ALL HAIL THE WIZARD OF LINN!

The Wizard of Linn is a science fiction novel by Canadian - American writer AE van Vogt.  This, his second novel was originally serialised in the Astounding Science Fiction magazine during April to June 1950 with publication in book format in 1961 titled as Der Zauberer von Linn - it was a German publication after all.

But for we radio/hifi types we know of an alternative Wizard of Linn, well, its Ivor Sigmund Tiefenbrun MBE the founder of Linn Products.

Tiefenbrun was born in the Gorbals area of Glasgow and went on to hone his engineering and business skills in his late father's company, Castle Precision Engineering.

Linn Products Limited was started by Tiefenbrun in the city's Castlemilk district near Linn Park in 1972 to manufacture a hi-fi turntable engineered to extract the maximum amount of information from the LP groove by making the turntable immune to vibration induced audio feedback.  The end product was the  Linn Sondek LP12, actually a rebadged Ariston RD11, which remains in production albeit in a much modified form (and price) some 50+ years and counting!

In May 2006, it was announced that Ivor Tiefenbrun had stepped aside as Linn's managing director, but would assume the role of Executive chairman. The business suffered considerably during his absence and their financing bank put Linn on their "special measures" list in 2006.  However, a massive restructuring plan spearheaded by the newly appointed Managing Director, Gilad, Ivor's son,  resulted in things being successfully turned around.

The outspoken Tiefenbrun, was a long-time ardent supporter of Margaret Thatcher and when he was selected to contest the Glasgow Maryhill seat at the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections for the Scottish Conservative Party, he withdrew after it was reported in The Scotsman that he had said "You would have to be thick to accept that Margaret Thatcher was evil force in Scotland."  As we all know, Maggie had her faults but she didn't have a luxury camper van paid for by a troupe of deluded Jimmy Krankie fans!!!!

So there we have it, you now know just that little more about the true Wizard of Linn.