image.

The sound that LINN’s products produce is one of exceptionally high precision, fully worthy of the high-end audio name. Many compact European audio products of this type — particularly from Britain — reveal a certain vagueness or roughness rooted in sensibility, flickering through here and there in the sound. With LINN, however, there is no cause for such concern whatsoever. Certainly, the sound of older LINN products from the 1990s was, true to British tradition, a European tone carrying a slightly austere, dried quality with the warmth of human skin; it was not the modern showboat sound that artificially extends the soundstage beyond the speakers, nor was it the fake high-speed sound that adds a glassy sheen and emphasises contours.

And yet, when one listens closely and carefully, the sharpness in the skeletal structure of the sound and its attack, the restrained yet undulating musical rhythm, and — growing ever more refined in the higher-end models — a dignified sense of air accompanied by a clear, lingering resonance that calls to mind the stillness of a British cathedral: all of this seems to speak quietly but plainly of the fundamental difference in class between LINN and other high-end brands. One might say that the refinement born of this fusion between cutting-edge world technology and British tradition amounts to a top-class sound quality that can withstand even the most exacting audiophile picking over every last detail.

In recent years LINN has moved its range increasingly towards AV (audio-visual), and the sonic character too seems to have shifted considerably — from the traditional image of a slightly sharp, dry edge, towards a more contemporary Hi-Fi sound, as heard in the succession of newer speaker models from the NINKA, KATAN, and KOMURI onwards. There is something almost monitor-like about it, with a density of information and accuracy that brings to mind new-generation speakers such as Dynaudio; and for someone like me who had been fond of the more classical tonal character of earlier models like the KEILIDH and TUKAN — which were especially convincing with string instruments — the change in direction is, I must admit, not without its moments of slight bewilderment. That said, the underlying quality and musical expressiveness that run through LINN itself remain unchanged, and there is no doubt that it will continue to evolve steadily, supported by many enthusiasts, without compromising its essential nature.

LINN has an entry-level product designed to convey its philosophy and essence — an integrated component called the CLASSIK-T / CLASSIK MUSIC, which combines a pre-main amplifier, CD player, and FM tuner in a single chassis (※ at the time of writing; this product has since been discontinued). The LINN CLASSIK MUSIC series, despite a chassis no larger than an LP sleeve, delivers a refined sound quality at a pure-audio level that is entirely worthy of the LINN name. It is one of the rare high-end audio products made for the general music-loving user — someone who finds the sound quality of existing all-in-one mini systems and boomboxes unsatisfying, yet has no wish to become entangled in the needlessly complex and cumbersome world of Hi-Fi orthodoxy: the separating of components, the profusion of complicated cabling, and all the rest of it — none of which is truly necessary for music in the first place — preferring instead to enjoy music purely, with a simple system and a lifestyle-centred sensibility.

As a music lover, I feel that products like the LINN CLASSIK — an integrated unit built to a pure-audio standard, with simplicity and directness as its guiding principles, rather than the low-quality sound of the domestic mini systems flooding the market — ought really to represent the mainstream of the “music reproduction” market. It is, I think, a great shame that products of this kind, which put music first, are so rarely produced by dedicated audio manufacturers.

For those who are drawn to the LINN sound but find, regrettably, that the high-end products are out of reach on budget grounds — and yet would still like to touch some part of what LINN has to offer — one option is to introduce a set of LINN speaker cables or RCA cables somewhere in the system. Whether Ivor Tiefenbrun is watching the current frenzy around cables in the Hi-Fi market from a certain distance, I cannot say, but LINN’s dedicated speaker cables and RCA/speaker cables have remained consistent since the 1990s with no model changes, and relative to the inflation of today’s audio cable market they are not particularly expensive. And yet LINN cables carry within their orthodox character a discernible LINN flavour, and possess a quality fully adequate to draw out the performance of LINN’s most expensive high-end components. The standard RCA cable included with LINN audio components is the LINN BLACK INTERCONNECT CABLE, with the SILVER INTERCONNECT CABLE as the upgraded model above it. ※ Despite the name, it is not a silver wire or silver-coated wire.

High-Fidelity Label: LINN RECORDS

LINN is not only one of the world’s foremost high-end audio manufacturers; it also runs its own record label, LINN RECORDS, which continues to release SACD titles actively, centred on classical music and jazz. CD and SACD releases on LINN RECORDS — recorded and produced using LINN’s own equipment — are well known among audiophiles as exceptional high-quality recordings. For the music lover, it is a high-fidelity minor label of British origin, and most of the artists on its roster are not particularly famous performers. Nevertheless, simply encountering the sound of LINN RECORDS gives one a glimpse into the sonic character and philosophy of LINN’s products. I, too, find LINN’s expensive components largely beyond reach, but thanks in part to the quality of the recordings, I have been quietly building a modest collection of LINN RECORDS SACDs over the years.

※ From the LINN RECORDS SACDs shown lined up in the opening image, I have posted a review of the two-disc SACD featuring Portuguese pianist Artur Pizarro performing Granados’s Goyescas and Albéniz’s Iberia ↓

[PR] Browse LINN RECORDS CDs and SACDs

Back issue No. 110 of the quarterly Audio Accessory magazine came with a LINN Records SACD sampler disc as a supplement. The programme ranges broadly from jazz to classical, and the sound quality is quite remarkable — a sharp, high-speed sound with the warmth characteristic of modern LINN, combined with a slightly dry touch and a superb density of information, the sonority of individual instruments, and a high degree of musicality; altogether a thoroughly enjoyable disc to listen to. It is a hybrid SACD, so it will play on an ordinary CD player as well, and this single sampler is sufficient to give a real sense of where modern LINN sound is headed.

[PR] Browse LINN products on Yahoo! Shopping