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!

My latest little project

 Digging through the catacombs I found all the makings of a classic '60s. combination- an original AR table,completely stock and a Rabco SL 8E arm! I forgot how I happened upon this table, probably when I cleared out the service department of JB Sound when they closed. I still have a myriad of broken Tandberg open reel decks, Nakamichi cassette decks in various states of disrepair, and I found this lonely little table sitting over to one side with an absolutely  horrible dustcover. This is actually the first AR table, I believe the XA, and it has a second motor to make sure it starts in the right direction! Of course, nobody has a belt like that laying around, so I had to order one. A couple of weeks later it showed up, I put it on and find that I still have to give the platter a little "kick" with my hand to get it moving. Motors are plenty strong, once it is rolling the speed is almost perfect and their is plenty of torque. Handy to unhook the second small belt if you want to play Beatles records backwards. Or if you are a redneck, you can play country records backwards and you will get your wife, pickup truck and dog back. (Sorry, no more bad jokes). Anyway, in a few short hours I had this up and running, I had had the arm mounted on a Thorens 125 when I first got it. Laying in my trinket stash was a mounting kit for the arm for an AR table as well as other spare Rabco parts!  Basically just a collar, allen wrench, and  two springs. This has been on my "gonna do it someday" list for a while. The kit still had the instructions, otherwise I would never have known that you just beat the stock arm out of the AR! It came right up, I unsoldered the wires, and pushed the new collar in place. One allen bolt and the arm was mounted, amazingly simple. This I believe is the original Rabco arm as well, not sure of the difference between the 8 and the 8E. The arm is linear tracking, one of the first of its type. The carrier is driven along by a ball chain, similar to the one you yank from the ceiling in your laundry room.  One motor drives it, and the other is for cuing, it cycles the arm up and down. The whole thing is driven by a C cell battery, and I, of course, like most people didn't have one! What else uses them? Had to run out, and of course I couldn't buy just one. A  4 pack later, the arm is up and running. The verdict- basically a cool old table with lots of character. State of the Art? No. A little finicky, but I guess amazing that it still works for almost 50 years old! The arm is probably a little newer than that, but not by much. Time has been kind to this, see the warranty card still attached and how perfect the UL sticker still is! Oh, well. Going to list it on Craigslist, not a romantic.

Famous names in HiFi bastardized over the years

And almost all of them American companies! The Asians had a knack for purchasing some well known companies with brand acceptance, and, well, I'm sure you can figure the rest out. I have separated each company into WAS and IS descriptions  below.



                                                              ALTEC  LANSING


  This is probably the most obvious, why I thought of it first. Rumor had it that James B. Lansing (of the original Altec Lansing fame) committed suicide in the '60s because he couldn't take the pressures of the business. Can you imagine what he would say today?            


                        WAS                                                                                                IS
       A Classic American icon                                                    A computer speaker company                                                                            
                                                                                                         

 


                                                     ACOUSTIC  RESEARCH   (AR)

      Another classic American company, famous for the speakers and turntables. You can now buy AR branded cables and accessories at Home Depot.

                   WAS                                                                                         IS

One of the highest quality speaker                                              Mass merchandising company
companies in their day, dedicated.                                              targeting mainly big box stores

   





















                                                                     


                                                                              KLH  


 Another New England speaker company like AR. Had a few other components, famous for their table radio as well. Henry Kloss was a brilliant man and went on to found several other  companies.


                  WAS                                                                                               IS

         A speaker company                                                                     A speaker company

                                                                        FISHER

    Fisher evolved over the years and changed hands a few times. Emerson Radio bought them I believe in the '70s, and the first Japanese owner years later was Sanyo. I give Sanyo credit for inventing the "rack system" as we know it. Not really sure who owns them now, or if the brand is even still around? Does anybody really care? Avery Fisher was a brilliant man, and made some of the best gear available at the time.


                            WAS                                                                                         IS?

Arguably among the finest gear                                                                 Maybe still around?
  money could buy at the time.                                                                                              

                                                                   MAGNAVOX

  Famous mainly for their stereo consoles in the '60s and '70s,  Their "MX" line of receivers were fire hazards as I mentioned earlier in my blog. I sold them at  THE Audio Threshold. Philips has owned them for several years, and like KLH and AR they are more tuned in to the big box stores. Basically a Dutch General Electric.

                                   WAS                                                                         IS

    A popular mainstream                                                                      A full range mainstream
       HiFi company.                                                                                 electronics company                                                                                                                          

                                                                       SANSUI


 This is one of few Japanese companies from the very beginning. I had to laugh a few years ago when I went to Best buy to get a cheap second television for my living room. I found a Sansui 25" at a good price, and as the nice young guy from the store brought it out to my car he proceeded to explain to me who Sansui was. "Basically part of Orion, a big car audio manufacturer". as if this would help to reinforce my purchase.


                            WAS                                                                                      IS
 A company with some of the most                                             All types of audio/video  gear
 attractive and well made gear of the '70s,                             catering to the budget crowd of
often thought of as the Japanese McIntosh                                   big  box mainstream  stores.

The list could go on to mention other companies like RCA, who basically was a huge electronics conglomerate that only dabbled in Hifi. Hewlett Packard had a handful of audio products, and many other companies that have just plain given up on HiFi and are in different businesses altogether.  How much clout in a name? Probably  works for a while. Kudos to the Japanese company Clarion (think car stereo) whom  for a while owned McIntosh and didn't change a thing. They liked them just the way they were. The mindsets like any other industry vary tremendously. Then there is overcoming multi - product corporations like Yamaha with motorcycles, and Mitsubishi with cars and world war II fighter planes.

  It's all in a name...................

Interconnects

Pretty much everything I said about speaker cables holds true for interconnects as well, most I got free or cheap. The majority of what I have is either Monster or Audioquest, probably the two biggest names in the industry.I have a smattering of others,  I would highly recommend the Kimber PBJ to anyone looking for a good reasonably priced cable. XLO gets my vote for the funkiest looking cables that I own (bottom picture).These also sound good. I have some older Cardas and Tributaries cables as well.  I use Audioquest video cables for digital, they are both 75 ohm cables and work well. Here again, you can spend several thousand dollars on cables. The same good / hype / snake oil theories apply. With either type of cable if you are serious about them it is wise to try to audition them at home in your own system if it is possible.

And again, let me know which ones you like and I will buy a used pair cheap. One indisputable fact- used cables generally don't have resale value.