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!