Linn Products Organik DAC in the Klimax DSM Network Player

By Robert Harley

In the second half of the 1980s just about every specialty audio manufacturer was scrambling to add a CD player (or two) to its product line. The format was on an exponential growth curve, and high-end manufacturers were eager to join the Gold Rush.

But one company bucked this trend—Linn Products of Scotland. The company that had brought the importance of the turntable to the world’s attention more than a decade earlier took a more thoughtful, longer-term view of the Compact Disc. Rather than rush to market with a “paint-by-numbers” CD player to fill out its line, Linn studied the CD format and digital audio in general to see where the company could apply its expertise to make a better-sounding player. Linn founder Ivor Tiefenbrun stated at the time that Linn wouldn’t introduce a CD player unless it could outperform the company’s entry-level turntable, the Basik. Presciently, Tiefenbrun also declared—more than 35 years ago— that the CD would be a temporary format until some high-resol…