Meet Michael O'Rourke, Business Development Manager for Scottish high-end brand Linn Products Ltd. He works in export sales, covering a range of countries, from Norway to New Zealand, looking after Linn's distribution network. I spoke to him while he was in Melbourne for the StereoNET Hi-Fi & AV Show in June this year.

"We have one key distributor to look after the country and they distribute into retail outlets or our dealers", he told me. "So in Australia, our distributor is Advance Audio Australia which is headed up by Nigel Ng. In New Zealand, it's handled by N.A. Distributors. Linn has enjoyed a long history in ANZ with many loyal fans enjoying our products. We have a very good relationship with our distributors, whose passion is felt by dealers and customers alike."

From L to R, Steve Ching, Chris Murphy, Debbie Stanton (N.A. Distributors), Michael O'Rourke (Linn), Nigel Ng (Advance Audio) - StereoNET Hi-Fi & AV Show, Melbourne 2022

Michael says Linn's tagline is, "music is the soundtrack to your life… and we make it better". He adds, "That sums it up well. I've worked at Linn for about five years, and during that time there's always been that push to engineer an even better quality product, to get better reproduction of the music that is there. There's still more information on vinyl, still more information on the digital stream. We are constantly pushing to bring that closer, find more detail and more depth, and deliver that to our customers."

SOUND ENGINEERING

"When I started at Linn," he continues, "I remember I got a tour of the factory, and one of the guys said to me, "we're not a hi-fi company; we're an engineering company that makes hi-fi". And I kind of dismissed it, but as I saw more of the factory and started to work with different people, I began to realise that he was so right. Just consider the amount of focus that Linn puts on research and development, the push for how we can do things better and how can we do it consistently. That is why we have this stream of new products coming out."

Michael tells me that he considers himself lucky to know the engineering guys at Linn. "I get to hear them talk about some of the things that they're working on, the future releases, and every one of them gets excited about them. Initially, someone comes up with an idea for a new product and they discuss it, do the calculations, and work out if it could be feasible. Then a prototype is built and measured. But it has to be heard, so we go to the demo rooms with the R&D guys and we get to hear whatever the next thing might be, and we'll get A-B comparisons and listen carefully. If it doesn't sound fantastic it won't go into production. It's all about that constant journey to try and get the most accurate reproduction of the original recordings."

Linn's Managing Director Gilad Tiefenbrun has a philosophy that says the company won't release anything unless it's a real improvement over the last product, and better than what's available elsewhere. Michael adds that, "I think the big thing for Linn is that it's still a family-owned and operated business. If we were to lose the family side of things and simply become a stakeholder business, then the goals would probably change. It would be more about chasing profits or for your margins or whatever, but because we're still an engineering company and command a family of engineers, the focus is still on R&D. The ratio of engineers we have for the ratio of staff is ridiculous. I think we have around thirty percent of our total staff in R&D. Engineering is always at the heart of what we do. It's always coming back to the question of how do we push the boundaries even further."

SIGNATURE SERIES

Anyone who's owned a Linn product will know that every one comes with the signature of the person that assembled it on the product identification label. Michael tells me the story behind this. "Back in the day when the demand for the Sondek LP12 turntable was massive, we couldn't make them quickly or efficiently enough with the requisite quality. So, (the then MD) Linn founder Ivor Tiefenbrun called a meeting of the heads of departments to discuss the issues. At the time, all units were built on a kind of production line, with different staff assigned to specific tasks. Ivor said that they couldn't have a meeting without the product in front of them, so asked for someone to get one. At that moment in time, there weren't any already built…"

He continues: "So, one of the heads of department ran round and took a plinth from here and an arm from there, a power supply, etc, then put it all together, came back and put it down in front of them. Ivor said "Whoa, where did you get that?", to which she replied that she ran around and got all the parts and put the deck together herself. It was a lightbulb moment, so Ivor said, "We don't need the meeting anymore; that's how we do it from now." So that's how Linn started single space build, where one person takes all the required parts and assembles it themselves. They have pride in their work and it proudly carries their name for everyone to see."

DIFFERENT STROKES

Right now, Linn's iconic Klimax DSM is in the news. "When something new comes out," says Michael, "I want to announce it to the world and make sure that everyone knows about it. So the K DSM was a huge launch, now available with the Organik DAC upgrade. Then the Klimax LP12, with the Ekstatik cartridge, which is our flagship moving coil cartridge, as well as a Radikal II upgraded motor and power supply. In fact, a whole suite of Sondek LP12 upgrade components including arms and cartridges have been released which is very exciting. 

Michael says that whenever a new product becomes available, he wants to make sure that the stores have it available for demonstration so that people can get to see and hear it. "As you know, we can talk until we are blue in the face, but the only way to buy the products is to sit and listen to them first and decide for yourself. As I cover a range of countries, with many different types of dealers and client bases, there's a different emphasis in different areas, so I try to listen and respond to their specific needs."

Another passion of Linn's is the complete one-brand system, which the company has been able to offer since the mid-nineteen eighties. "We have so much versatility", he says. "Not all companies make a source-to-speaker pathway, but I certainly believe that there are advantages, and a lot of people go for full systems because there are so many benefits, as it is designed to work together. When you take an Exakt system where you have a digital streamer up front which is connected by Ethernet or through our Exakt link to our speakers, it then has the DAC and pre and power amplifier built into the speaker, so the signal path is all protected, it's all very close together. The more boxes and cables that you have, the more losses you will get. So I definitely think there are a lot of people who enjoy going down that route."

Michael points out that people are not forced to go all-in. "We completely understand that some people want their own speakers or whatever. We believe that having a Linn source at the front of any system will make it sound better and then they get the benefits of all the free software updates – and that includes Space Optimisation. This process is usually done by the dealer, a trained Linn specialist takes care of it for you. The reason we do it is that every room has its own distorting effects on the system. A program we call Managed Systems allows us to accurately draw and map the room, they'll put in how far away the walls are, how high the ceiling is, where the windows and the doors are and what material it's made of…"

He adds that the speaker model and its location are also factored in, so the system knows where the drive units are positioned relative to the floor. "It takes all that information and creates an acoustic model of the room, which calculates where the peaks of bass energy are, and then optimises the sound to remove that. So, what you're left with is the original recording and not the room, so you don't hear the room with the nasty effects. The bass frequencies are refined and sound much cleaner, which allows the higher frequencies to sound much better as well." The first version of Space Optimisation came out in 2015, and then Linn made a much more advanced version in 2018. This was given out as a free software upgrade. "So the person who's listening to a Linn streamer that they bought back in 2007 is listening to a better product today than when they originally bought it, thanks to updates like Space Optimisation", Michael says.

SOURCE DIRECT

Linn is format-agnostic, explains O'Rourke. "We were pioneers of streaming, and we also have the most iconic audiophile turntable that the world has ever seen, so we've got a foot in both camps. Indeed I think we're cemented into those camps' very foundations! When I get asked which is better, I explain that there isn't a better, it's just a different experience, and with Linn, you can enjoy both."

He continues: "Take myself, for example. At home, I've got mid-level Linn gear with a streamer and just at the end of last year I got my LP12 as well. And I find that some things sound better in the digital format and some things sound better on the turntable. Perhaps it comes down to how it's been mastered with one doing a better job of it. My Charlie Parker album sounds unbelievable on the turntable and I would probably never play it digitally, the same for Louis Armstrong. It was the first album that I played on my LP12 and it's perfect…"

"That said though," he continues, "I also have listened to my vinyl version of Black Sabbath's War Pigs and it isn't as mind-blowing as the digital version, which bounces out of the speakers, unbelievable! So there's not one better than the other. The reason I have both is because it's often different how you listen to your music. Streaming is phenomenal, especially hi-res Qobuz 24-bit, 192kHz. It's a great way to discover a world of music at your fingertips so quickly."

However, Michael says that for him, it's particularly fun to listen to vinyl. "I listen to it from start to finish, like a big event, sitting back and reading the gatefold and I'll be more absorbed. Albums like Radiohead's OK Computer are carefully assembled and there's a reason those songs are in that order, on that record, and that's where the turntable steps up because I think you just get deeper into the music. So, they're both essential."

NATURAL DIGITAL 

At StereoNET's Melbourne show, the Linn team was demonstrating the new Linn Klimax DSM streamer, complete with the very latest Organik DAC board. Michael explains that it replaces the previous DAC, the Katalyst, and is a wholly different approach… 

"The latter used a third-party chip internally but in typical Linn fashion was engineered to the hilt to get the most out of it – and it's very good. Organik however, is the first Linn DAC that doesn't use anyone else's chip. We brought it back all in-house, went back to first principles to come up with the best way to do this. We use FPGA processing coupled with our discrete conversion stage. The timing of the internal clock can be measured and calculated as accurate to within one trillionth of a second. We take over every aspect of the digital-to-analogue conversion. So it's the most natural sounding product we've ever made by a country mile. This fact was echoed by David Price's recent StereoNET review."

Michael explains that because it's based on Field Programmable Gate Array technology, it is easily software upgradeable remotely over the internet. "And this upgrade won't cost anything, so that's another huge benefit for our customers, that they're not buying something that's going to go out of date. They are getting something that sounds amazing today, and in five years' time, it's going to sound even better than the day they bought it." As any owner of a mid-nineteen seventies Sondek LP12 turntable knows, this has been Linn's trademark philosophy all along. 

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