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Linn was founded by Ivor Tiefenbrun in Glasgow, Scotland in 1973. The company is best known as the manufacturer of the iconic Linn Sondek LP12 turntable.
In 2007 Linn became one of the first audio manufacturers to introduce digital music streaming using the home network and internet. Linn Records was the first record company to sell DRM-free 24-bit Studio Master quality tracks downloaded over the internet.
Digital streaming is now the core of the company’s strategy that supports digital music playback of 24bit/192Khz studio master quality recordings by maintaining the recording in the digital domain as far as possible through the playback system until the signal is converted to analog for each frequency range covered by individual dynamic speaker drivers inside the loudspeaker units themselves. This strategy has yielded two important technology concepts. The first is “Exakt” in which the crossover divides the digital audio signal, while in the digital domain, into a number of frequency bands. The band pass and band stop characteristics of each driver channel are designed to suit the target driver units characteristic inside the loudspeaker. The second important concept for Linn’s digital strategy is “Space Optimization” in which the characteristics of the room’s dimensions, construction and features such as doors and windows are incorporated into a model of the entire audio signal range in magnitude, time and frequency domains. Space Optimization not only allows removal of undesirable artificial room effects on frequency response such as resonant room modes, it also allows the selection of practical loudspeaker positions (for example nearer a wall or further away from a wall) whilst preserving the in-rooom sound from the same speakers in their ideal position where they would sound best.
Exact not only supports all current Linn Speaker models, it also supports older Linn speakers which can be upgraded by removing their passive or active analog crossovers and replacing them with digital crossovers used in an “Exaktbox” multi-channel amplifier. Likewise Space optimization supports not only Linn speakers but hundreds of loudspeaker models from other manufacturers whose target characteristics are imported into the Space Optimization process.
In late 2014 Linn announced the integration of TIDAL’s lossless music streaming service into Linn DS digital players enabling access to over 25 million audio tracks at CD-quality over the Internet.
Originally based in Linn, a suburb of the city of Glasgow in Scotland, it is now based just outside Glasgow, between Waterfoot and Eaglesham. Linn’s headquarters also house an advanced, modern factory that was designed by the famous Pritzker-Prize winning architect Richard Rogers (Three World Trade Center, New York; International Towers, Sydney; Pompidou Center, Paris; Millennium Dome and Lloyds Building, London).