Hard times at Linn

I know that at one time they had a dedicated room in the Harrods a/v area, which seemed to summon up their general direction/market. Not sure if it's still there.

Because Linn dealers treated their customers this way for years?

quote:

Originally posted by kuma:
Because Linn dealers treated their customers this way for years?

Even those that also sold Naim?

(Nice clip, btw, and to some extent I share your sentiments...)

/dl

This is real shame, and to me seems to have come about because Linn is a confused company, and as some else mentioned, not one you can trust anymore. Their arrogance didn't help, or the general BS surrounding them. I worked in a Linn dealer a long time ago, and the then account/sales manager found out I owned a Pink Triangle Export (steady now) and tried to get me sacked, as I wasn't suitable for a Linn dealer. He failed to note that I was the only one to have sold any of his Ariston RD11/Thorens copies all year. This didn't endear me to the brand! And to think, there was this arrogance and they had just released the Intek, which I found hard to dintinguish from a £150 NAD amp, and was trounced by the Exposure 10 (& Nait, we weren't Naim dealers)

Anyway, I hate seeing people lose their jobs, especially through the incompetance of the people at the top.

I wonder if the poor profits are for the hifi business only, or if it includes their high precision engineering division?

I think it might be a case of sowing the breeze and reaping the whirlwind...

quote:

Originally posted by Frank Abela:
Although we stopped being Linn dealers a couple of years ago, this saddens me greatly. I hope they can take the right decisions to make the company survive. I must say I was shocked at the profit results. Even the record profit figure of £2.1M seems rather low considering the size of the company.

Anyone has Naim's profit and loss figure?

Naim, as far as I know, is a privately owned company and therefore does not publish finacial data.

Who 'owns' Naim then?

And what other companies does Naim itself own?

I understood it backed the Brompton bike company and had something to do with yachts?

Melnobone

Posted by Mark Tucker on 2 Nov 2000:

quote:

Julian was a major shareholder of the Brompton Bicycle Co. and the UK distributor/manufacturer of Windex Yachts and accessories.

He was also developing (here in England) a radical new design of yachts in collaboration with Lars Bergstrom at the time of his death.

[This message was edited by Mark Tucker on THURSDAY 02 November 2000 at 15:54.]

I understand that Naim is now owned by a trust consisting of family members of the late Julian Vereker.

This has been discussed before. My memory of that discussion is that a lot of the details of Naim Audio's ownership and so forth are available from some sort of companies regulatory body in the UK.

Myself, I'm not that interested in how much they make or who gets it. I only hope it's enough for them to stay in business.

Linn are so up themselves and have been for so long that I really don't give a damn if they fold.

Looks like I backed the wrong horse

Deane

quote:

Linn are so up themselves and have been for so long that I really don't give a damn if they fold.

Maybe you don't care but given I am currently typing this less than 5 miles form Linn's HQ where real people with real families to feed and support are working hard to earn a living your comment is both thoughtless - and if you really mean it - utterly heartless as well.

Silklee

If you are that keen to find out Naim's financial position then go buy their last report from Companies House and you will have the information you want. A P&L number on it's own is utterly meaningless of course.

Cheers

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Exiled Highlander:
Deane

Maybe you don't care but given I am currently typing this less than 5 miles form Linn's HQ where real people with real families to feed and support are working hard to earn a living your comment is both thoughtless - and if you really mean it - utterly heartless as well.

Exiled Highlander

Get off your high horse.

Linn's troubles and its effect on the real people with real families to feed and support are not my burden or my responsibility.

Why don't you send some of your sanctimony to Ivor and whoever else smokes the cigars at Linn?

Deane

Deane

I'm happy to get off my high horse but I rest my case after this remark

quote:

Linn's troubles and its effect on the real people with real families to feed and support are not my burden or my responsibility.

I agree they are not your responsibility or your burden but you could at least care and you don't seem to do so. You seem to have answered my original question so you are heartless rather than thoughtless which is fine as at least we know where you stand.

Jim

It's a great shame that Linn have lost their way, and I guess it was an easy mistake to believe that survival was in multi-room sound server technology, when in reality, it clearly wasn't. I really hope that Naim will not fall into the same trap of believing that their traditional customers are now changing into "bling" MTV consumers. The people that I see that have multi-room systems and huge screens are those with too much money and not enough music interest, and only use the system to pipe Robbie Williams and Coldplay around the house and garden at summer parties. Obviously this is an over generalisation, but that's my personal experience. This market has nothing to do with music appreciation, just "flash". I hope Naim will understand that the large majority of us music lovers just want to be shut away in a room to appreciate music for musics sake, not to impress some neighbours. The "one system does all" concept isn't, IMO, what music lovers really want. Just look at the move back to mobile phones that are designed primarily as phones, not cameras, PDA's, etc. Most people seem to want individual items that perform their own function.
I think hi-fi at this level is a specialised subject and Linn forgot that. They forgot that the high street market towards more complicated DVD/TV/multi-channel/multi-room systems only served to make them more special, not a dead duck. Most people think of Bose for house installations that I've seen, and I've seen a few now. It's about background music, and Linn & Naim have never been about background music. Huge mistake by Linn.
I hope & pray that Naim look at this Linn situation very carefully, and make sure they know their market before going too far down the same route.

I think you are making the mistake (or is it more displaying hi-fi arrogance) that many posters here do in assuming that "most people" i.e non-naim owners do not appreciate music.

"Most people" are fortunate enough to be able to enjoy music (even Coldplay) on systems that cost a fraction of anything owned by people here.

In 5 years time naim will be well into the "all room" system but will charge a premium so that you can boast about how expensive and "better" your system is.

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
I really hope that Naim will not fall into the same trap of believing that their traditional customers are now changing into "bling" MTV consumers.

My belief is that the two markets will be addressed separately but that there will be many, traditional 2 channel, customers who will embrace at least some of the NaimNet offering.

The server may be of wide potential interest - even to non-bling, non-MTV music lovers.

quote:

Originally posted by Adam Meredith:

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
I really hope that Naim will not fall into the same trap of believing that their traditional customers are now changing into "bling" MTV consumers.

... many, traditional 2 channel, customers who will embrace at least some of the NaimNet offering. The server may be of wide potential interest - even to non-bling, non-MTV music lovers.

Yes Adam - it interests me.
I'm very interested to hear how it sounds as a high quality vinyl archive.

BTW what's MTV?

quote:

Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:
assuming that "most people" i.e non-naim owners do not appreciate music.

I don't really mean anything of the sort. Naim isn't the only hi-fi company and you don't get non-music lovers in their thousands going to concerts, so there are plenty of people listening to music. I maybe didn't make the point well enough, or maybe I was clumsy. I do see what you mean.
The distinction as I see it in my line of work, which can include building houses for the wealthy, is that multi-room systems are chosen by the contractor by budget and used primarily as background when cooking or entertaining. (I've sat there at meetings when systems are discussed, and the M&E guys pick a system in exactly the same way as they pick an air-conditioning unit.) Houses with a dedicated cinema have a bowel juddering dedicated sound system, and if someone is serious about hi-fi, then a dedicated system lives in a room unconnected to the multi-room system. In a few huge houses, maybe three or four, that's what I've seen happen. Maybe people don't know how to use them properly, but then again most of them haven't yet worked out how to use the alarm system properly. I've been at a place with a multi-room system where we stood around a BBQ with all the blokes playing with the remote, not for any other reason than it's a new toy to be played with (It was a Bose). I can remember specifically two houses with Linn multi-room systems that had dedicated systems elsewhere.
Maybe there is a market in high quality server-musak, but I don't see it as a replacement for a system for dedicated listening yet. I can see the potential, but I just can't see a music-server system by a specialist company competing successfully against a mainstream name in what will be a mainstream market. Surely if Linn are in trouble, it must be because they put a lot of effort into this new market at the expense of their traditional customers.(?)
I might be wrong, but that's my opinion, and that's what I've witnessed. It's a long way from replacing the dedicated hi-fi system in the eyes of the consumer, even if the potential is there to be otherwise. I still think it's used mainly for background music.
I was cooking in the kitchen last night and wanted to continue listening to the album I played walking home from work on the ipod, so I used the ipod into a stereo in the kitchen. That sort of portability - car, walking, kitchen etc appeals.

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
BTW what's MTV?

Something that people watch on television when they do not have anything better to do.

By the way - what's BTW?

quote:

Originally posted by Exiled Highlander:
Deane

...I agree they are not your responsibility or your burden but you could at least care and you don't seem to do so. You seem to have answered my original question so you are heartless rather than thoughtless which is fine as at least we know where you stand.

Jim

Jim

I certainly care about how the fallout of the capitalist system affects those at the bottom of the food chain.

Linn is in the trouble it's in because of mismanagement and its troubles will almost certainly not affect managers to the extent it will affect the workers - whose fault it is not.

Linn chose a "fuck you" attitude to its dealers and customers a long way back. Now the little guy is paying the price for Linn. Ivor Tiefenbrun is the heartless one - not me. Why don't you walk down the road and tell him so? I can guess his response...something along the lines of "kiss my arse" probably. That'd be consistent with his company's approach to the market for years now.

Deane

Linn site has been updated

http://www.linn.co.uk/

No forum yet though

Just had a look at the web site. I'd forgotten how irritating all those K's were in the produkt names.

quote:

specialist retail staff should know how to teach the customers to listen.

So says Linn...

It beggars belief.

Naim would normally let the music do the talking.

Then take us out for a curry.

I also prefer pre-amps with volume knobs.

Nothing beats a knob (Stop it you dirty minded tykes).

quote:

Originally posted by mtuttleb:
Linn site has been updated

I'm impressed.
A Tune Dem™ is trade marked.

the marine section looks good. theres got to be profit in that

neil