Flat Earth

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

How many of you were drawn into the flat earth bullshit, how many managed to avoid it, and how many are still in it up to the top of your wellies.

Was there anything worthwhile and valid that came out of it.

[southall-1998]

My father avoided it very well. He had an LP12 many years ago....Simple, it didn't last long! The one Linn product he liked was the Ekos tonearm.

S.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

That is Linn products who's marketing and bullshit created the flat earth, I am also talking about the philosophy / folk law as well.

[jammy395]

Doc, The lucky young un's may just have escaped...... ....Well done young un's - You truly dont know how lucky you were........

As for us slightly older brigade....I would be very very surprised if any one escaped untouched ........by the FLAT EARTH FURY................

I succumbed to the Velvety marketing gloss / The silky smooth charms of the dealer's ...mid late 70s.....and am fukin embarassed to say i acctualy
did not break free from their clutches for many year,s.......I fettled until i cryed.... TTs with belts....Countless No's......You know the wobbly bouncy kind that
you could audibly hear speed up and slow down mid track....wtf....Yes the TTs that dared you to aproach them whilst playing...Or they would skate right over
yer latest lp puchase...... ....Bastard's.
I had amps Satan would have bloody rejected.........Yep,,,, OLIVE GREEN NAIMs.....never tryed the new one,s cause i had learned my lessons with the green C****

As to any thing valid or worth while to come out of said....ERA OF MADNESS..........

Yes................I have escaped........... And find a peverse joy in the poor missguided fool;s who have not yet escaped........

[phil66]

How many of you were drawn into the flat earth bullshit, how many managed to avoid it, and how many are still in it up to the top of your wellies.

Was there anything worthwhile and valid that came out of it.

you mean that time .... ? I enjoyed that .... I met lots of hifi people - lots of discussion - and I was young .... was a great time !!
At the end I found my first NVA amps ..... first I read about themin one of those magazines ... then years later I bought a P50/PSU/A40 second hand in a shop .... :D

[terrybooth]

My first hi-fi was put together based on whatever I read and reading specs. I was a Connoiseur BD1/Shure M75 (mainly because it was relatively cheap). A Heathkit Receiver (I nearly went blind soldering it up and then I had a dry joint and blew a tranny trying to find it. And a pair of ESL57s. Then I became a student (extended) and had no money but at some point I managed my first 'upgrade' - by-by Connoiseur, Hello Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference/SME3009 (fixed headshell and Shure V15 III).

I moved to Birmingham. I hung around a shop called Sound Control in Birmingham which was run by a nice chap - he later sold out to the Sound Advice lot in Leicester for a nice wad (by the looks of it - he put on about 3 stone almost overnight). This was my introduction to Flat Earth: source first and Linn/Naim as first choice and various 'steps' to get there. Can't remember in what order but the Transcriptors became a Rega Planar 3 (can't remember the cart), the Heathkit because a Nytech CA252 (thank God I couldn't afford a Nait (one) - however, the Nytech would maybe fetch a couple of hundred now, but that Nait!) and the ESL 57s became Linn Kans with Kan 1 stands (slopey front). I remember a change in attitude from my guests - rather than trying to warm themselves in front of the ESLs, they would be amazed at the Bass from the Kans (one note of course and primarily due to crappy stands. One think I remember about Birmingham was listening to a bit of Radio 4 through a NAT01 and some Naim amps and 'Briks (I think). I was impressed - it was a report about water shortages and about standpipes in the street. the reported was there and there was a running tap in the room.

I moved to Halifax and started going to Erricks in Bradford (long since gone). There I met a flat earther who became a friend and there I began the slippery slope. Out with that pathetic Rega with it's fixed soundstage and in with my first LP12 then the arm and cart upgrade (ITTOK and a K15) then the cart upgrade which went with an upgrade to Exposure (thank God I couldn't afford Naim). Then my firend moved to SO in York and so did my Hi-fi shopping. In between all that I got some snippets about how Linn were ccontrolling the market - not everyone could sell their stuff - you needed frequent visits to Linn to be brainwashed learn about the product. My firend tried to tempt me with an LK1 280 (or was that while he was still at Erricks) he had one and reckonned it sounded good. I thought it sounded bland. Must have been a bad demo machine they had at Erricks was the conclusion.

The Lingo came. The LP12 was 'upgraded' (i.e. completely replaced). LP12/EKOS/Klyde. And I finally got my first bit of Naim Kit - the CDI (bought because I was told that NAIM could no longer produce it becuase Philips had stopped making the CD drive for it. Somewhere along the line previously I'd got a NAD CD player and the CDI did sound better than that (at about 10 times the price). That's how it stayed for a long time.

Then I heard a rumour that John Farlowe was starting up again, tried searching the web for any news and found NVA. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Lindsayt]

I've talked about this already in the "User review thread".

I went for the Flat Earth, hook line and sinker.

The thing is, I never had anything to tell me that this wasn't the optimum route.

Nothing in the hi-fi mags. They were flat earth all the way. Well actually there were little bits in the hi-fi mags of the early 80's. Coded messages, veiled references, cryptic messages that there were alternatives to the flat earth brigade. For example, when Hi-fi Answers reviewed the Acoustic Research SP-8 pre-amp they said that it was better than certain other highly favoured pre-amps. They didn't specifically mention the Naim NAC 32.5, but with hindsight now I can see that this is what the reviewer meant.

Nothing in my local hi-fi dealerships that all stocked flat earth gear or budget gear only.

All of my friends and relatives had flat earth systems or budget systems.

There was no internet in those days. No Scalford. No easy way of arranging or attending bake-offs.

So I had no way of knowing at that time that there was a very viable alternative to Flat Earth.

Today I know very different. My systems aren't Flat Earth. They aren't particularly Round Earth either. More like Pro Earth I guess.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Who do you blame for the industry being hoodwinked for so long - the manufacturers (specific) or the retailers or the magazines or the reviewers or us the idiots who bought into it and provided the fuel (money) that kept it going for so long.

[Ninanina]

I keep hearing this 'flat earth' thing. Hope I'm not sounding too blonde but what is/was it exactly?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It is claimed to be the change from buying hi-fi by listening to it as opposed to buying on written specifications. That was the good thing but then it was hi-jacked and polluted initially by Ivor Tiefenbrun at Linn Products and the process escalated and was very successful, because he would probably win the gold medal for bullshit if it was in the Olympics. It passed on to reviewers and mags then retailers who just parroted his statements (bullshit) as gospel.

The term was originally coined by Martin Colloms in the late 70's, and it fitted in very much with the magazine publishers like Haymarket who didn't want to pay the high rates for technically proficient reviewers like Martin so hired cheap kids just out of college who were vulnerable to Ivor's brainwashing (all were invited to Glasgow and groomed). One of them even started his own mag based on the flat earth called The Flat Response. Once Ivor (with Julien of Naim in his trail) had the market he then manipulated it so as not to let others get a look in, and the break away only came when specialist valve dealers started to appear. So valve became the new bullshit (but not as prominent) as it was so different, and people had been brainwashed into thinking no solid state amp could be better than a Linn or a Naim (internal battle within the flat earth), so valve gave them the "get out" as it was musically so different, it could be accepted as better. Only now are people beginning to understand that it was all bullshit and there were good solid state amps better than Linn and Naim, hence the renewed interest in the old 80's companies that went bust because of Ivor's manipulation of the industry, and especially Exposure who suffered greatly at the hands of the dealers.

Anyway loads more nuances and politics used to hold on to and control market share, such as illegal dealer contracts, self seeking cartels like BADA and BFA (FBA). So like all things that start out as good and beneficial some bullshitting crooks hi-jack it - per usual. AND still a lot of people are stuck in it, can't see the wood for the trees, just read PFM to find them. OR more obviously the Linn and the Naim forums.