Linn has been awarded one of industry's top honours: a Queen's Award for Enterprise. The Award, announced today and given in the Innovation category, marks the success of the company's new-generation audio systems based around its DS streaming technology.
The Queen's Award for Innovation is approved by HM The Queen after recommendation by the Prime Minister, and comes as Linn is celebrating its 40th anniversary: it launched the Sondek LP12 turntable back in 1972.
The company was awarded a Royal Warrant in 2002 as providers of entertainment systems to the Royal Household, and in 2010 its in-house music label, Linn Records, won Label of the Year from our sister magazine, Gramophone.
In 2009 Linn announced that it was halting production of CD players to concentrate on streaming systems, and streaming now accounts for over 40% of the company's business.
Speaking about the Queen's Award, Linn MD Gilad Tiefenbrun says that 'Innovation is at the heart of Linn. We designed our DS platform from scratch, starting in 2004, and launching our first product, the Klimax DS, in 2007. Klimax DS immediately set a new performance benchmark in home music systems.
'Since then, we've released a full range of DS systems across the price spectrum, with all of them playing everything from mp3 to 24-bit Studio Master and making the music sound better.
'Our most recent updates let you play music wirelessly from computers and mobile devices, stream online music and movies, and connect everything in the modern living room through your Linn system.'