Sunday, January 6, 2013

Welcome Tom!


Tom C. emailed me the other day with questions about a B&O MMC 20CL cartridge (one of my favorites). Google had brought him to this blog, and as it turns out he has a Yamaha CD player that I sold an acquaintance of his 30 years ago! He was kind enough to send pictures of the sale and my original business card which was still stapled to the receipt! Look at the price- $1200. for a Yamaha CD-1 back in 1983! This was one of their best, early adopters certainly paid the price! Wondering how much better a $200. machine sounds today! Not true of turntables, of course. A $1200. table back then would probably be equivalent to a $3000+ one today, and would still have enduring value.

  Anyway, thanks, Tom for reading and sending me these!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year!

Thank you for your interest in my blog. The first year, 142 posts, over 18,000 hits and emails from people all over the world! Great to know there is still that kind of interest.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Still thinning

Sold a couple more pairs of speakers from the closet this week, dawned on me that I never really talked about either one. Both on Craigslist, a nice guy Tom from California bought my ADS 300s (here we go, Craigslist out of state again) and another nice guy Gary swapped me some stuff for my Rogers LS-2s. Gary is actually local, and has been playing with this stuff for years. He has McIntosh, Klipsch, and has made the transition back to strictly two channel.

Rogers LS2



 The LS2 was a more practical version of the LS3/5A BBC monitor, more efficient, played louder, and handled much more power. Both 4" two ways, this was more of a regular listening speaker as opposed to a near-field monitor. Plus it handled 100 watts  instead of 20! Rubber surrounds with polypropylene cones, these basically will last forever!

ADS L 300 minispeakers



 ADS or Analog Digital Systems  had an early affiliation with Braun, and between the two of them I give them credit for inventing the first high quality mini speaker. Diecast aluminum enclosures with high quality drivers, they were a bit of a revelation in their day. Often used with a subwoofer, although very few choices existed back when these were introduced.

 Available with or without brackets, the intent was for them also to be used in automotive applications.Probably the first audiophile quality speaker available for cars.

Their name was interesting because at the time digital as we know it didn't exist. There were no CD players or downloading of music. The digital referred more towards the designing tools, CAD/CAM and programs.

 Their logo was changed a few years later to A/D/S, as Aids awareness came to the forefront. They did not want to be associated with this terrible disease.

I sold these at JB, and probably had this pair close to 20 years before recently selling them to Tom in California.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Elite TZ-F 700 speakers





Found some updated pictures of these, much better views of what they really look like. Still liking them, months later.Wrote about these more in depth in my June entries.

Ahhh, the clever marketing people!

   You gotta hand it to Ion and some of the other cheesecake turntable companies, they are starting to look more like audiophile tables all the time! With the exception of the Ipod , this one looks like it could have been made by VPI!  It even has built in phony Tip Toes! I am tempted to buy one just to look at it , not even plug it in. Probably still uses piano wire for the tonearm bearings. Nobody that has one of these will ever borrow any of my records!