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We are grateful to Jim Merod for making his superb recordings available for download from the House of Linn website. Jim is an exceptionally versatile character and friend.

In addition to his work as an extraordinary recording engineer for some of the greatest names in Jazz (see below), Jim has written about music, recording, audio gear, and the jazz scene for the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union, Jazz News, the Jazz Link, Jazz Now, and other publications.

Jim also consults for several media and audiophile projects in the US and Europe as well as an audio equipment reviewer for POSITIVE FEEDBACK online magazine. He teaches literature and humanities alongside his annual seminar in jazz studies at Soka University of America in Orange County. Throughout the ‘90s, Jim was a member of the Board of directors at the Napa Valley Jazz Festival and played a vital role in establishing Elario’s Jazz Club, in La Jolla, California, as one of the premier jazz venues on the west coast and is a frequent visitor to the Monterey Jazz Festival - see image (left) of Jim with Clint Eastwood at Monterey.

Jim has taught critical theory and literature at Brown, Brandeis, Cornell, Stanford and UCLA. He founded and directed Cornell's Freshman Summer College and coordinated the Ivy League Writing Consortium. He has been a Fellow at the University of California, and the University of Hawaii, and Cornell. Author of a book on critical theory (Cornell Univ. Press) and another on "Jazz as a Cultural Archive" (Duke Univ. Press), Jim has lectured at Williams, Notre Dame, Reed, Marquette, Emory, University of Pittsburgh, and several campuses of the University of California. Jim is the recipient of the Harvard Book Award, the Bausch and Lomb Science Award, a National Science Foundation grant for elementary particle research, and was recognized at Brandeis with the Michael Walzer Award for outstanding teaching. He has twice been honored as “professor of the year” at Soka University.

Jim has worked with jazz education and educators throughout his career, assisting in the production of the "Club Date" jazz series for PBS-TV and with the "Adventures in Jazzland" Project in Marin County. He is collaborating with Benny Golson in the making of the legendary saxophonist-composer's autobiography, WHISPER NOT, and has collaborated with composer/arranger/trombonist/ screen writer Tom McIntosh in crafting a film epic that explores jazz history from an “inside” point of view.

Jim's "Straight Ahead Jazz" radio show on KiFm in San Diego featured interviews with legendary musicians such as Marshal Royal, Snookie Young, Scott Hamilton, Joe Wilder, Bob Cooper, Pharoah Sanders, Frank Strazzeri, Monty Budwig and Andy Simpkins. He continues to be a consultant for numerous academic and professional organizations. In 2007, he collaborated in recording an award winning television project that featured pianist Mike Garson.

For more than thirty years, Jim has been an on-location recording engineer. In the early '90s he founded BluePort Sound recording studio and BluePort Jazz, a record label that has twenty published albums. During his career Jim has recorded a "who's who" of legendary jazz, blues, and Latin musicians: Tito Puente, Wynton Marsalis, Ella Fitzgerald, Herbie Hancock, John Hicks, Sarah Vaughan, Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Joe Lovano, Cassandra Wilson, Eddie Palmieri, Jimmy Rowles, Lee Konitz, Hank Jones, Benny Golson, Kenny Barron, Charlie Haden, Nick Brignola, Tommy Flanagan, Stan Getz, Tom Harrell, Harold Land, Cecil Payne, Roger Kellaway, Chris Potter, Ben Monder, Mary Stallings, Alan Broadbent, Art Blakey, Bill Perkins, Count Basie, Cedar Walton, Dave McKenna, Tierney Sutton, Pete Jolly, Kenny Werner, Jackie Ryan, Joe Pass, Bob Florence, Gary Foster, Buddy Collette, Gatemouth Brown, Clifford Jordan, Joe Wilder, Janis Siegal, Buster Williams, Barry Harris, Ben Riley, Snookie Young, Barbara Morrison, Eric Reed, Joe Labarbera, Art Farmer, Conte Candoli, Mundell Lowe, Kenny Burrell, Gene Bertoncini, Grant Stewart, Larry Koonse, Laurindo Almeida, Joe Diorio, Scott Hamilton, Ron Eschete, Ray Drummond....

....Jaime Valle, Paula West, Cleanhead Vinson, Joe Henderson, Sweets Edison, Red Rodney, Geoffrey Keezer, Louis Bellson, Bennie Maupin, Andy Bey, Bud Shank, Tardo Hammer, Betty Buckley, Don Menza, John Patitucci, Phil Woods, Shorty Rogers, Maureen Budway, Rick Helzer, Billy Mintz, Ruben Estrada, Roberta Piket, Ray Brown, Alex Acuna, Pete Christlieb, Los Lobos, Roy McCurdy, Billy Higgins, Christian McBride, Leon Parker, Gerald Wiggins, Charles McPherson, Herb Geller, Mulgrew Miller, Monty Budwig, James Williams, the Chico O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Orchestra, Paula West, Jon Mayer, Donny McCaslin, Ozomatli, Larry Fuller, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Akira Tana, Ignacio Berroa, Bill Mays, Martin Taylor, Gerald Clayton, Slide Hampton, Spike Robinson, Frank Strazzeri, Bob Magnusson, Johnny Coles, Larry Willis, Tigran Hamasyan, Lucianna Souza, Steve White, Claudio Roditi, David Sanchez, Brian Lynch, Ramon Banda, the Phil Norman Tentet, Darek Oles, Larry Vuckovich, Lenny White, Chuck Berghoffer, Nestor Torres, Putter Smith, Donald Bailey, Curtis Lundy, Luther Hughes, Cecil Taylor, Claudia Villela...

...Buster Williams, Pee Wee Claybrook, Chuck Travis, Cliff Almond, Vince Lateano, Joanne Brackeen, Eddie Duran, Omar Clay, Claude Williamson, Steve Turre, David Williams, Donald Brown, Gary Bartz, Josh Nelson, Stephanie Haynes, John Proulx, Ricky Woodard, Larance Marable, Dorothy Donegan, Buck Hill, Hank Crawford, Dave Pike, Chris Howes, Zane Musa, Ratso Harris, Dave Carpenter, Bill Cunliffe, Jimmy Cleveland, Peter Sprague, Roland Hanna, Dave MacKay, Rick Margitza, Mark Ferber, Alan Dawson, Santi Debriano, Kenwood Dennard, Jeff Littleton, Jeff Chambers, Mel Martin, Hal Galper, Lori Bell, Rob Thorsen, Jimmy Madison, Larry Gales, Tamir Handleman, Gino D’Auri, Merrill Hoover, John Handy, Wayne Wallace, Duncan Moore, Gilbert Castellanos, Sweetie Mitchell, Havana Carbo, Verrnon Alley, Horace Tapscott, John Campbell, Hollis Gentry, Edmund Velasco, Sherman Fergusson, Gunnar Biggs, Bobby Gordon, Matt Zebley, Russell Blake, Tareon Gully, Julie Kelly, Sean Smith, Mikon Zlatkovich, Mike Wofford, Ron Whitlock, Greg Abate, Tom Warrington, Larry Nash, Henry Butler, Cecilia Coleman, Pamela York, John Wiitala, Tim Pleasants, Fritz Wise, Dean Taba, Frank Kimbrough, Robin Adler, Allan Phillips, Greg Douglass, Kendal Kay, Butch Lacey, Bruce Babad, Jose Serrano, Rob Schneiderman, Craig Handy, III, Gary Lefebvre, Tony Ortega, Tripp Sprague, Steve Situm, John Guerin, Daniel Jackson, Jeannie Cheatham, Michael Moore, Harold Jones, Lucrecia, TOLU, and others.

Jim received his undergraduate degree at Princeton and did his graduate work at Stanford, where he earned his doctorate in English & American Literature as well as the Special Program in Humanities. He studied with William Arrowsmith and Harold Bloom at the Breadloaf School, Middlebury College, and recently completed a novel, "Einstein at Princeton." Jim endorses DPA microphones and Ultrasone headphones.

From 7th January until 23rd February 2010, receive a special Studio Master music package worth up to £2,300 with a Linn Klimax DS, Akurate DS, Majik DS or Majik DSi purchased from House of Linn.

This fantastic offer makes it easy to start enjoying the highest quality music and quickly discover why Studio Master recordings captivate music lovers everywhere.

This unbeatable combination delivers the best audio experience possible with a ready to play Studio Master collection pre-loaded onto a free Hard-Drive.

Now firmly established as the future of music, Linn DS revitalizes existing CD collections. Enjoy even more music from CD, plus new, intuitive control options to browse entire music collections in exciting new ways.

Create the perfect playlist and soundtrack for any event and enjoy rediscovering hidden musical gems previously buried in your CD rack.

We explain, demonstrate and install the range of Linn DS players for you to appreciate how easy it is to have better sound and more music from your CD collection with a Linn DS player from House Of Linn.

Contact Brian or Trevor for further information and to book an appointment for a personal Linn DS audition at House of Linn.

During the summer we visited Linn Products in Glasgow three times with 30 of our clients. Despite another poor summer this year, we were fortunate to have good weather for our scheduled visits which we arranged with Linn for the last Fridays of June, July and August. We will be arranging further visits for our other clients who were not available this time due to holiday commitments.

A visit to Linn is always a special experience, even for ex-employees like ourselves. It serves as a reminder of how much attention to detail Linn invest in every aspect of product development, manufacturing and customer service.

As we are a relatively new business, (House of Linn is now just two years old), we were delighted to be able to invite and greet 30 of our clients who have been with us since our beginning. Many more could not make this trip due to summer vacations.

We will be offering further visits to Linn Products, so anyone who is interested should contact us and will will begin to make a new list for future visits.

Linn Products is located about 20 minutes outside of Glasgow, on a 20 acre rural setting in the beautiful village of Eaglesham.

Customer visits and factory tours have long been a regular activity for Linn and a tour of Linn is always a fresh, interesting and fascinating experience to see how this unique company operates.

After we all donned special white anti-static jackets and anti-static shoe straps, the factory tour guides provided insight to the principal areas of factory activity:

Metalwork Mechanical

Surface Mount

Production and single-stage build

Design Engineering

New Customer demonstration rooms

Photo: product sleves machined and painted at Linn leaving the dry powder coated ovens in the metalwork department, ground floor.

Linn believe everything can be improved by human interest and attention to detail. So the same person builds, tests, and packs a complete product from start to finish.

This ensures a standard of construction and a sense of pride and involvement that is just not possible on a production line.

They take all the time necessary to ensure every detail is correct. Only then will the person responsible for building the product personally sign their name on the back and pack it for despatch.

Every product can be tracked all the way from that individual to the customer, anywhere in the world.

Photo: Production area at Linn Products featuring the single-stage work stations; Source, Control and Playback

Linn’s philosophy of making systems that are modular, expandable and upgradeable ensures you can develop your Linn system over a lifetime, gradually improving its performance.

House of Linn customers love music and we look after them. Linn continually improve their products and make it easy for customers to upgrade their systems if they wish.

Because Linn have a commitment to progress through learning, simplification and improvement, they are continually looking for ways to further develop their products, always to the benefit of both new and existing customers.

We were therefore excited to see and preview the new Dynamik power supply from metalwork through to listening and as another example of making the Linn you already own, sound even better!

Photo: Metal Work casings machined for new Dynamik Power Supplies

All aspects of Linn’s products are designed in-house. All key processes, from casting molten metal and machining precision components to manufacturing advanced and complex electronic circuits, are controlled by Linn people.

The ability to design a module in the morning and test it in manufacturing in the afternoon enables swift problem resolution. It means new breakthroughs or improvements can be implemented quickly across the product range.

The freedom and independence this creates have enabled Linn to make an astonishing commitment to sound quality. An organisation that puts customers first completes a truly integrated capability.

Photo: Surface mount computer controlled machines populate circuit boards followed by manual inspection and verification.

Our special thanks to Ivor Tiefenbrun MBE, Executive Chairman, and Gilad Tiefenbrun, Managing Director, for hosting the entertaining lunchtimes during our visits and to David Williamson and Keith Robertson for insightful product presentations.

As we all had the special previews of the new Dynamik Power Supplies, sneaking more from the Design Engineering department was almost impossible as we approached the desks of our engineering colleagues to pick their brains about what is new....

We will be arranging further visits to Linn Products, so those interested should contact us and will will begin to make a new list for future visits.

Photo: Some of the many magazine covers from the media wall at Linn showing featured reviews of Linn components and systems reviewed by the international specialist press.

REDEFINING LINN PERFORMANCE

Now enjoy music even more from Linn components and systems with a major new product update which redefines Linn performance beyond all expectation.

The new Linn DYNAMIK Power Supply transforms system performance, creating a new benchmark for each Linn range. The results – which must be heard to be believed - are simply spectacular.

Linn DYNAMIK powers more effectively whilst optimising audio performance and reducing noise levels even further to ensure you hear more of what matters most – the music.

All this extra performance at no additional cost - product pricing remains the same as before.

Existing Linn customers can also benefit from this exciting new product update by elevating system performance to a whole new level with an affordable upgrade that represents unbeatable value for money.

EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE STATED A DYNAMIK UPGRADE KIT COSTS £450 INC VAT AND ARE AVAILABLE FOR:

Digital Source: Klimax DS, Akurate DS, Majik DS

Disc players: Akurate CD, Unidisk 1.1, Unidisk 2.1, Unidisk SC, Classik Music & Movie

Pre-amplifiers: Klimax Kontrol, Akurate Kontrol, Exotik

Power Amplifiers: Akurate & Majik, Majik I Chakra power amplifiers

Loudspeakers:

Klimax loudspeakers (pricing to be announced)

Artikulat loudspeakers (pricing to be announced)

The DYNAMIK upgrades for the above products are installed by House of Linn with the exception of some Klimax DS players and Klimax / Artikulat loudspeakers, which are a factory upgrade via House of Linn.

Contact us for further details and to place your order now: 0161 766 4837

The name Radikal conveys the extent of the performance improvement and is formed by combining the first part of the words Radius and Calibrate – of course, it wouldn’t be Linn if Linn didn’t sneak a ‘K’ in there! The name Urika comes from Linn's ‘Eureka’ moment during development and discovering that the phono stage could be installed inside the turntable and dramatically improve the performance.

Simply the biggest performance improvement from an LP12 upgrade ever. The new Linn Radikal Motor Control Unit (MCU) and Linn Urika Phono Stage elevate the performance of Linn's flagship Sondek LP12 turntable to such a high level, both products immediately assume their place within the coveted LP12 SE series, which now represents a new pinnacle of turntable performance. These upgrades offer a completely different way of powering and amplifying the LP12 turntable by retrieving and protecting the source signal to a far greater degree than ever before.

Linn Radikal Motor Control Unit & DC Motor offers a new level of accuracy, as well as radically reduced electrical and mechanical noise: • on-board speed management system auto-calibrates the turntable for accurate motor speed control (using technology from Klimax DS), and requires no manual speed adjustment • new brushed DC motor with very low magnetic field and electrical noise, in a machined housing designed to reduce vibration and resonance • Motor Control Unit encased in an elegant and timeless Linn chassis (black / silver) • Motor Control Unit also available in a machined-from-solid aluminium chassis to match a Klimax system if required

Linn Urika Phono Stage is positioned in the best possible place - inside the deck, greatly reducing the signal path, minimising the loss of information from the cartridge and maximising performance: • located inside the plinth (mounted on a Trampolin) for the shortest possible signal path • new screened T-Kable, directly soldered to the phono stage, delivers improved signal to noise ratio • flexibility of new T-Kable enables suspension to work more effectively without interference and simplifies set-up • dual mono phono design provides dedicated circuitry for each channel to minimise cross-talk • powered by the Linn Radikal Motor Control Unit

DS Range - Deliver a better sound than CD.
Klimax DS, Akurate DS and Sneaky DS are all on the music network at House of Linn.
See and listen how easy Linn higher fidelity music can be enjoyed and wirelessly controlled throughout your home.
Call or email to make appointment.