Jony Ive designs $60,000 turntable for Scottish hi-fi pioneers

AppleInsider

Ex-Apple design chief Jony Ive approached Scotland's audio firm Linn asking to collaborate on a turntable to mark the company's 50th anniversary.

Source: LInn

Unless you count his exceptional redesign of the UK's Comic Relief charity red nose, Jony Ive has not worked on hardware since leaving Apple. But his LoveFrom firm has now partnered with Linn to produce a turntable that sells starting at 50,000 pounds Sterling (approximately $63,000).

"I couldn't have picked a better way of marking our 50th anniversary than with a landmark collaboration on the [classic turntable] Sondek LP12," said Linn CEO Gilad Tiefenbrun in a very Apple-like promo video for the device. "We never collaborated before, and then suddenly, this phenomenal opportunity comes along. If I was gonna pick one person, or one organization on this planet that I would wanna collaborate with, it would be this one. "

"I got a LinkedIn request for a meeting with British design guru Sir Johnny Ive," continues Tiefenbrun. "The first thing he said to me was, I just want to tell you how much I love your company and your products."

"The thing that made this collaboration seem viable from the start is the enormous respect that Johnny was showing to the LP12," says Tiefenbrun. The LP12 is the world's longest-selling audio device, and Linn planned to keep what has been so popular for half a century, but also tweak "a few key elements to make it a little bit better for this special mission."

"I think people will be surprised to see some of the visual changes on the turntable," continues Tiefenbrun. "They're not going to be surprised to see some of the functional improvements that have been made."

Linn's limited edition Sondek LP12 50 can be reserved now. Only 250 will ever be made, and they will start to ship to buyers in August 2023.

While the turntable, and the Red Nose, are the first hardware designs to come out of LoveFrom, the company has already been working with Ferrari. It's not know yet, though, what the multi-year deal will see Ive and colleagues are specifically working on.

Read on AppleInsider

beowulfschmidt

Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.

byronl

here's the video AI forgot to link for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq1x3JoclPk

retrogusto

The funny part is how much it just looks like any other LP12, but maybe they’re trying to make a point with that. 

jimh2

beowulfschmidt said:

Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.

If you are unfamiliar with the high end audio world then the price of this product is a shock, but what you do not know is the high end audio world has no problem paying insane dollars chasing perfect sound. Interconnects and speaker wire costing thousands of dollars, supports for holding speaker wire above the floor, amongst a ton of snake oil. There is no question that as you move up the cost chain there are improvements but they diminish fairly quickly when you move much above $10K. The improvements are there, but most would not care. The craziest waste of money I have seen is a network switch being sold as an "audiophile" switch. It is a relabeled cheap switch that is sold for more than $500. You have to go to an audio forum to see how insane the claims are. 

graphicsguy

This is the thing... If there's a market for 250 of these, there's a market for 100K+ $3500 Vision Pros. Fact is there's a lot of people with a good amount of discretionary money to spend. 

Armoured_Bear

jimh2 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.

If you are unfamiliar with the high end audio world then the price of this product is a shock, but what you do not know is the high end audio world has no problem paying insane dollars chasing perfect sound. Interconnects and speaker wire costing thousands of dollars, supports for holding speaker wire above the floor, amongst a ton of snake oil. There is no question that as you move up the cost chain there are improvements but they diminish fairly quickly when you move much above $10K. The improvements are there, but most would not care. The craziest waste of money I have seen is a network switch being sold as an "audiophile" switch. It is a relabeled cheap switch that is sold for more than $500. You have to go to an audio forum to see how insane the claims are. 

While there is lots of snake oil in the hi-fi accessories world, using that term when discussing a Linn turntable is quite disingenuous, they've been making fantastic products for decades.
It always amuses me to see how judgmental people are about money wrt things like this, people have no qualms spending that on a hulk of polluting metal that depreciates quickly from the moment you buy it yet a device that will produce a lifetime of enjoyment is somehow "bewildering".

baconstang

I was hoping it would only be about 1cm thick.  Come on Jony!

hexclock

Armoured_Bear said:

jimh2 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.

If you are unfamiliar with the high end audio world then the price of this product is a shock, but what you do not know is the high end audio world has no problem paying insane dollars chasing perfect sound. Interconnects and speaker wire costing thousands of dollars, supports for holding speaker wire above the floor, amongst a ton of snake oil. There is no question that as you move up the cost chain there are improvements but they diminish fairly quickly when you move much above $10K. The improvements are there, but most would not care. The craziest waste of money I have seen is a network switch being sold as an "audiophile" switch. It is a relabeled cheap switch that is sold for more than $500. You have to go to an audio forum to see how insane the claims are. 

While there is lots of snake oil in the hi-fi accessories world, using that term when discussing a Linn turntable is quite disingenuous, they've been making fantastic products for decades.
It always amuses me to see how judgmental people are about money wrt things like this, people have no qualms spending that on a hulk of polluting metal that depreciates quickly from the moment you buy it yet a device that will produce a lifetime of enjoyment is somehow "bewildering".

That hulk of metal gets me to work and back, sun, rain, or snow. 

mikethemartian

jimh2 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.

If you are unfamiliar with the high end audio world then the price of this product is a shock, but what you do not know is the high end audio world has no problem paying insane dollars chasing perfect sound. Interconnects and speaker wire costing thousands of dollars, supports for holding speaker wire above the floor, amongst a ton of snake oil. There is no question that as you move up the cost chain there are improvements but they diminish fairly quickly when you move much above $10K. The improvements are there, but most would not care. The craziest waste of money I have seen is a network switch being sold as an "audiophile" switch. It is a relabeled cheap switch that is sold for more than $500. You have to go to an audio forum to see how insane the claims are. 

It is really easy to see how good a cable is by just measuring it on a vector network analyzer (VNA). Phased matched cables used in RF labs can cost thousands of dollars but those are for frequencies in the gigahertz range which are several orders of magnitude greater than audio frequencies. The only reason I can think of why someone would want to suspend the cables some specific distance above ground is due to parasitic capacitance but that is easily calculated as well.

9secondkox2

Looks like the world’s most clean and beautiful record player. Wish it was in my price range so I can discover what it sounds like. 

I think Jony has enjoyed his break from industrial design snd the fire is burning again. Good stuff. 

maltz

Hm.  I'd have thought it would be thinner...

DavidEsrati

I used to sell Linn in the early 80's.

They've totally lost touch with the masses.

Truly a company of the 1% now.

Sad- because it was amazing stuff at one time.

Zero customer support now.

FileMakerFeller

DavidEsrati said:

I used to sell Linn in the early 80's.

They've totally lost touch with the masses.

Truly a company of the 1% now.

Sad- because it was amazing stuff at one time.

Zero customer support now.

Would that be the masses who abandoned vinyl more than 20 years ago?

9secondkox2

hexclock said:

Armoured_Bear said:

jimh2 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.

If you are unfamiliar with the high end audio world then the price of this product is a shock, but what you do not know is the high end audio world has no problem paying insane dollars chasing perfect sound. Interconnects and speaker wire costing thousands of dollars, supports for holding speaker wire above the floor, amongst a ton of snake oil. There is no question that as you move up the cost chain there are improvements but they diminish fairly quickly when you move much above $10K. The improvements are there, but most would not care. The craziest waste of money I have seen is a network switch being sold as an "audiophile" switch. It is a relabeled cheap switch that is sold for more than $500. You have to go to an audio forum to see how insane the claims are. 

While there is lots of snake oil in the hi-fi accessories world, using that term when discussing a Linn turntable is quite disingenuous, they've been making fantastic products for decades.
It always amuses me to see how judgmental people are about money wrt things like this, people have no qualms spending that on a hulk of polluting metal that depreciates quickly from the moment you buy it yet a device that will produce a lifetime of enjoyment is somehow "bewildering".

That hulk of metal gets me to work and back, sun, rain, or snow. 

Not to mention keeping you safe vs an even bigger and more polluting hulk of metal carrying numerous other passengers who can’t seem to stop making the news for what they do to other passengers. 

It’s s great thing to own your own personal vehicle. 

radarthekat

Two observations.  

Mad respect for Jony; he is in the rare position of being able to choose his clients rather than the other way around.  

and

regarding high end audio gear in this price range it’s sad for those who came into the amounts of money required only after a lifetime of building wealth, for after forty our hearing itself begins to diminish, offsetting any fidelity offered by the expensive gear.  

timmillea

What next? A £100k Jony Ive designed CD player?

spheric

DavidEsrati said:

I used to sell Linn in the early 80's.

They've totally lost touch with the masses.

Truly a company of the 1% now.

Sad- because it was amazing stuff at one time.

Zero customer support now.

The Basik was such an awesome turntable. 

I’ve owned my LP12 for almost thirty years now (gently upgraded a couple of times), but sometimes, I still miss the Basik. 

Jony Ive working for Linn is such a perfect fit, though — and completely unsurprising. 

dewme

radarthekat said:

Two observations.  

Mad respect for Jony; he is in the rare position of being able to choose his clients rather than the other way around.  

and

regarding high end audio gear in this price range it’s sad for those who came into the amounts of money required only after a lifetime of building wealth, for after forty our hearing itself begins to diminish, offsetting any fidelity offered by the expensive gear.  

So true on both points. I see the same pattern with high performance sports cars. I’ve seen articles that state that the average age of Corvette buyers is slightly north of 60 years old, at least around the time the C8 was released. That matches my unscientific observations. GM may have eliminated the Oldsmobile brand but whenever I see a Corvette on the road, parked at the Dairy Queen, or carefully ensconced in a comfy garage for 10 months of the year, I can’t help but think “hey look, there’s another OldMansMobile.” 

Hopefully there’s enough cargo space on the latest Corvette model to at least bring along your walker.

They say that youth is wasted on the young. But I suppose we can also say that wealth is wasted on the old.

Hreb

Being from Jony Ive I assume there are no wired audio outputs, and the only output is Bluetooth 4.2.

olivertwist

jimh2 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

Words are inadequate to express my bewilderment.

If you are unfamiliar with the high end audio world then the price of this product is a shock, but what you do not know is the high end audio world has no problem paying insane dollars chasing perfect sound. Interconnects and speaker wire costing thousands of dollars, supports for holding speaker wire above the floor, amongst a ton of snake oil. There is no question that as you move up the cost chain there are improvements but they diminish fairly quickly when you move much above $10K. The improvements are there, but most would not care. The craziest waste of money I have seen is a network switch being sold as an "audiophile" switch. It is a relabeled cheap switch that is sold for more than $500. You have to go to an audio forum to see how insane the claims are. 

Good thing I am deaf since birth and have no abilities to enjoy listening to the music and such. I'll spend £50,000 on something useful than obsessing over the "perfect" sound system...