LINN HiFi Systems

At Totally Wired, we have been NZ’s longest running independent Linn dealership.
A Linn Sondek LP12 turntable has been a permanent fixture in our home for over 20 years. And there have been very few Linn products that we haven’t sold or listened to. For a very long time we could have been described as ‘true believers’ and in fact we still hold dear to a lot of the Linn basics – the assertion that if it sounds better to you, then it is. The importance of proper demonstration, and of well set up listening rooms.

We understand the philosophy that built Linn and why our many Linn owning clients still enjoy their systems.

We’ve been with Linn through all the turntables and upgrades, electronics and speakers, home cinema and multi-room. Just about everything we have sold is still performing as well as the day we installed in, in the original owners home and we continue to provide service, backup and advice.

But as much as we have loved Linn, we’ve also been frustrated by their gradual drift away from the clients whose purchases built their company, into territory that holds less and less relevance to us or our clients. And ever more costly products that seem to have marginal performance gains when there are so many other companies out there who are now producing components that in Linn’s own words are ‘simply better’

Linn’s founder and owner Ivor Tiefenbrun came down to Dunedin and stayed a few days with us in 1999. He gave a wonderful presentation to a packed shop that people still talk about.

With Linn, it is now at the point where we just can’t find new products that stack up against the other brands we have also run with over time. And let’s face it - no one company has a monopoly on sound quality or good ideas.

We’ve sat listening with our clients as the Meridian players and DSP speakers comfortably annihilated more costly Linn SACD players and active speakers. The Quad Electrostatics and Sonus faber speakers have done likewise at prices that make the glaswegian equivalents look extortionate. Arcam produce an integrated system – the Solo – that comfortably bests our favorite Linn system – the Classik Movie System – and still costs less. We’ve stood scratching our heads at the way a Thorens turntable runs rings around our own Linn LP12, despite the continual upgrades and set–ups we’ve thrown at it. We’ve been through a whole series of cartridges but the Dynavectors cleaned them all up. And the impending arrival of the new Well Tempered Turntable makes us think we’ll shortly even part with our own Sondek LP12

Maybe we are missing something. Maybe Linn will get it together in the future. But the reality is, in the here and now of New Zealand, you have plenty of better alternatives and we ’d be failing in our job if we didn’t make you aware of them. It was the thrill of hearing music sound better that got us into Linn in the first place. And today, we are still finding that thrill – it is just that comes from other designers and manufacturers. You owe it to yourself to call or e-mail us. us and investigate what is going to be best for you.

Related links

• Linn Classik Movie System
• Meridian
• Quad Systems
• Sonus faber loudspeakers
• Thorens turntables
• Arcam
• Dynavector MC cartridges
• The Well Tempered turntable
• Pro-Ject turntables