Linn Products announce "The Death of CD"
Linn Products has announced that it will cease production of its range of CD players from the start of 2010. Managing Director Gilad Tiefenbrun said Linn will concentrate instead on its DS digital music streaming products. “Our customers have fast recognized the limitations of CD players in the age of home networking,” said Tiefenbrun at a press conference in London’s Covent Garden. “CD players no longer belong in the specialist domain.”
The first high-end audio brand to abandon the format, Linn spotted a 40% decline in CD player sales over the last two years. At the same time, the company saw sales of DS products increase by a similar amount, and the DS players now account for almost 30% of Linn’s total sales.
These numbers are echoed in sales at Linn Records, the company’s music-making arm. Over the past two years, Linn Records has seen a 17% decline in CD sales but a 24% increase in download sales, 70% of which are now premium quality high-resolution Studio Masters. Reports from the record label suggest that one-quarter of all Linn Classical sales are now downloads, with more than 10,000 customers opting for the Studio Master experience; 90% of these Studio Master sales being downloaded in FLAC format.
Sales of CD in the UK peaked in 2004 at 237.4million units; the expected figure for 2009 is down to 112million, with no signs of a reversal in fortune for the format. Little wonder then that the press release that accompanied the announcement was headlined "The Death of CD?"
Nevertheless, reports of CD's death may be greatly exaggerated. “CDs still have a role to play in peoples’ lives,” continued Tiefenbrun, “but we recommend that customers now listen to them through a Linn DS player to benefit from higher performance playback and improved music management.” Before deciding to axe CD players from the line-up, Tiefenbrun said the company ran extensive evaluation tests both on the road and in the Linn factory, comparing its top Klimax DS streamer against the previous reference CD12 CD player and found that the Klimax DS delivered better performance in all respects.
Linn Products will continue to produce its LP12 turntable and its Unidisk ‘universal’ disc player and Linn Records continues to release music on CD and SACD as well as LP and download.
www.linn.co.uk
Comments
Is this not akin to Mercedes Benz announcing the death of diesel and petrol engines and proclaiming that electric cars are the future?
Relevant comparison, if diesel and petrol auto sales have declined by 40% while electric car sales have increased by 30%. I doubt that's the case, however.
Except you wouldn't pay $20,000 to listen to 128kbps MP3's which is that 30% rise. I hope Linn wasn't trying to say that because if the future is the low rez MP3's, they will quickly be out of business. High quality downloads are lower in sales than SACD currently, and LP even more so, and will have to rise somewhat if CD is going to disappear...
Overall music sales are down in number in both money and volume. The people who put money behind an artist have to repair the business model in this new world - meaning if they invest $25000 in a new venture, they need to be able to get a return bigger than, say, some other investment.
I honestly do not think that any one media will be dominant going forward, and computers are going to play a fairly big part of it, but you would be silly to firesale-sell your CD player. Like the LP dumping wave in the early 80's.
Please read before responding again.
"Over the past two years, Linn Records has seen a ... a 24% increase in download sales, 70% of which are now premium quality high-resolution Studio Masters. Reports from the record label suggest that one-quarter of all Linn Classical sales are now downloads, with more than 10,000 customers opting for the Studio Master experience; 90% of these Studio Master sales being downloaded in FLAC format."
I guess Linn doesn't recommend listening 128 Kb MP3 files on their music servers. That would be clearly huge waste of money.
Linn should be given the credit for spotting the importance of computer audio and providing the proper products to take advantage of it earlier than anybody else. I hope other manufacturers will follow suit. I believe that a LAN is the proper way of streaming audio at home. Firewire, while giving good results, is a less desirable option due to sharing (with USB and other expansion card based interfaces like Lynx cards) the inconvenience of having to have the music server near the DAC. So far only Linn and Logitech are providing networked products as far as I know. I know of only one non-pro DAC which uses firewire. USB is being used with mixed results and the best implementations do not go beyond 24/96. The only reason I can think of for that is the fragmented nature of the high-end audio industry in terms of being made up of many boutique companies/workshops, each based on a single main designer. And regardless of how talented that singe designer is, he still only contributes one brain, one person's experience, one set of design strengths and most importantly a limited one man's lifetime to try different things. Some of the best values in high end audio today came from the collaboration of different talents (e.g. Usher loudspeakers, Parasound JC products, DACs using Anagram technology, etc). We regretfully do not get that collaboration of non-overalpping talents which complement each other very often. I think one difficulty with building a network DAC is that it, in addition to the DAC design experience needed, it needs both programming and networking experience to get the interface between the playback software and the DAC right. It is no surprise that Logitech are already there. The person/company who will build an effective, low jitter, all-PCM sample rates capable, reasonably priced network interface with a network socket for input and traditional digital outputs, should be able to make good money. It is a surprise nobody has done it yet. I guess that we shall see the next network DAC from some medium sized (by hidi/midfi audio standards) company. I would have guessed NAD but that opportunity went with the M2. May be Cambridge Audio.
I guess it would be akin to that if mercedes benz backed up their claim by ceasing production of deisel and petrol engine cars.
And the analogy would require Linn to be stopping production of something that is 99.9999% of sales to shift all production to something that is 0.0001%
I want to commend Linn for their decision, integrity and guts. To the best of my knowledge - the only other company who reached a similar conclusion - but, unfortunately failed to follow its business implications was Simaudio... in an interview in TAS, Jean Poulin - the CEO - said "We were able to produce better music in our room using a laptop than using CDs in our own drives." (TAS #181, April 2008).
Simaudio sells some quite expensive CD players, and to this day I could not get myself to listen to any of them (since reading the above quote I consider them to be poor substitutes for a decent laptop).
I had an unfortunate experience with the Logitech Duet (a product not yet ready for primetime), and I am now looking for a more robust streamer. I thought previously that Lynn was outside of my pricerange, but after reading this article, I think it might make sense to save the money and buy a good product from an excellent company.
That's great, more customers for us
-Peder Beckman-
Electrocompaniet Inc.
I agree! I will continue to listen to CD's, and LP's (On my Linn 'table, I might add)! Long live vinyl! Well, I guess vinyl IS Long-lived...I have listened to it for most of my 59 years!
Mike
VinylGuy
Linn were never too keen on CD. They were one of the last to come out with a player (if not the last) and, it looks like, the first to drop it.
It's ironic that LP is likely to outlast CD :)
@Zeb, you're right, *extremely* ironic... considering how inferior LP is. I can't wait for the resurrection of the film camera. I've still got mine... and I'm sure the anti digital propaganda is already out there, starting the retro-chic talk, "the new Canon XYZ is top notch, it's pictures positively ooze with that analog look..."
re: *extremely* ironic... considering how inferior LP is...
I have maybe 20 recordings in both Lp and CD format in a number of genres: classical, jazz, folk, latin. Every time, I will take the Lp version hands down.
"Before deciding to axe CD players from the line-up, Tiefenbrun said the company ran extensive evaluation tests both on the road and in the Linn factory, comparing its top Klimax DS streamer against the previous reference CD12 CD player and found that the Klimax DS delivered better performance in all respects."
So why don't they announce the results of their 'extensive evaluations' of the Klimax DS against the Sondek? We're all ears.
Where are the network DACs?
I continue to transfer my CD's to stored digits, and I have been experimenting with PC based audio for years now: it is the future. But what I don't understand is why there is now such an explosion of USB DACs - and such a dearth of networked ones. The biggest challenge with PC audio for me has been the link between the PC and the DAC. Firewire works fine, but it's only on pro-sumer type equipment, which is very user unfriendly. The USB versions get more exotic and complicated in order to overcome the inherent limitation of USB. Why not just use the network?!?
The only ones I'm aware of are the Logitech products, which are fine as far as they go.
I'm looking forward to the PS Audio "Network Bridge" for their Perfect Wave DAC - at least it seems that they "get it" that music files should be transferred over the network.
I agree with the earlier comments about the NAD M2. I got all excited about what they are trying to do, but then realized they too failed to address the network/DAC interface.
I think we are at the first knee of the computer audio revolution. Over the past few years, we went from DACs being a neglected back-water of the audio world, to seeing companies revisit the conventional DAC, to the USB DAC and then the Async USB DAC and the networked products. There are also some FireWire DACs, but as you note, they are geared perhaps more toward pro use as domestic. Alongside the wireless Sonos, Logitech and Linn applications already on sale and the forthcoming PS Audio network bridge, Resolution Audio has recently shown its new Cantata series models at a show in Switzerland, and the new range includes the Pont Neuf USB-ethernet bridge. And, after years of digital audio being a relatively slow-moving stream, there's a lot of change going on. This time next year, chances are there will be a steady stream (pun sort of intended) of network-based products.
Part of the reason why electronics manufacturers have shied away from moving toward the network DAC is the interface at the audio system end. The idea of moving all the computer side of computer audio out of the listening room is a notionally very good one. Ethernet solves any prospective galvanic isolation issues between computer-side and audio-side equipment, and getting rid of whirring fans and spinning HDDs in the listening room is generally considered a good thing. However, you are still faced with getting access to that music collection at the system. Until recently, that meant using a computer in the room to act as controller - the words 'defeat the object' spring to mind - or writing a custom front-end for the network box (Slim Devices/Logitech and Sonos have done this extremely well in this respect, but many audiophile companies have learned that skilled digital audio engineers often make poor interface programmers and hiring in specialists for the task will break the company unless the product competes head on with already-established Logitech and Sonos gear). More generic apps for the iPod Touch and iPhone (like Remote, iPeng and Boxee) have changed all that, and network products are starting to appear that take advantage of these interfaces plus a more limited front panel read-out on the network DAC.
The move to networked products in not without its inertia. Audiophiles have spent the last few decades discussing the importance of short signal paths and the relative merits of high quality interconnect cables. Moving to a networked system means you could be looking at dozens of meters of generic CAT5 cable between the client computer, the server and the DAC. That's a difficult intellectual obstacle for some to overcome.
There's also an issue of underlying knowledge in the audio community. A lot of audiophiles (once again, end-users, manufacturers, retailers and reviewers alike) learned their craft in a world where LANs were the stuff of sci-fi, not hi-fi. Many will have a computer in a study room, connected wired or wirelessly to a router and have no real idea that they have the start of a network.
It is a big part of our job to inform people about what's coming and the best way of integrating the computer into the audio system - and I suspect that's what most audio magazines the world over will be concentrating on in 2010 - but we've had to tread carefully. Having attended many shows and seminars around the planet, I've seen just how negative the first reaction was to computer audio among audiophiles - 'walk in room, see computer, point and scream like Donald Sutherland in the very last scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, run out' was the general 2007 reaction in the US. In contrast, this year the reaction was more inquisitive, engaged and interested. In the UK, we're about 18 months behind the curve in some quarters and Linn's move has come as something of a wake-up call to those genuinely, blissfully or willfully ignorant of the changes happening in audio.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Alan - BRAVO
Geez guys, not all downloads are mp3 files!! Some dope even responded saying "audiophile don't listen to Mp3s" and well; I'm a music addict, and an audiophile, and I listen to music on whichever format I can get it on - when I love the artist! Of course I go for the higher res format, and MANY of the better music sites and streaming radio sites are on to better resolution than MP3! mp3 is NOT everything out there, merely a fraction. Get into the present.
My digital library, played via itunes (latest version) through my Nucleus USB cable (Locus Design Group), into the StyleAudio USB DAC, or the HRT Streamer+ DAC, sounds wonderful! BETTER than many players out there + I get to hear alot of players.
M. Mercer
Positive Feedback Online
Trash Menagerie
Bandsofthebay.com
Official Linn news published - online Q&A scheduled with Linn MD?
http://news.linn.co.uk/news/2009/11/digital-streaming-marks-the-end-of-a...
Bold move on their part, I for one took the Linn chip out of my head a long time ago. Maybe this is the future but not paying 20k as someone said for a "DAC with a LAN port". I will continue spinning my CD's on my player, enough investing money on new trends. CD's and vinyl...the rest is gaslight...LOL!!!!
In some respects, you are dismissing the concept as a whole because of the price of a flagship. That $20k Linn Klimax DS 'DAC with a LAN port' is effectively the pinnacle of a technology that begins at $300 for a Squeezebox Touch.
It's things like the Squeezebox that are driving this kind of change. Linn was one of those many companies to discover that its reps, agents, engineers and clients were sidelining their CD players in favor of Squeezeboxes, especially as the SB can be configured to act as Internet Radio, Last.FM and Spotify client - that turns it into a vast music discovery product. Linn's response was to create a product that addresses the Squeezebox, from the Linn/audiophile perspective.
I agree though... ripping thousands of CDs is an industrial-grade PITA. Still, it also gives you a chance to revisit all those discs you almost forgot about, which is a double-edged sword as some of them are best left forgotten.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Amen, Nick!!!! Well said, and I agree fully!!!!
Mike
VinylGuy
Thanks for the encouragement mecolewll. Was thinking tonight that CD players have really matured and the technology that was in high end players 8-10 years ago has trickled down to cheaper players, so why not stay the course and upgrade through that route....besides am I really going to upload 4000 cd's? And what do I do with the album art or lyrics? Excuse me while I start up the CD player. Cheers to all.
Mr. Plus - you are correct that I am dismissing the concept as a whole because of the cost of the Klimax but since today's CD players can offer 90% of the Klimax performance at a price/performance ration that is way less I fail to see why I should invest in this expensive DAC when I can easily purchase a CD player for way less than 20k. BTW - have you noticed that at the back of every Linn CD it says "this CD sounds better when played through a Linn CD player"? LOL!!! marketing should speak to engineering. I will continue to invest heavily in better CD players rather than computer based musical delivery systems.
Linn is only the first company to publicly admit to the downturn in CD player sales. It will not be the last... if anything, by admitting that its CD player sales fell off a cliff a couple of years ago, it allows other companies to do the same.
The problem with saying that a CD player can do 90% of what the Klimax DS can do is that a Squeezebox can do maybe 95%...
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Interesting to follow that logic but I think I am trying to offer one caveat; that the technology of CD players only matured recently and the price/performance level is quite high especially if you have a huge collection of software so why the paradigm shift to music servers?
I think the case for music systems will get greater only when we can have flash drives that can hold huge amounts of information and offer great Graphical User Interfaces for us to manage our music, until then why invest in this technology when we have good sounding CD players.
When the world stops creating CD players or replacement parts for them then I might consider. Still I do recall in the early 80's people saying the same for vinyl so I don't think the death of CD players is imminent. However, I do think this is just the natural progression of market forces trimming away the excess of CD manufacturers to reflect the decline in CD sales but people of my generation still love the ritual of shopping for music and listening to a complete CD or record from beginning to end rather than downloading. While I still own and have owned Linn products I long ago took the Linn chip out of my head and still believe there is a market out there for good CD players, they just might become more niche products much like turntables have become as the rest of the world moves over to music servers.
I consider AVI as a high-end manufacturer and they dropped their highly regarded CDP two or three years ago. And amps, too, I believe. It's all about digital/active speaker systems now, is it not? So "First" goes there, I dare say. True that they don't manufacture any sources, though.
"The Death of CD?" I think the technology and infrastructure exists now that the CD would never develop as it did 30 years ago. In this, I'll agree. But it isn't 30 years ago and the CD exists today. I find it funny that the people most hyping the "death of CD" are the ones who have made large investments that rather require for it to die, and soon, before their shareholders/investors get impatient. (and get replaced by downloads)
We tend to think in terms of that awful movie "Highlander" - there can only be one. And no, there doesn't need to be. I have CD, SACD, Computer files (ALAC, AAC, MP3, OGG, FLAC), DVD, DVD-A, streaming music, FM radio, Internet radio and soon to have Vinyl (33 1/3, 45 and 78). I think a serious audio enthusiast will have music in whatever media makes sense for how and when s/he will be listening. CD has its place as does Vinyl - and I think the death of either are premature. And since one primary use of CD media is ripping it to computer files to have computer files without lifespan limiting DRM encoding (in 20 years will there be players capable of reading it?) - how on earth could they declare the CD dead (except the obvious hyperbole to get attention for their $20k midrange computer capable of decoding files) since that will kill their near term business model quite dead. :)
The business model for music distribution has to be worked out that would allow the people who put money behind an artist to get paid back, or it may just be the death of commercial music. Thats the real risk, not some sort of "buy my $20k widget or you will be obsolete" ploy.
Yeah ... I am grumpy today ... tryptophan must have worn off.
Above and beyond the cost to performance ratio of a "simple" cd player vs. computer based audio, there is a significant learning curve to even use computer based audio.
If you can make toast, you can play a cd,it doesn't get any easier and its not that much harder to hook up a cd player.
I'm not a caveman but I use the computer for e-mail,surfing, and to burn a few mix cd's. Thats it.
Learning to do that bit was painful enough, but to set up a whole DS system, lifes to short.
It seems like Linn and others think everyone is computer literate, and there is no need for educating.
And thats the part that really grates on me, does Linn or anyone else, have the patience to teach me how to do all this? I very much doubt it.
Its all very confusing and a little depressing. I think its time to spin some vinyl. Technology, I understand.
Linn is free to do whatever they like, but when you look at the numbers, this is an absurd argument. I suspect Linn's decision has more to do with lower-cost competing players beating them in the marketplace as well as the trend towards multi-use players that can handle Blu-ray, etc. After all, if you're willing to listen to downloaded compressed MP3 audio over ear plugs coming out of a 1/4 watt amplifier of unstated quality or plug your iPod into one of those little devices with a few 3" speakers, why do you need an expensive CD player? You can pick up a $39 Wal-Mart special or a $100 "deluxe" model from a major electronics manufacturer. Or, if one does think they need somewhat better quality or a multipurpose player, you have players like the OPPO.
So Linn fails in the marketplace (albeit in a very tough economy and in a society that doesn't much care about quality anymore) and rationalizes the failure by stating that CD is dead.
While the record industry is indeed getting creamed, the fact is that CDs are still the vast majority of the market. In 2008, in the U.S., there were 56.9 million digital albums sold and 1033 million digital singles. The industry counts 10 digital singles as 1 digital album equivalent, so that's the equivalent of 103.3 million digital albums for a total of about 160 million digital albums vs. 384.7 million CD-based albums. So paid digital downloads (units) are still less than a third of the market.
Certainly within a few years, the number of digital album equivalents will equal and eventually surpass CDs. But a trend is not a death. And the fact is, it's still easier to get a higher-quality audio version of a track on CD than it is from a digital download. Does anyone who buys a high quality audio system from a company like Linn satisfied with the quality of most digital downloads?
If the record industry ever gets their act together and starts producing quality music again, you might even see a trend back to CDs, if the culture matures and moves back to an album format. The fact is that the music industry is not sustainable selling singles. When singles last predominated the rock market (from the advent of the LP, they never predominated the Classical, MOR, Show recordings, Soundtracks, Jazz and Folk markets), the business was geared around an artist recording three tracks in a session and releasing those tracks within a few weeks. The business cannot support artists who spend six months to a year in various studios to produce a single. When album sales began to predominate in the post-Beatles 70s-80s, singles were largely seen as promotion for the albums and at one point, when singles sales were in substantial decline, the labels even began to consider giving singles away for free to promote album sales. By 1982, singles comprised only 9.1% of industry dollar sales. By 1987, three years after the mass introduction of the CD, singles comprised only 4% of industry dollar sales.
As for vinyl, while we're all thrilled about vinyl's so-called "comeback", the reality is that vinyl sales are not much more than a rounding error. In 2008, in the U.S., vinyl sold 0.61% of all long-form (album) units. If you include 10 digital downloads as one album, that number becomes much smaller! Even if vinyl album sales have doubled in 2009, that's still only 1.2% of long-form units. So that's obviously a very-niche market and always will be.
I replaced my LP12 with an Orgin Live Calypso table with eye opening results.Much better than the insanely expensive upgrade path Linn has for the LP12.Linn products are overpriced,and I as well removed the Linn chip from my brain the moment I listened to the Calypso table with Decwares' phono section and their monoblocks and preamp.For the investment, an unbeatable combination.Keep streaming,and I'll keep spinning.Vinyl,SET amps,and single driver speakers are the way to go for me,and I don't feel any reason to change this setup for ANY reason.This decision is a marketing decision for Linn because this is how they operate their company.The most marketed product in audio history is the LP12 turntable.Did it work? Absolutely!
Of course Linn strenuously proclaimed in the mid-80s that the CD would never succeed. I wouldn't take their prognostications too seriously.
Of course Linn strenuously proclaimed in the mid-80s that the CD would never succeed. I wouldn't take their prognostications too seriously.
There's no question that listeners will eventually rip all their CDs (and SACDs, I hope) to modestly priced multi-terabyte home servers. It's an obvious thing to do that will make collecting and listening much more convenient. The market is already moving in that direction, albeit slowly, and without Linn's "assistance".
There are three practical problems to be resolved, however.
1. How do you back up your recordings, especially those that were downloaded (rather than purchased on physical media)?
2. How do you index the recordings so you can quickly find what you're looking for?
3. How do you include cover art and liner notes?
None of these is unsolvable; it will just take time.
I share the concern for a back-up/permanent copy of music downloaded from the net, as I am also concerned about download quality. For this reason I have eschewed iTunes, convenience notwithstanding. That said, my 5,000 CD's are being ripped to my computer-based system and a painfully slow experience it is. I have read many an article decrying sound quality, but I pit my PC derived sound against my Musical Fidelity CD player regularly (of which I steal the DAC input as a PC feed to my Musical Fidelity amp ---PC---iTunes---AAC----Airport Extreme/Express-----toslink/spdif) and have to tell you that I am awed by the results. Most importantly, I now have music streamed all over the house and remote control through the iPhone/iTouch. Now, I'm not about to throw out the CD player, nor my discs, which I shall continue to purchase until I discover a way to ensure that once I've paid it's mine for 'all' time and I can get ready access in case of catastrophe. And, I still use my Musical Fidelity turntable, for the whole gestalt of the vinyl experience. So, I see this as an augmentary rather than replacement era and I love it!
The "augmentary rather than replacement era" line almost perfectly sums up what's happening in audio today. The music streaming/computer audio side of things merely is another shelf in the rack. Some find their experience echos yours and keep the CD player on, others find it stops being used extensively.
The difficulty CD hardware manufacturers face today is that player sales are almost universally 'replacement' sales rather than new.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
If I have to "rip" everything to a server, with no choice, I will just pack up my LP's, CD's, sell most everything but the essentials, and move to the tropics!
Mahalo.
Mike
VinylGuy
Several thoughts: CD recording and reproduction quality has matured over the years to the point that it is possible to find pleasing, high-quality recordings that can be played back on machines affordable to normal wage-earners. This maturation has been similar to what happened with LPs a generation earlier. Add to that the appearance of SACD and inexpensive universal players (like my OPPO, for example), and we have three formats (LP, CD, and SACD) from which anyone can assemble a music collection of high quality from a staggering number of sources. Multi-channel audio, as opposed to two-channel stereo, will appeal to some, but it can be equipment-intensive and its correct setup and use is not at all obvious or easily learned, as far as I have been able to tell. As much as I enjoy my computers, it remains difficult for me to believe that music servers are likely to be of general appeal because they are about technology, not about ease of use for practical music reproduction by ordinary people. I can imagine very few people among those I know personally, even those who love music and play it in their homes, who would go through the mental contortions to try to understand, acquire, set up, and maintain such a system. Until it can be made to work like a toaster, as someone has already stated, or like a car, it is just something else for hobbyists to pursue and throw money at. Or am I missing something?
David
What, no Blu-Ray? This is the future of high resolution playback. So, make sure you have the bandwidth and storage to be able to put that on your server. And, yes be prepared for the new business model of internet service being based on bytes.
We've also noticed the increase in audiophile quality music downloads on our site:
www.reel2reel.tv
In particular, customers are ordering 50-60 hours of 96k/24bit stereo wav files on a portable Hard Disc Drive.
rgds
Kostas Metaxas
Metaxas Audio Systems
Wow! great comments. DG and Mecolwell you speak my language. Baggs I agree with you, sold my Linn because the upgrade to the Keel was ridiculous and there were better alternatives out there and that tends to be the problem with Linn; they find they are losing marketshare because they arrogantly expect people to buy into their marketing hype and expensive products when there are clearly superior alternatives for a lot less. I suspect the same happened with their CD players (too bad because they were so great) and I wonder how successful they will be with their music servers. Time will tell but I wonder if we are seeing the end of Linn as we know them; all business have to at some point re-evaluate their position in the marketplace. Apple did a decade ago maybe Linn might have to.
To base the cd downturn on Linn's catalogue and players is ludicrous. Ipods and other mp3 players, years of free downloads, and a lack of interest from our younger generation in quality music I believe are to blame. Linn cdps are out of the price range of average people and it's catalogue is certainly not on the coffee tables of most young people. Long live the cd, once you have it, then do with it as you will.
Memo 1 to Linn: CD players sales have been hit by the fact that most people listen to their CDs on their 'DVD players' (alongside SACDs, DVD-A discs and hybrid formats as I do). The trend is to universality, convergence and simplicity not niche single use products.
Memo 2 to Linn: Faling CD sales are due to the appalling state of the music industry at the moment. When you have 40 year old recordings (the Beatles catalogue) getting into the top 40 you know the current music industry is in dire straits. Nothing much you can do about that except getting record industry and bands back to making music and not ripping off their audience (or perhaps discover another Beatles).
Memo 3 to Linn: In other words you're missing the wood for the trees.
Sure network products and PC solutions are worthwhile but the beauty and success of the LP, CD, DVD etc... was the ease of use, you bough a disc popped in the player and it played. If you need a degree in networking to figure it out, there goes Linn's market.
I have got a PC at home I use to store my downloaded music files and (rather than have Linn package a system for me) I'd rather piece it together myself as I can afford it and technology becomes available, a fact that probably is thew case for most people interested in this technology.
Now what was Linn's business plan again?
Linn's business plan is to keep going. It believes it stands a better chance doing that with a DS product rather than a disc based product, and I tend to agree with the company.
Here's why. The people the company is hoping to target are not interested in a convergence product like a universal player. They already have what they consider the perfect convergence product... it's called a computer.
Falling CD sales have very little to do with the music industry as it stands. There are some excellent new acts that don't simply play chart music. Bands like The Dirty Projectors (from NYC) or The XX (from London) and thousands more. Sensational music, selling very, very well... but not on CD, where sales are tiny. They sell on vinyl or download. This kind of music is not given airplay on radio, it's virally marketed on Twitter and MySpace and discovered on Last.FM or Spotify.
The CD charts are filled with Beatles albums because fortysomethings and beyond are the last main buyers of CD... and they tend to buy the music they are most comfortable with.
Linn faces the same dilemma every audio company faces - a marked drop in newcomers, especially newcomers under 40. The Klimax DS won't reach that market - but the Majik DS-I and the Sneaky Music DS might, and all the publicity the company has generated by dropping products that were underperforming will only help that goal.
You are right that most people build up a system over time, and Linn faces an uphill struggle convincing people that there's a justifiable reason not to build up a bitza system instead of its ready-made solution. But, so do we all. And, in fairness, it has made the Linn side of the infrastructure a drop-in replacement for any networked solution already assembled. So, it can turn this on its head - you already have the component parts in place - here's how you take the next step in quality.
I think there's a call for this; a company called Ripcaster.co.uk in the UK provides turnkey solutions for Sonos, Logitech, its own solution and Linn. Products are all configured and everything works. The technology and skills set are very different from those needed to wire up a stereo system, but the go-the-extra-mile service that (once upon a time) good audio dealers did so well is entirely relevant here.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
The only cd's I buy are smaller artists I follow. And I love those audiophile cd's based in Asia that are mostly unavailable in Los Angeles or greater USA. I buy a few remastered LP's each month and 24/96 high def 7.1 files for my not so traditional multi-channel audio. Yet there are no plans to scrap my traditional stereo. To that add hundreds of CD's and many more hundreds of LP records in a shrinking garage. Yet once I rip them to Apple Lossless, I rarely touch them again. A good lossesss rip sound good enough, and the play time is higher than ever.
There's a place for a cd player, but not for everyday play. Just like I enjoy LP records but I never did enjoy flipping the record every 30 minutes.
To be fair to Lin, their only responsibility is for their company and adapting to the vagaries of the current and future markets, but in order to do so they need to properly understand what is happening to the market and why.
If CDs are bought by 'comfortable fortysomethings' who is buying LPs, dead Dinosaurs? And do fans of bands like The Dirty Projectors or The XX buy Linn products, now or ever?
In fact the state of the music industry is the main cause of the CD sales downturn, add to that the appalling practices by record companies over the years (too many to mention), a mature market, splintering delivery technologies, a recession etc, etc...
What Linn can do about any of the above is a moot point (except adapt of course) but losing your core customer base is a big no-no in anyones language
Well, a small but growing number of bands sell vinyl at the gig. The idea is that an LP is big enough for gig-goers to consider it a part of the merchandising, it's considered a premium quality product and it stops one guy buying the CD and letting his 10 friends rip the disc, because ripping LP is such a pain.
Strangely enough, one of my closest friends switched me on to the likes of the Dirty Projectors and White Denim because he found them on Last.fm, through his Linn Sneaky Music DS. That £900 streamer with 20W amp replaced something in the region of £3,000 worth of CD player and amp package... and arguably sounds better. The interface, sadly, sucks; Linn really has to sort that out.
And I really don't think Linn has lost much of its core customer base doing this. It lost its core customer base when it started exponential price increases on its core products like the Linn LP12. Understandable - because almost everyone who wants an LP12 has an LP12, thereby making the market for new turntables very small indeed - but the cost of upgrades is off-putting to many.
In some respects, the company has faced the problem that many other companies in our sector need to address; to get new buyers, you have to change the business model so profoundly that you potentially disenfranchise traditional buyers. R&D is a huge expense in a small tech company; if you need to divert R&D budget to refresh product lines that have questionable long-term commercial viability, the ones that do have 'legs' suffer.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
We are quickly coming to the point where the audio critical path is reduced to the acoustical transducer (speaker), its driver (amplification), and the converter from the stored musical media. It could all be reduced to a set of active speakers. How the data (music) to be processed (played) will be assembled is irrelevant, as long as it is available to be sent to the speakers in a time coherent fashion. Wireless transmission, as is being done with some rear channel home theatre speakers is a definite possibility. The audiophile quality of 'sources', like turntables, CD players, tuners will become irrelevant, as they are not the true source but simply music transfer mechanisms. Just as long as all of the data associated with the music to be played is properly assembled, it won't matter how it gets there. That means that a Linn DS may not necessarily provide any higher audio quality than provided by an HP or Dell server. The marketspace for high end audio suppliers may shrink significantly.
There is no reason not to use LAN technology for everything up to the final electrical-mechanical interface as this protocol is now almost universal and it will be not only cost effective but also allow easy development of new or adoption of existing application software, such as for user interfaces.
This should enable the benefits of high(er) end audio to be brought to more people at a lower price point. There will always be room (just not necessarily so much) for developers to truly make a difference.
That's pretty much how I view what tomorrow holds for audio, although with a couple of caveats:
1. Turntables are still proving remarkably resilient. The number of new vinyl buyers bottomed out a few years ago, and then rose. In some circles, vinyl is viewed as counter-culture. Whether that's a trend or a fad is unclear, as is whether those new younger vinyl buyers will sustain an audiophile vinyl market in the future. Being realistic about this, vinyl has gone from being 'almost non-existent' to 'insignificant' in music sales over the last few years. But it is the only music format that has shown consistent signs of re-growth.
2. The post-CD hope is that the audio industry's area of expertise (making things sound better) extends to the making the sound of the output of that HP or Dell server better too. As it stands, product concepts like the Linn DS already do just that; music is fed from a server via Ethernet to the streaming DAC (or, in the case of an audiophile interpretation of the Squeezebox, the streamer and then the DAC) and then to amplification and loudspeakers. The 'final electrical-mechanical interface' from the perspective of getting better audio extends to the D/A process as well.
As you might imagine, this conversation has been played out a thousand times over across the test-benches of audio companies. Most electronics brands have already found or are finding their solution - be that a full-blown server system (Meridian Sooloos, Qsonix), a streaming device (Linn, Resolution Audio, PS Audio), a does-it-all-product (Ayre, dCS), a CD player with a long, long memory (Naim) or simply a DAC with a USB port (too many to mention). Time will tell which pathway is the most successful.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Most new audiophile CD players are now sporting all kind of inputs, including USB. I have bought what I hope is my last CD/SACD player - Playback Designs unit. I presently have the Squeezebox digital out feeding the DAC section of the Playback unit. I suspect most audiophiles at the high end will go that route rather than getting a Klimax type unit, ie a unit without a transport section.
Something I want to throw out.
I use computers every day, and "firmware updates" are a part of my everyday work life, too.
When I want to listen (i.e. enjoy) my music I
1. Pull out the vinyl, clean it, and listen to it, a side at a time, viewing the artwork while listening. What a concept: listening to the whole piece at one time!
2. Pull out the CD from it's packaging, put it into the player and listen to it, sometimes trying to read the artwork and notes.
Now, with a computer, I have to download the "file" (it is no longer a piece of music), decompress, file it away, and upon listening, must click, if I can find where it went, and put up with all of the computer's idiosyncracies, like freezing up, rebooting, updating, re-rebooting, making sure my "sound card" is up to date, along with it's firmware, re-re-re booting again, never being able to read the artwork, much less any notes about the recording unless I have my laptop on my lap, on and on.
I will boldly say that I never ever will put a computer into my listening system. I can say this because if that is where it goes, I'll just sell everything and call it a day.
I'll sell of most of my stuff, pack away all my vinyl and CD's, and retire to a tropical climate. I would not have an issue with downsizing and moving on.
I do, however, own an I-Pod, which is used for music on the go when we vacation (in the tropics!!)
I know I am in the minority, and todays world is a "download world", with no one listening to music, but snippets, then punching to the next track.
But, I am one who still enjoys the emotion of the music and what it brings to me.
That will be my last post on this subject.
Mahalo
Mike
VinylGuy
Buh-bye.
Sony, creator of the Walkman, missed the mark 10 years ago. Their large market share could have helped to launch a Walkman MP3 player. It would have prevented Apple from dominating the market (especially when combined with their media companies) and it would have accelerated the move to non-medium specific digital audio. Instead they kept producing consumer devices to play cassettes, mini-discs, DATs and, of course, CDs.
Linn gets the credit for recognizing the "end is nigh" for audio disc mediums and preventing obsolescence in their infrastructure and inventory.
In my house, the home theater rack has been replaced with the computer. In my 2006 car, the 6-disc CD player has been dusty for over a year now thanks to an iPod in the glovebox (and an expensive interface to connect it to the factory system). MP3s not CDs!
That is great news, but I could care less, because I would never buy a Linn product. I think the over rated declaration of the death of the CD, is akin to the death of vinyl. I just bought a new McIntosh MCD500 and love it. I use it as a CDP and DAC.
I have a great soft spot in my heart for Linn --- like any progressive businesses they eat their own young, bravo. Funny though --- this declaration is at least a few years too late, making Linn seem like some sort of neanderthal Scottish McIntosh. JimA, its a good thing you bought the MCD500 cause if you stepped up to the 1000 you would have been buying a Linn CD12 transport with old school McIntosh electronics. (which arent too bad)
LINN is stirring up free publicity employing cheap tricks. It is working, but you will never become S. Jobs even on a miniature scale of content distribution. I never liked plastic looking Linn products. They reminded me of the bad Volvo ergonomics with some weirdness to it and sounded mediocre - all with a high price tag. Most likely, in the near future, (LINN) will end up with 2-3 Asian-made digital products and an insignificant internet music store. Boring.
I.ve followed all the discussions about Linn's death of the cd and I am surprised
Look at the Oppo BDP-83 and SE/NF editions. Plays almost every disc out there. The base model starts at $499. Could Linn compete with that? Ha! Go bliss out on the future Linn. Many of us past our mid-forties are already long sick of eye strain from staring at notebook displays, and we've seen plenty of changes in audio formats in our lives. Let the younger generations chuckle, theie times coming soon enough.
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Influence can be defined as the power exerted over the minds and behavior of others. A power that can affect, persuade and cause changes to someone or revizyon ile organize matbaacılık brnckvvtmllttrhaberiLook at the Oppo BDP-83 and SE/NF editions. Plays almost every disc out there. The base model starts at $500. Could Linn compete with that? Ha! Go bliss out on the futurerevizyon ile organize matbaacılık brnckvvtmllttrhaberiIn my house, the home theater rack has been replaced with the computer. In my 2006 car, the 6-disc CD player has been dusty for over a year now thanks to an iPod in the glovebox (revizyon ile organize matbaacılık brnckvvtmllttrhaberi
and an expensive interface to connect it to the factory system). MP3s not CDs!thanks for all
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