Ivor Sigmund TiefenbrunMBE is the founder and Chairman of Linn Products Ltd, Glasgow, Scotland-based manufacturers of high fidelity audio equipment and home theatre equipment. He was influential in the manufacture and retail of British audio in the 1970s and 1980s, and was appointed MBE by Elizabeth II in 1992.
Biography
Tiefenbrun was born in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland, the oldest of three children, to Jan Tiefenbrun, who was born in Kraków and arrived in Glasgow as a refugee from Austria in 1939. Tiefenbrun dropped out of a Mechanical Engineering degree from Glasgow's Strathclyde University, and developed his engineering and business skills in his late father's company, Castle Precision Engineering, now run by his nephew. Linn Products Limited was started by Tiefenbrun in the city's Castlemilk district near Linn Park in 1972 to manufacture a hi-fi turntable, developed from his personal interest in music reproduction, based on contemporary models. His approach was to strive to extract much more information from the long-play gramophone record, and to make the turntable immune to audio feedback -. He thought that precision engineering of the turntable would prove to be far more important than many other designers believed The end product was the Linn Sondek LP12, which remains the industry benchmark after nearly five decades. In the early years, Tiefenbrun took the turntable around shops trying to prove that not all turntables sounded the same. Tiefenbrun also argued against industry notables like Edgar Villchur, who felt that loudspeakers were the most important aspect of the audio playback chain, instead asserting the primacy of "the front end". He said that once information was lost, distorted or corrupted, it was gone forever and could never be retrieved. Many of the dealers who auditioned the turntable felt they heard an improved sound when compared to other brands. By the end of the 1970s, Tiefenbrun's views had gained significant ground and large numbers of dealers and audiophiles had accepted "primacy of the source" as the norm in the United Kingdom and then around the world. Tiefenbrun had been suffering from a serious illness, and 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 the bank put Linn on their "special measures" list in 2006 and a massive restructuring plan was ordered. His son Gilad was appointed managing director, and Ivor was brought back in an executive role.
Personal
Tiefenbrun married Evelyn Stella Balarsky in 1969, and has three children - Natan, Gilad and Sara. And while Gilad is Ivor's successor at Linn, Natan is commercial director of Turquoise, a multilateral trading facility. Sara moved to Australia in 2008 and runs The School of Life in Melbourne Ivor revealed that he was suffering from Crohn's colitis, a debilitating autoimmune bowel disorder. His realization that research into this condition was seriously underfunded led him to found Cure Crohn's Colitis, dubbed C3. He is founder member of the Entrepreneurial Exchange. The outspoken Tiefenbrun, a long-time ardent supporter of Margaret Thatcher, was selected to contest the Glasgow Maryhill seat at the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections for the Scottish Conservative Party. He withdrew upon the uproar after it was reported in The Scotsman that he had said "you would have to be thick to accept that was evil force" in Scotland.
