Linn CD players no more?

[Lego]

Is it true Linn are planning to stop manufacturing cd players this year?A customer(PJ ex Blue nile)said he read it in Mondays Herald.I get the Herald but never noticed the article.

[lejonklou]

That would be a bold move...

But I can imagine that their disc players aren't selling very well these days. To Linn fans, the DS players offers a lot more performance for the money. And to all the others out there, a Majik CD is a very expensive player indeed. For the money, it doesn't impress with anything except sound quality.

If this rumour turns out to be true, Majik CD and Akurate CD must be two of the shortest living products in Linn's entire history.

Hmmm...

[Music Lover]

For the money, it doesn't impress with anything except sound quality.

But what else matters?

[Azazello]

Compared to the DS players they really don't impress at all any more and the people who want to play discs have plenty of great 2:nd hand bargains to choose from!

[Charlie1]

I think there are still plenty of people, especially the slightly older customers, that are in the market for a new CD spinner but really don't want to anything to do with computers and would be very put off by the idea of the DS machines and all that's involved.

There are also people that don't trust PCs and storing a lifetime music collection on a hard disk won't appeal either - even if it does have a backup.

Surely Linn can't afford to desert all these customers right now? Perhaps they will just drop the Majik CD and keep the Akurate going?

[lejonklou]

But what else matters?

Build quality, design, functionality, second hand value. And probably something else that I can't think of right now.

I used to have a Karik and later an Ikemi. Loved them both. But I'm certain I would not feel the same about a Majik CD. Simply not the same quality (except for the sound).

Don't you agree?

[Briain]

Hi
Me too, had all three and loved the sound of the Majik but the plastic drawer is a bit cheap and nasty. Does sound good for the money though!
Bri

[ThomasOK]

I have to agree with Charlie, I think you will find a fair number of people who are unwilling to go the computer music route - especially with a system that requires as much configuration as the DS products. Give them a Sooloos system to play with for a week and they might change their mind - at least until they see the $13,000+ price tag. Just the dealer resistance to the DS products should be a good indiction of that wariness (there are any number of Linn dealers who are not particularly interested in becoming system administrators in order to sell some new pieces of Hi-Fi equipment).

You can say that the DS products make CD spinners obsolete based on sonic performance and I wouldn't argue with you. But I would respond that vinyl made CDs obsolete when CDs were INTRODUCED based on sonic performance. Yet CDs are still here, they are still the best selling source for music and they are still probably the biggest source for the music that ends up getting played through DS units. Having the ability to just spin one without getting the playlist up and running, etc. will still appeal to many.

While the future will undoubtedly be downloadable music (and eventually downloadable movies) that future will not be truly with us until there is a unified standard with easy interoperability between different systems and between home, car and personal players. This requires a more mature market than the splintered one we have now with a consensus (which will be created by consumer pocketbooks) and it requires even larger and cheaper storage and bandwidth than we have now. I give the CD at least another 5 years of life before it becomes an insignificant part of the market.

On the question at hand, I have not heard anything form our Linn rep indicating that they are stopping the manufacture of CD players. The only article I could find in The Herald just mentioned Linn discontinuing the CD12 a few years ago and talked about Linn returning to profitability during 2008. There was no mention of discontinuing current disc products. As you can guess from the above, I believe it would be premature for Linn to stop making disc spinners at this point.

Here is the link for the article which does have some interesting information:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/displ ... _chief.php

There is no doubt in my mind that electronic storage, network transfer and playlist-style playback will become the dominant way of playing music in the future - especially as the "random access" generation and those to follow become the principal consumers of music. Until then, and possibly even beyond, I am glad I have my LP12SE and my collection of records to enjoy music with. Even though I do expect that computer stored audio will become a second source for me in the near future.

[ThomasOK]

But what else matters?

Build quality, design, functionality, second hand value. And probably something else that I can't think of right now.

I used to have a Karik and later an Ikemi. Loved them both. But I'm certain I would not feel the same about a Majik CD. Simply not the same quality (except for the sound).

Don't you agree?

Agreed! Although you might argue that you have this covered under functionality, I would say that a decent remote control would be one of the something elses you couldn't think of. None of us in the store have any love for the current Linn Klunky remote control. You could also include reasonable repair costs, which are no longer part of the Linn brand.

[Music Lover]

But what else matters?

Build quality, design, functionality, second hand value. And probably something else that I can't think of right now.

I used to have a Karik and later an Ikemi. Loved them both. But I'm certain I would not feel the same about a Majik CD. Simply not the same quality (except for the sound).

Don't you agree?

ok, I understand and I partly agree

[Lego]

  Until then, and possibly even beyond, I am glad I have my LP12SE and my collection of records to enjoy music with. Even though I do expect that computer stored audio will become a second source for me in the near future.

I was never looking forward to this stage in my life when I would be saying that I think I have all the music I really need in my lp collection.Future music has no relevance for me,have I reached saturation point?I cant see me rushing out to by cds so I can buy a ds;downloads would probably be more doable.Somewhat easier than ripping cds every night;If I had along jail sentence,maybe.

Sorry about the red herring guys PJ must have picked it up wrong.
Although Linns ds players easily outperform their cd players I think Linn could have a problem convincing non Linn heads(unintelligent and untalented) that the ds outperforms non linn top of the range cd players.