Electronics and sources

Linn

Hand-built turntables and streaming systems from Glasgow, built on the belief that nothing downstream can recover what the source gets wrong. Absolute Sound is the distributor for Linn in Singapore and Malaysia.

Built to be upgraded, not replaced.

Linn was founded in Glasgow in 1973 by Ivor Tiefenbrun, whose first product, the Sondek LP12, was built on a single argument: that a system can never recover what its turntable fails to capture. The LP12 remains in production today, designed from the outset to be upgraded component by component rather than replaced. Linn later extended the same thinking into digital streaming with Exakt, keeping a recording in its original digital form for longer before it reaches the loudspeaker. Every system still leaves Linn’s single factory at Waterfoot, near Glasgow, carrying the name of the person who built it, and the company remains privately owned by the Tiefenbrun family.

The Linn ethos

Who Linn is and what it does

Watch how Linn describes its approach to building music systems, in its own words.

What is Linn? Film by Linn, 2 min 22 s.

The Linn range

Linn turntable with a walnut plinth and a tonearm over the platter, in warm light.
Linn network player and a walnut Linn bookshelf speaker on a stand beside a herringbone wooden sideboard.
Tall Linn floorstanding speaker in a glossy copper-brown finish beside a dark cabinet and a fireplace.

Sondek LP12the turntable that started the company in 1973, still in production and still designed to be upgraded rather than replaced.

DSMnetwork music players spanning Majik through Klimax, built to stream, decode and, in the entry tiers, amplify from a single source.

Klimax power amplificationpartnering monoblock amplifiers for systems built around the higher DSM tiers, which run as separate preamplification.

360the flagship loudspeaker, with Exakt and amplification built in.

Series 5an integrated loudspeaker built around Exakt, for rooms that want Linn’s sound without a separate system.

119 and 150passive bookshelf and floorstanding loudspeakers, designed to complete a Linn electronics system.

Model-by-model specifications live on the manufacturer’s site: linn.co.uk

Linn in our projects

Common questions about Linn

What makes the Sondek LP12 different from other turntables?

The LP12 was designed in 1973 around a suspended sub-chassis and a single-point bearing, both intended to isolate the record from vibration in the room around it. Rather than being replaced by newer models, it has been continuously refined: the same turntable can be upgraded component by component, decades after it left the factory.

What is Linn Exakt?

Exakt is Linn’s digital active crossover, introduced in 2013. It keeps a recording in its original digital form for longer in the signal chain, correcting for a loudspeaker’s own characteristics before conversion to analogue rather than after. The aim is a more accurate rendering of what was recorded.

Why does every Linn product carry the name of the person who built it?

Linn builds using what it calls Single Stage Build: one person assembles a product from beginning to end, rather than passing it along an assembly line, and signs it on completion. It is a quality mark as much as a tradition. The name on the plaque is the person accountable for what is inside.

Is Linn still an independent, family-run company?

Yes. Linn remains privately owned by the Tiefenbrun family, with founder Ivor Tiefenbrun as executive chairman and his son Gilad Tiefenbrun as managing director. It has no external shareholders, a structure the company credits with letting it plan in decades rather than quarters.

Hear Linn for yourself

Come and hear Linn at our showrooms. Tell us what you would like to listen to and we will have it playing when you arrive.

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