Bastardized Again!

A couple of  months back, I described famous names in HiFi that have been bastardized over the years. The ad above was in my Sunday paper.

    No further explanation is necessary.................

Dayton Wright

I have made mention of  Dayton Wright  a few times in these pages, if nothing else to afford myself the opportunity to razz my friend Joe who has had my SPA in for repair for over two years now! He has found a second unit for parts in Syracuse, hopefully he will be able to resurrect this to operating condition.

 My first experience with these as I mentioned earlier was the leftover pieces at Esoteric Audio when I inherited the store. I picked up another SPS III on ebay last week, from a guy in Buffalo who actually had it sitting on my doorstep the next day! As I said in my feedback for him "he must have strapped rockets to his roller skates!". Turns out he was a member of the Western NY Audio club based in Buffalo years ago.I went to a couple of their swap meets. 

 I had one of these years ago, and Dayton Wright was/is amazingly good sounding gear. Upon hooking this up I had a familiar "oh,yeah." from years past. A Canadian company, they were purchased by Leigh Instruments in the  '80s. Probably best known for their electrostatic speakers, the XG 8 and XG 10. These were unique in that they were helium filled. They never offered a commercially available power amp, just preamps and speakers.They still have a website and it is somewhat spartan. I also have a 535 moving coil stepup that is probably the only active non-transformer based pre-pre that I like. In fact I  REALLY like it. They also made an SPL preamp not pictured here that basically was an SPS with a built in 535 (the SPS accommodates MM cartridges only) and a second tape input in a larger chassis. Watson loudspeakers were a division of Dayton Wright, and offered more conventional cone speakers.

As you can see by the pictures these are no frills designs. No tone controls (they did offer a graphic EQ), no wood cabinets, and rather drab cosmetics. But the phono sections-and oh, what phono sections! LP was considered the state of the art source choice back then, so that is where most of the engineering $$$ went. With the exception of the evolution of available parts quality I would put these designs up against anything made today. A word of caution- these have unlimited bandwidth. Meaning if you have a problem with feedback, low frequency noise or warped records it will magnify this and potentially send your woofers into convulsions!

  The SPS Mk III preamp

The SPA preamp

The DW 535 Infranoise MC cartridge head amp

The XG 8 Helium filled electrostatic loudspeaker

The power supply/energizer for the XG 8 

US Audio Mart rules!

This site just passed the test- sold this Luxman table to a guy in California. As many times as I listed it on Dregslist, had my balls broke, here was a guy willing to pay to ship it clear across the country! Amazing the difference in mentalities! Finally found an alternative to Audiogon, went without a hitch, good feedback from both parties. A lot of these sites have popped up over the years, this one will make it.

Lirpa Labs

Just in time for April Fools day, I thought I would bring back Lirpa Labs for your enjoyment. The now defunct Audio Magazine in their annual buyer's guides thirty years ago would always have them listed as a manufacturer with an entry or two, something like a deadweight tonearm, the I-DIOT  dynamic range reduction system, well, you get the picture. Pictured above is their Steampunk turntable, 1776 Freedom loudspeaker, Lirpa tuner, and headphone opener. The spirit lives on and has endured for many years!

R.I.P. David Manley 1939-2012

Shortly before the demise of James Bongiorno in January, David Manley passed in France in December of last year. His company was VTL (Vacuum Tube Logic) and was famous for the quality tube amplifiers that he designed. He also had a pro- audio company, Manley Laboratories that made some of the finest tubed pro gear available to recording studios, and as of a few years ago has re-entered the home audiophile market with some unique and striking designs..


Microphones, compressor limiters, mic preamps and hifi amplifiers and integrateds other products continue to this day to be successful under the direction of his fifth (!) ex- wife, EveAnna Manley.


 His son Luke currently runs VTL, and they are still very much alive in the audio world. David also had his own audiophile record label,  ViTaL  Records. He also will be sadly missed by the audio community.

R.I.P. James Bongiorno 1943-2013

By  far one of my favorite designers passed away January 10th. Through my earlier years interested in audio I had a tendency to follow designers more so than brand names. I have always preferred tubes to solid state, the notable exception being James Bongiorno's designs. From his earliest work with Marantz and Dynaco to his very last Ampzilla offerings,he was one of the most talented amp designers known to the industry. Even his earliest solid state stuff sounded good!

                                    The Marantz 15 (1967) one of his first works at age 24!

The Dynaco Stereo 400 -one of the first and best high powered amps in its day.

He was one of the chief designers for SAE (see my entry on SAE in my earlier posts), the MK III C/ CM was one of  his most popular  designs at the time.

The Ampzilla- One of the first products from a company GAS (Great American Sound) that was owned by Jim himself. Famous for putting some fun and humor in HiFi.

This later spawned more products- Son of Ampzilla, Grandson, 100 and 50 watts respectively.  The Sleeping Beauty phono cartridge (which I still use, see my earlier posts), Thoebe and Thalia preamps, and other cool and fun american made products.

After GAS came Sumo, with models like the Andromeda, Polaris, and Charlie the Tuner. The fun continued.

Jim's last company, Spread Spectrum Technologies saw the reissue of the Ampzilla moniker- the Ampzilla 2000, a two kilowatt beast that revolutionized the audio world once again. 

Jim will be sadly missed by the industry, keep these pictures in your mind the next time you walk through your local Best Buy. HiFi just doesn't look or sound like this there! 

Hooray!

A viable alternative to Audiogon!


 Used Audiogon for years, bought and sold a ton of stuff on there. Also Audioweb before it unfortunately fell victim to scammers. Audiogon has been sold a couple of times, and is a mere shell of what it used to be! They started charging posting fees and percentages (like Ebay) a few years ago, and fell off in popularity. At one point Stereophile (magazine) owned them, not sure who does now. All ads were duplicated under Stereophiles's classified section. They probably have one third the listings the had in their peak fifteen or so years ago.


   Now comes US Audio Mart, a site site run by Canuck Audio Mart.


     http://www.usaudiomart.com/


  For 11 years the Canuck site has been very successful, available only to Canadians, and now they have branched out to other regions.Best of all it is free for hobbyists like us! There have been a few free classified sites, but very few people have placed ads on them. This one appears to be taking off. It is a mix of individuals and dealers alike, has a nice layout and the option to post decent photos. A feedback system will keep most people on the level. Some people just don't like selling on Ebay, myself included. This is more of a hobbyist specialized site. The search engines are good, you can search by state, type of equipment, and by member listings.


   Hooray!


 Spread the word!