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Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 17:01
by Music at Home
Thanks very much Thomas, that's reassuring.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 17:48
by mcgillroy
Perhaps the loss of a source-only product is only temporary. For now they want to signal to a different market that they are there, that they listen (USB, WiFi/Bluetooth/Alexa) and that they care.

I am pretty sure the enthusiast market will get it‘s share of attention too. Just look what they brought out the past 12 months in the Exakt and LP12 space.

Wait and see.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 18:18
by tokenbrit
Meanwhile, other manufacturers are paying attention to the enthusiast market, with an approach that focuses on preserving rather than processing the music, and provides an open forum... Wait on Linn if you Selekt; a good few of us have already elected not to do so. There's room for both approaches, but I don't see Linn reversing 'kourse' anytime soon.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 19:05
by Music Lover
tokenbrit wrote:Meanwhile, other manufacturers are paying attention to the enthusiast market, with an approach that focuses on preserving rather than processing the music, and provides an open forum... Wait on Linn if you Selekt; a good few of us have already elected not to do so. There's room for both approaches, but I don't see Linn reversing 'kourse' anytime soon.
A huge thumbs up on that post sir!

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 19:49
by DavidHB
tokenbrit wrote:Meanwhile, other manufacturers are paying attention to the enthusiast market, with an approach that focuses on preserving rather than processing the music, and provides an open forum... Wait on Linn if you Selekt; a good few of us have already elected not to do so. There's room for both approaches, but I don't see Linn reversing 'kourse' anytime soon.
The product releases that have occurred in recent months are clear evidence of continuing attention to the enthusiast market. If you look at Linn's catalogue prior to the release of Selekt, you will find many more "enthusiast" models that products aimed at the more general market. To a significant extent, Selekt corrects that imbalance, which I think is a good thing. But, in a year that has already seen the release of Katalyst in Akurate and Akurate Exakt products, the Lingo 4 and the Urika II, Selekt cannot be seen as a change of market focus or as an abandonment of enthusiast customers.

While I understand and to some degree share ThomasOK's concerns about the discontinuation of the KDS, I honestly believe that it is wrong to interpret this as any kind of change of direction. If Linn, or any other manufacturer of high end hi-fi, wants to stay in business, they are going to have to find ways of improving their top of the range product. It is only reasonable to expect that the next version of the KDSM will better the KDS of today. It could of course be that the KDS is the victim of its own success, that there is a limited market for that kind of product at that price point and that the market has been saturated ...

David

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 19:50
by Peter@57m
ThomasOK wrote:
Linn has also said that pins would work with all DS/DSMs, the only advantages the Selekt DSM has here are the six buttons on the unit and the replication of them on the coming remote. (Although there is no reason to believe that you couldn't use the Selekt remote with other Linn units.) Linn has continued to support every DS and DSM product they have made with every software release and I don't see any reason this would change.
Beta doc states “From the DS remote, press and hold the pin number for 2 seconds.” I can confirm this works fine with a REM020 remote to select the action assigned to a Pin

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 20:27
by tokenbrit
DavidHB wrote:The product releases that have occurred in recent months are clear evidence of continuing attention to the enthusiast market...

If Linn, or any other manufacturer of high end hi-fi, wants to stay in business, they are going to have to find ways of improving their top of the range product ...

David
Depends on the enthusiast. Linn chose to abandon those who just listened and heard that a good pre-amp is better than DVC. Now they choose to abandon those that did the same between KDS & KDSM. And I'm not sure on the 'verdikt' between Urika vs Urika II, or whether anything Exakt is for the enthusiasts or just the 'Linnthusiasts'...
Respectfully, you don't improve your top of the range product by discontinuing your, musically, top of the range product although isn't that still the Klimax LP12 ;) Even if Linn make a new KDSM that betters the latest & last KDS, there will remain a suspicion that a KDS with the same improvement would still have sounded better.
But all this is in danger of getting argumentative. I hope the Selekt is a success if it brings more potential customers into hifi stores, and that those customers find a system that makes them enthusiastic about music. After all, that's really what's at the heart of the system, isn't it? Whoever manufacturers it.
Happy listening.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 20:38
by Music Lover
DavidHB wrote: Selekt cannot be seen as a change of market focus or as an abandonment of enthusiast customers.
Correct, Selekt cannot be seen as a change of market focus - as the abandonment of enthusiast customers happened many years earlier.
KDS + KK was the best products and in combination most musical. Both sadly gone now.
KDS/Katalyst and KK is still the most musical combination.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 21:40
by sunbeamgls
tokenbrit wrote:Meanwhile, other manufacturers are paying attention to the enthusiast market, with an approach that focuses on preserving rather than processing the music, and provides an open forum... Wait on Linn if you Selekt; a good few of us have already elected not to do so. There's room for both approaches, but I don't see Linn reversing 'kourse' anytime soon.
I hope there is a market for Selekt - and good that Linn can bring quality music to a wider audience. However, I thought Uniti Nova was already at or approaching the price limit for a reasonable size audience. Selekt is above that and make struggle to find enough buyers to justify the investment. I know there are even higher price single units from the likes of AVM and DCS, where the market must be very small indeed, but let's hope there are enough in Linn's chosen price bracket.

While Selekt will create brand awareness (have you noticed that Linn are actually advertising on line!?!) and bring in revenue, it doesn't mean that they have abandoned the enthusiast market YET. The loss of the DS range seems odd, but there is more to come yet between now and mid-October, so lets see how it progresses. Even then, we might not have seen the end of the evolution of the product line. The original 'source first' company abandoning source first for non-Linn systems doesn't look clever, hopefully there's more to come.

As for your point about processing the music TB, all music is processed before it gets to our ears, regardless of which way it gets there. All formats and system configurations have their compromises and faults. Linn have chosen to process the music in a slightly different way. They see Exakt as RETAINING more of the music by dealing with phase issues, speaker drive unit problems and (with SO), the room. You might not agree with them, and that's fine, but their view is that their approach preserves more of the music. Same objective, different way of getting there.

To consider one company's approach as wholly wrong and another's as wholly right is a rather narrow view of a complex World.

I do wonder about the forum now. They could've just made it read-only for a few weeks, but with this approach, as soon as it is (if it is) re-opened, there's going to be a whole World of pain for them.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 22:02
by Jumanji
What makes you think there is more to come until mid October
than the rollout of Selekt to the various regions?
J.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-22 22:33
by sunbeamgls
Jumanji wrote:What makes you think there is more to come until mid October
than the rollout of Selekt to the various regions?
J.
Just the notice on the forum change and that there's the Akurate Exaktbox-i on the way but not really announced as such. There may be nothing more at all.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 00:38
by tokenbrit
sunbeamgls wrote:To consider one company's approach as wholly wrong and another's as wholly right is a rather narrow view of a complex World.
I explicitly said I thought there was room for both approaches. That said, I don't see how digitising a signal, multiple times, preserves a signal or, more importantly, my ears don't hear it, and we've had the discussion a number of times how preserving the signal is more important than correcting later in the system, so no need to re hash here.
Again, my view is that there's room for both but Linn's approach with Exakt is more closed, walled garden by digitising, sending via a proprietary link, and converting back to analogue as late as possible, than an approach that preserves as much analogue as possible.
Not claiming any absolute right or wrong on either approach - you pays your money, and you take your choice - but Linn's approach is heading further and further in the wrong direction for me. Which is why I am here on this forum, not there on that one ... other than that it's down, of course ;)
Anyway, that's enough from me on this thread. Happy listening.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 03:55
by ThomasOK
I can pretty much guarantee there are no more new products coming out from Linn in October. The renaming of the Majik Exaktbox-I to the Akurate Exaktbox-I (with new casework now and Katalyst next year) was announced at the same time as the announcements of the Selekt DSM, new SO, pins, and the realignment of the streaming product lines (plus the updated software necessary to implement it all, of course).

Since this was all announced to dealers and the press and is now talked about online at Linn’s site, dealer sites and various news organizations, it appears the only reason the Linn forum is still down is that they haven’t made up their minds yet what they want to do with it.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 05:30
by timster
sunbeamgls wrote: ...
(have you noticed that Linn are actually advertising on line!?!
Where?
Their "News" site is still stuck in 2016 and the Timorous Beasties.
Twitter is stuck on the 45th anniversary of the LP12.
Facebook? Not what I call advertising, just announcements.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 08:18
by Jumanji
Yes I noticed it on ebay, e.g. and for the first time after many years even in local language, also there website is now partially English and the new stuff in local language;-) , quite a mix.

I don’t like the pictures though, what has a whale in a bowl to do with music?
Ahh. I get it: Space Optimization

But a trumped with a Lemon is beyond my understanding ;-)

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 08:22
by timster
Oh, you mean the AdChoices embedded ads. Yeah. No mention of Selekt yet though, just the Klimax.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 08:28
by Jumanji
In my case it was Selekt only...

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 09:21
by sunbeamgls
tokenbrit wrote: I explicitly said I thought there was room for both approaches.
You did, apologies.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 09:24
by sunbeamgls
Jumanji wrote:In my case it was Selekt only...
Yes, Selekt ads for me too. On Facebook (not Linn posts on their page), ebay and, I think, Blogger too.

Of course, most of these will be contextual / algorithm based so will vary for everyone.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 09:25
by sunbeamgls
ThomasOK wrote:I can pretty much guarantee there are no more new products coming out from Linn in October...
Thanks Thomas

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 11:00
by Wolfie
ThomasOK wrote:I can pretty much guarantee there are no more new products coming out from Linn in October...
The information from Gilad on the Linn forum saying “...during the launch period of our exciting new product and upgrades...” did make me wonder about the ‘upgrades’ part, although I guess this may refer to the modules for the Selekt DSM.

Mick

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 12:15
by sunbeamgls
Wolfie wrote:
ThomasOK wrote:I can pretty much guarantee there are no more new products coming out from Linn in October...
The information from Gilad on the Linn forum saying “...during the launch period of our exciting new product and upgrades...” did make me wonder about the ‘upgrades’ part, although I guess this may refer to the modules for the Selekt DSM.

Mick
They have Exaktboxes in the 'upgrades' section of the web site, so the Kartridges and the re-branding of Exaktbox-i may be the upgrades referred to.

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 12:50
by Wolfie
sunbeamgls wrote:
Wolfie wrote:
ThomasOK wrote:I can pretty much guarantee there are no more new products coming out from Linn in October...
The information from Gilad on the Linn forum saying “...during the launch period of our exciting new product and upgrades...” did make me wonder about the ‘upgrades’ part, although I guess this may refer to the modules for the Selekt DSM.

Mick
They have Exaktboxes in the 'upgrades' section of the web site, so the Kartridges and the re-branding of Exaktbox-i may be the upgrades referred to.
Ah right, that makes sense - ta...

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 15:00
by DavidHB
Music Lover wrote:
DavidHB wrote: Selekt cannot be seen as a change of market focus or as an abandonment of enthusiast customers.
Correct, Selekt cannot be seen as a change of market focus - as the abandonment of enthusiast customers happened many years earlier.
I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion. If Urika II and Lingo 4 (both introduced in 2018) are not for enthusiast customers, who are they for? It's one thing to dislike the technical direction in which Linn are taking their product range (an opinion I respect but do not share), and another to say that Linn is abandoning its enthusiast customer base, which does not seem to square with the facts.

I think a disclaimer is in order here, because I fear that, in questioning some of the criticisms that have been made, I may be coming across as some kind of Linn groupie. While I enjoy using the Linn products that I own, there are in fact aspects of what the company does that I do not admire. The in my view unnecessary suspension of the Linn forum is a case in point. That is, I believe, something that the enthusiast customer base can legitimately complain about.

David

Re: Linn announcements 9/2018, Selekt, etc.

Posted: 2018-09-23 18:54
by Music Lover
DavidHB wrote:
Music Lover wrote:
DavidHB wrote: Selekt cannot be seen as a change of market focus or as an abandonment of enthusiast customers.
Correct, Selekt cannot be seen as a change of market focus - as the abandonment of enthusiast customers happened many years earlier.
I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion.
Well, you had the answer in the part of the quote you deleted