Other local sources

Me!

(No,just kidding.)

There are some things that I decide to sell from time to time, but definitely not a dealer (anymore).

  As a hobbyist, I don't think I've ever acquired more stuff since I have been out of the business,and it has been about 25 years. Truth of the matter is, it is really tough to make a living selling audio, odds very much against you, and you can remain much more passionate if your livelihood doesn't depend on it.

  Other sources would include my friend Joe who runs a repair shop (Service Technology) and knows people who know people who might be interested in this or that.

  Craigslist, of course- that great place where all they do is argue about the value of Ipads.

  Ebay Classifieds- many people don't realize this exists. Localized for your city or town.

 Garage sales, for God's sake, go back a few posts and just look at the GE school phonograph I bought for $10!

   Saw a Marantz Model 7 next to a Charm Glow grill in Pittsford! Only problem is they wanted $4000. for it. (Just kidding). My point again is there is a wealth of this stuff in this town, you just need a little luck and know where to look for it.

Sound Source

  More of a pro audio store than a hi-fi shop, you will find an occasional treasure here. I have bought horns, woofers, DAT machines, reel to reels, hospital grade AC cords, tubes, styli, solder,shrink tubing, grill cloth and other great little trinkets- spl meter, what have you. Very reasonable prices, and a couple of the employees were actually in the hi fi biz years ago. Big DJ selection, many used tables, mainly direct drive Technics, Stantons, Denon,etc.

        Link:   http://www.soundsource.com/

Audio Renaissance

A little off the beaten path in an office park suite near Brighton Henrietta Townline Rd.

Owned by Craig Sypnier who is realizing his dream in opening a small shop. A good local place to go for belts and styli, he has access to a few good brands, and can special order them for you. In business for roughly a year, he devotes several hours a week in addition to working a full time job. Best of luck to him, and I hope he continues to grow.

Audio Sound Solutions

Kind of an audio thrift shop located in East Rochester. Owned by Mike Fenton who has been doing it for a number of years. Not a lot of high end gear, but you might occasionally be surprised by what you find there. He moved to this location a few years ago when he bought this building. Formerly known as Avalanche Audio when he was located on East Ave. If nothing else, interesting to walk through and see some of the artifacts of years past. Everything from old antique tabletop radios to large floor speakers and power amps  from the '70s and '80s.


      Link: http://www.audiosoundsolutions.net/index.html

Dave Lane's Stereo Shop

In the '80s, the Stereo Shop in Greece was a real thorn in my side! Part of Stereo Advantage, based in Buffalo, thay offered Klipsch speakers there but not here.The trans ship franchise rule was in effect, but they would tell people to listen to the speakers at JB, and they would get them cheaper if you wanted them. Klipsch would not enforce this because of the amount of business they gave them. Basically part of a large buying group, they did indeed have a "Stereo Advantage".

 Fast forward almost thirty years later, Dave Lane has seperated himself from the group. The enthusiast audiophile of the group, Dave has always been able to seperate business from pleasure. My friend Bob Hamme was a partner up until about 10 years ago. I have done a lot of horse trading with Bob over the years, and we still "chew the fat" from time to time.

 This Henrietta location is unique from the other Stereo Shop locations in that it offers amongst other things Kef (including the Reference series),Martin Logan, Marantz ,NAD, Velodyne, Definitive Technologies, PSB, Denon, Polk, and Onkyo. They recently picked up Rega, god bless them.

  Location,location, location, and they are in college town.

  Bought a couple of TVs from them,like to see local business do well.

    link:   http://stopattheshop.com/index.html

Current dealers in the Rochester area

There are actually a couple of bricks and mortar stores that are still functioning after several years, their business models may have changed somewhat, but good that the quality audio gear has not completely disappeared from the Rochester marketplace!

There are also a few manufacturers still in the area,  respected names in even the most elite circles. I consider them each worth addressing individually, and will go into a little more detail than I did with with the now defunct dealers.

                                                             ROWE AUDIO VIDEO

Rowe Photo, as they are technically known are a B&W, McIntosh, Klipsch, Anthem, Paradigm, Rotel, and Yamaha dealer as well as many other brands. They recently picked up the Sumiko Project line of turntables (god bless them), and have been a haven for used gear over the years.

Ebay and Audiogon have dramatically changed the market for used gear, and the local inventories reflect that. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) other states or countries are willing to pay much more for quality used gear than we are. 

I can remember buying Apogee Duetta Signatures, Quad ESL63's, Mirage M3s, Aragon power amps,Quicksilver tube amps, and most recently my Mac Mc275  MkV from there.

A couple of seasoned audio professionals still work there, including my good friend Rich Ciaraldi who worked with me at JB Sound. 

Richard Rowe is a gentleman, and the lastest generation to run this family business. A few years ago he grew the store from one to three, butting heads with the big box stores.

  Interesting that photography and audio took a similar swing, with digital and simplified audio systems the household norm currently.

They found a niche a few years back with laser discs, A rental library of such and I will admit I was a willing participant. I still have over 400 laser discs today, and unlike my Beta tapes I still use them.

  They also popularized the LCD front projector, and I bought no fewer than a half dozen Sharps and others from them over the years.

  In the used heyday I was there probably an average of three days a week, afraid of missing something if I didn't show up.  Asked Rich, "Is there anything in the back that you are getting ready to bring out?"

Glad they are still around, and I would recommend them to anybody.

Link:   http://www.rowephoto.com/homeTheaters.php

  The Analog Shop

Bob Lietz has been a friend for years, and I worked with him at JB. I always gave him credit for having the guts to step out from JB and start his own shop. He has been very successful , and has been open in the village of Victor for almost 20. He has had some pretty impressive stuff, and I give him credit as well for helping to keep analog alive when it became almost extinct in the '80s. 

He currently sells Linn, SME, Rega, Project, CAT, Sonus Faber, EAR, and can special order many more high quality products.

Link: http://analogshop.com/

Turntable synopsis

Anyone else sick of reading about turntables?

  The next grouping will be about Ipods/ MP3s/ digital downloads.

   NOT!

  BLECCH! BARF! PUKE!

  I remember when CDs took over the entetainment world in 2005, convenience sold. Free music sells today.

 Sells?

Ok. I leave you with  pictures of my proudest acquisitions- the reproduction Victrola from Overstock.com and my RCA school phonograph purchased from the Browncroft  garage sale last spring- mint WITH a good needle and owners manual for $10.! The Vic starts out fast and ends up slow, occasionally having to rewind the crank in the middle.Great for annoying people at Christmas time. The RCA is spot on- great for square dancing.

These are two really cool props I have in my analog hall of fame.

Charging admission- plan your vacations now. These tickets are selling fast!

JVC

 JVC, or Japanese Victor Corporation. Basically the Japanese RCA.

 The VL-5 at the bottom was my first real turntable.Think I was 18. Brought it home and got a loud "howl" from my system. Called the salesman and he told me to move it farther from my speakers. Voila! Problem fixed. I learned what acoustic feedback was. Obviously had poor isolation. This as I came to realize was one of the many differences in turntables.


   The QL-10 also pictured was on a par with the best Denons, and the QL-7 was a very popular table with most of the perfomance, not quite as nice cosmetically..

Technics

 In the late '80s to early '90s if you mentioned turntables (in the heyday of CDs) people juat assumed you were a DJ. The turntable became a form of musical insturment. "Scratching" was the technique, and Stanton 500AL cartridges tracking at 3 or 4 grams became the norm. "I can get you a deal on a pair of 1200s". Think Herbie Hancock's Rockit, Sugar Ray, many others.

If you try to show me your talent while any of my tables are playing, I will castrate you.

"Honestly, your honor, I couldn't help it. He scratched one of my half speed masters!".

  The Sp-10 pictured above was a broadcast standard, and the only respectable competition for the Denons.

  And honestly, the 1200 is not a bad table, have one in my studio, and it actually sounds pretty good. It is built extremely well. A company called KAB modifies these extensively and is very serious about them.

Yamaha PX-2 / PX-3

Yamaha basically is a large musical insturment company, got tired of the motorcycle sarcasm when I was selling it for JB. "When I think of Yamaha, I think of riding a motorcyle, VROOOM! VROOOM!, ha, ha!"

  It's because you are stupid.

Yes, at one point I did develop an attitude, shortly before I got out of the business.

  Anyway, really liked some of the older Yamaha stuff, B1/ B2 power amps, C2a preamp, NS-1000 speakers, and these tables were actually not bad (for direct drive). Still have a couple of PX-3s, one mint, one not so mint.

Great drunk table, you push a button and it plays the record, fully automatic. Both linear tracking, You can index grooves from outside the dustcover. Kind of like picking up the Zippo lighter with the steam shovel in those old quarter games. Biggest difference in the two was isolation, the drive mechanisms being basically the same. The PX-2 weighed significantly more. 

Other oddball idiosyncratic and one off tables

The Connoisseur BD2 belt drive table with a one piece 10" platter and typically British simple design,

The French ERA 444 with the leaf spring suspended tonearm,

The Fons CQ-30 "poor man's Linn" with archiving abilities- 16, 33, 45, and 78 speeds with pitch control for each!

Harman Kardan ST-7 linear tracking table, pretty!

Pack rat that I am, I still own most of these. Nostalgia?

Naw. They ain't worth poop. Might as well keep them.

AR Acoustic Research

Edgar Villchur could pretty much be credited for the high end belt drive suspended turntable as we know it today. Invented in the '60s, the AR-Xa was a groundbreaking step into the products that would spawn many competitors- the Linn, Ariston, Thorens, and  others.Famous for speakers at the time (think AR3's), this was probably the best selling turntable in its day. My Xa that I still have has a second motor to keep it from starting backwards!  The ES was reissued years later and had equal success due to it's sexy looks and reasonable price. Still extremely popular on the used market today.

Denon

  Nippon Colombia, or Japanese CBS- these were the broadcast standard of Japan for many years. The NHK is basically the Japanese BBC. Their moving coil cartridges still are highly regarded today. I have a 103S and a 103D. Had a DP-75 table and a DP-1100. Sold these for both JB and The Sound Cellar.  Excellent quality and about as good as a direct drive table can get. Only the truly esoteric Technics and Goldmunds bested them. Unique speed monitoring system that had a tape recorder head a few millimeters from the inside of the platter which was coated with a magnetic coating resembling recording tape. One can only wonder what would have happened had they channeled their efforts into belt drive.

B&O aka Bang and Olufsen aka Bang and Awfulsound

Running joke in the '80s. Not the average audiophile's bill of fare, at least in unmodified  form. Certainly some of the most beautiful and eclectic designs of their day. Their cartridges remain to this day some of my favorites. Their tables can only use their cartridges,but universal half inch mounts will allow their cartridges to be used on other tables, sort of a pre-cursor to the later day p-mounts. Contemporary Danish designs, several pieces were on permanent display in the Museum of Modern Art, NYC. Had two 4002s, still have one, not working (go figure). Impossible to get fixed, near impossible to get parts for, this company is just waaayyy too big! If I really hated my friend Joe I would post a phone number for him here and refer all your repairs to him.  Famous today for the telephones, TVs and furniture, basically a Danish design firm. Started with the 1200, evolved into the 1700s, 2400s,4000s, up to the budget  TX/RXs and finally the 8000/8002 with an eddy current (!) drive system. Equally versed in both linear tracking and radial arm designs, these never failed to wow the general public. I had a lot of fun selling these for both JB and The Sound Cellar,  banged on the base while they were playing, slammed the dustcover, and ripped the arm across the record! Almost gave a few people heart attacks, usually at loud volume. The unique MMC design of the cartridge (micro moving cross) had the stylus coming up and blipping over the top of the record groove as opposed to digging in- very unique suspension. Extremely low mass arms and cartridges, double knife edge tonearms like the SME. The cartridges could only be used with low mass arms like the Grace 707 and Infiniti Black Widows.  Still use a top of the line MMC-20CL cartridge in an SME arm. One of my favorites. 

Ariston

The RD-11 and RD-11S (Superior) were competition for the Linn Sondek, and never quite took off the same way. Also made in Scotland, the worksmanship and machining was first rate. Somehow never quite had the magic that the Linn did. The RD-11E was a cheaper table manufactured for them by a Japanese company- not really sure who, but they should not have called it an RD-11! A completely different table, nowhere near as good. Years later they added several other models to the line, RD-40 which somewhat mimicked the Oracle, RD-50, and their "Q-Deck", which had some commercial sucess in the budget turntable category.