Have Linn lost it?

[darkerThanBlue]

As a life-long Linn customer, with a 100% Linn based system, how do I find out about Linn's innovations? After all it's not always easy to visit a Linn dealer is it?

Well, I'd check out the Linn website of course. I'd go straight to the news or blog section of the website. I'm sure that would get me the most up-to-date product related news, or would it?

The most recent News page article is dated Friday, April 8, 2016.

The most recent Blog article is even worse it's dated 22 May 2015.

That can't be right can it? No articles about Exakt, Selekt nor Space Optimisation. Really???

A quick jump over to the Naim website and I can find 29 pages of news items that go back to May 2016. That's right 29 pages!

So what about social media? Their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/linnhifi is reporting "This page isn't available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed." 

It appears that the only real Linn news is to be found on Twitter and most of it is "retweets".

And that's on top of shutting down the Linn Forums. So please don't bother checking out the Naim forums, you'll just be even more depressed.

What a shoddy performance. Linn do you really value your customers?

Linn should hang their heads in shame, or fire their marketing team. 

In summary, if I can borrow a phrase from Linn's own "About Us" page:   “good enough” isn’t good enough.

 

[Wickie8166]

try this link https://docs.linn.co.uk/wiki/index.php/NEW, at least something.

I totally agree, these marketing folks are playing hide and seek ;-)

 

[timster]

Yeah, everything seems to have been moved to LinnDocs. There are sections on everything, but you'd need to know where to look. The website is pretty useless these days, let alone out of date.

 

[uk030]

Event:

https://www.linn.co.uk/harrods-events

 

[sunbeamgls]

As a life-long Linn customer, with a 100% Linn based system, how do I find out about Linn's innovations? After all it's not always easy to visit a Linn dealer is it?

Well, I'd check out the Linn website of course. I'd go straight to the news or blog section of the website. I'm sure that would get me the most up-to-date product related news, or would it?

The most recent News page article is dated Friday, April 8, 2016.

The most recent Blog article is even worse it's dated 22 May 2015.

That can't be right can it? No articles about Exakt, Selekt nor Space Optimisation. Really???

A quick jump over to the Naim website and I can find 29 pages of news items that go back to May 2016. That's right 29 pages!

So what about social media? Their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/linnhifi is reporting "This page isn't available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed." 

It appears that the only real Linn news is to be found on Twitter and most of it is "retweets".

And that's on top of shutting down the Linn Forums. So please don't bother checking out the Naim forums, you'll just be even more depressed.

What a shoddy performance. Linn do you really value your customers?

Linn should hang their heads in shame, or fire their marketing team. 

In summary, if I can borrow a phrase from Linn's own "About Us" page:   “good enough” isn’t good enough.

Its very poor.  A number of us have been banging on about how out of date the website is.  I even spoke directly to the Marketing Director at the Bristol Show in February 2019 about the date of the last news page entry - she was surprised to hear this (lack of knowledge) and promised to investigate and address (lack of action).  They're great at shooting themselves in the foot.

Really, all it needs is a feed from their Twitter and/or FB accounts appearing on that page.  A very simple thing to fix.

I suggest you could cut and paste your post and send it to helpdesk@linn.co.uk requesting a response from the MD and / or Marketing Director.

 

[FearOfMusic]

...

The most recent News page article is dated Friday, April 8, 2016.

The most recent Blog article is even worse it's dated 22 May 2015.

...

Linn should hang their heads in shame, or fire their marketing team. 

In summary, if I can borrow a phrase from Linn's own "About Us" page:   “good enough” isn’t good enough.

Checking on the website for something else, I clicked on Speakers and found ONLY 520 and 530 options.

Anyone any idea what's happening?

https://www.linnproducts.co.uk/speakers

darkerThanBlue is The Man, apparently .. One post and Linn start developing a new website. 

 

[darkerThanBlue]

Now that's impressive, I didn't know I had such super powers 

They seem to be running two instances of their website on different domains one at https://www.linn.co.uk and the newer(???) one at https://www.linnproducts.co.uk 

There seems to be quite a lot missing... does that mean new stuff will be forthcoming?

 

[BB1]

The most recent Blog article is even worse it's dated 22 May 2015.

To be fair, the most recent blog entry is dated 24th of September 2018.

https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/vinyl-and-streaming

They're great at shooting themselves in the foot.

I couldn't agree more.

There seems to be quite a lot missing... does that mean new stuff will be forthcoming?

"New stuff" already being offered by Linn or new stuff being released next month? I'd guess yes to both, but why on earth is the supposed new domain publicly available without providing full content? To me it’s another example for shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[mcgilroy]

Linn's marketing is pretty bad and inconsistent these days. It always was idiosyncratic and that was not necessary a bad thing. First half of last years the intros of all the LP12 related stuff went pretty well but it went downhill since the neutered the forum.

Selekt is a good product nobody knows about.

To a lesser extend the same is true for Exakt and Exakt surround. Expensive products which pretty much need constant explanation and a responsive team. Burdening dealers with that in the age of Youtube Audiophiles is not a viable strategy. Is there a single video up with somebody explaining his/her Exakt-system? Or a single written review of an Exakt-speaker or the exaktification of a system online? Not that I know of - please correct me if I am wrong.

Marketingwise 2019 pretty much was a complete mess.

Let's see what the October event brings.

 

[sunbeamgls]

They have been out and about much more extensively than usual with the Selekt product.

They were at Munich and Bristol in 2019, unheard of for many years.  Plus lots of specialist press coverage.

You'll find quite a bit of online content at audiophilemusings.co.uk, but then, you might expect me to point that out

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2016/06/linn-exakt-and-pmc-twenty26-world-first.html

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2017/03/linn-exakt-and-kudos-super-20-world.html

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2019/05/4-lots-of-kudos-in-one-night-passive.html

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2018/02/linn-kudos-audioquest-at-bristol-show.html

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2016/12/klimbing-produkt-ladder-at-linn.html

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2015/09/linn-factory-customer-event-series-5.html

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2018/04/post-kegworth-musings-2018.html

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/2019/03/all-ready-to-go-at-hifiwigwam-show-2019.html

And related: https://kudosaudio.com/new-kudos-titan-808-with-linn-exakt-causes-a-stir-at-bristol-acoustica-shows/

Also (although some of these are long in the tooth):

https://www.whathifi.com/linn/akurate-exactakudorik/review

https://www.hifiplus.com/articles/linn-akurate-aukdorik-exakt-system/

http://www.insideci.co.uk/reviews/linn-akudorik-with-katalyst-dac-reviewed.aspx

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/linn-akurate-exakt-dsm-player-and-exakt-akubarik-loudspeaker-review/

http://loud-clear.co.uk/glasgow/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Hifi-Plus-Review-Linn-Klimax-Music-System-May-2017.pdf

 

[mcgilroy]

Thx Sunbeam - thats quite a bit more than I had on my radar! But may I point out that all these reviews are at least two years old or older. Given there weren't any new speakers in the meantime I still feel Linn's approach with SO/Exakt is underrepresented in the (online) audio press.

Didn't catch that they had been at Munich. Didn't appear in the show reports I read but it's a good sign they take these shows seriously. 

Love your blog and follow it closely. Great resource!

 

[Moomintroll]

As if by majik...

https://www.audiostream.com/content/linn-selekt-dsm-katalyst-integrated-power-amplifier-review

'troll

 

[sunbeamgls]

Thx Sunbeam - thats quite a bit more than I had on my radar! But may I point out that all these reviews are at least two years old or older. Given there weren't any new speakers in the meantime I still feel Linn's approach with SO/Exakt is underrepresented in the (online) audio press.

Didn't catch that they had been at Munich. Didn't appear in the show reports I read but it's a good sign they take these shows seriously. 

Love your blog and follow it closely. Great resource!

Thanks for the kind words.  I didn't see any press coverage of Linn at Munich, but it was announced on from Linn's @LinnProducts Twitter account.

 

[Jail4CEOs2]

I'm guessing Linn gave the local dealers some money for the high end show here in Taiwan. Last year they had a much smaller footprint than this year. 

 

[SnapperMike]

Yes, very poor from a company who advocates source first. 

 

[BB1]

Since the release of the Selekt there are ads like this in a printed German magazine named "Audio".

.

These ads are not paid by Linn, but the German retailers. If they wouldn’t have booked the ads, there wouldn’t have been a review of the Selekt in this magazine…

 

[mcgilroy]

Yep - pay to play is the norm in the audiophile press, offline and online. Some like 6Moons are open about it, others pretend no financial interest...