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

Early 70s.

Do you know why the cornflake shop was so named?

 

No idea.

 

Record packaging at college.

I know a lot more people than the simple forum spammer I am accused of being.

 

Sounds like a great shop and evidence you can't paint everyone with the same brush.

 

Having worked with Chris and Steve there ain't no brush big enough to paint 'em with!

 

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;-)

 

LOL...I loved their ads back in the day and their boombox (Sony Pro Walkman, nait and kans in a crate with handle?)

 

Not all British, just those who aspire and fail.

 

Correction noted sir;-)

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

You can't even get that small bit of recent history right.

 

'I am not a number I am a free man'.

You are trade. You hate (yes that is the term) FE and me.
Have the honour to declare your interests.

 

Your opinion of me . . . is ad hominem

< Andrew, agreed, post deleted and this one edited to remove reference to it > Dev

 

Look at them now; Queens Award x 2 ace!

 

I've split the thread and hope the OP will receive some proper advice now (well I guess I can hope).

 

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

 

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.