What is the best?

[Agaton Sax]

No not that forum! Please not! Maybe it is just me getting old but I dislike each and every You Tube audio channel. Talking about audio is like dancing about cooking but well here we are. I stumbled across an Audiophiliac episode where Steve Guttenberg and Herb Reichert talked about the best sounding systems they ever heard. What struck me is that of everything they heard, it is never the most expensive that sounded best. Most of the time it was MOR components.

So what say you? What is the best sounding system you ever heard? But please it is a system you actually heard and must not be your own .(Just had an Afrikaans Radio Service, Edwill van Aarde moment there!)

I am the worse person to start as I don't listen elsewhere but I'll try:

1. Old Quad Electrostats(57) driven by an Acoustat pre amp and Luxman valve power amp. Source Marantz CD 80. Extreme close field in an absolute horror of a dead square room with lots of echo. But wow!

2. High in the Tygerberg hills in a large lounge with a 270 degree view of the Cape. Goodmans Axiom 80s, an old Marantz transistor integrated (1060?) and an even older plinthless Dual 1219 with Dynavector cartridge, no highs and no lows but what there was, was absolutely fantastic

3. Ken Meiring's short lived Hi Fi shop in the Cape Town CBD. A cavernous room. Small Maggies driven by a lowly Harman Kardon integrated. Source I don't even remember. Wow incredible.

4. Linn Kans, crammed against a wall, driven by a Cyrus amp and I think, a Linn. No soundstage depth but man the way the sound would fill that entire wall. Immediate and startling. This was all in the set up by a great thinker.

5. Paul Bothner : Late 80s Magnepan ( 2.5, 3.3 ?) , Jeff Rowland model 5 with ARC pre. Meridian 60? CD player. Yech sound. "Can we listen to analog please? Linn ,Basik arm and basiker cart. Wow? I'll die believing model 5 is the best power amp ever.

6. Apogee Stages. No subs. Krell pre and KSA 250, Linn full house. van Den Hul totl cartridge ( Grasshopper iV?). Plonked down but I think he put in a separate mains spur. Wow. The system was later set up meticulously and biamped subs added. But it never reached those earlier highs.

7. Accuphase integrated and older B&W 805. Sourest person ever did the dem and when we told him it was incredible sound, I thought he was going to hit us. But it was ,really good sound

8. A huge huge room with first generation B&W Nautilus 801s on very high stands. Rest of the system was all ARC. Incredible and for only the second time and never again ,I got B&W.

9. Long forgotten Hi Fi show in Newlands, Cape Town. Linn Isobariks and Naim. Wow! Heard Isobariks on several occasions since and hated them but in that hotel room, that day !

10. Very high end. Leo Bishof's. MBL 101s, humungous MBL power amps, ARC ref 6 and Studer A810. High in Camp’s Bay with the Cape at your feet. Flat out the most awesome soundstage I ever heard. The rest equally amazing. Like I said at the time "I really want to fault the system but cannot find a single aspect I do not like". The room was treated but not a single thing can be seen.

What do all of these have in common? They were all in questionable rooms and apart from the last it was not Esoterica.


What say you? Remember my best may be your worst and vice versa. There is no best, just what rings your bell.

 

[naboo]

My contribution will be small in comparison to others as my exposure to systems have been more limited than the average audiophile (apologies if the name offends).

At the top of my list would still be @Markc 's main system. Nothing I have heard since"loads" a room quite like those Altec 604s in Onken cabinets do. I was early in my journey - can't remember the amp that drove them, but it was a flea-power tube affair if I'm not mistaken. Streaming was via dcs components.

My own system makes me very happy at the moment - there seems to be enough synergy between the Sondek (vintage empire X cart) and the TVA valve amp and my Sunflowers DIY speakers. In fact, the more I listen to the Sunflowers the better they sound. I have a feeling my next set of speakers that will be very sensitive, might unmask too much but we'll see.

Mark, you must invite me back so that I can see if my jaw still drops when you play music, or whether I was just too green.

I must also mention that I was very impressed when I fetched something from @Hilton 's place by his setup - apologies if this is another Hilton - that was a mola mola amp with Vivids, but I can' t tell you which. All I know is they were small and simple (unlike the bigger Vivids - Giya?) but man, they impressed me in that room (until I enquired about the price )

The best imaging I ever heard, was at Sean's @jamster place, the Decware open baffle speakers (big Betsy's were they called?). Some chick with a voice of honey was trying to seduce me two meters ahead in the middle of the room. The drivers were Lii-Audio 15inch, no idea about the rest of the setup, Passlabs something probably. Bass lacking, but they point of the setup was not to provide bass.

 

[Markc]

@naboo You are welcome anytime, I am planning on moving the Onkens to a proper room downstairs, I just need some guys stronger and younger than me to get them there, but I will make a plan soon.

They are still my favorites as well but one of the big contributing factors was the little wonder from Japan, the Yamamoto A-08 amp that @Agaton Sax sold in a moment of insanity. It just does something, nothing like a 50-year-old speaker playing via a 2-wpc amp fitted with 90-year-old black plate 45's to make one happy.

 

[Markc]

Just for interest sake, this is the circuit diagram of the 08A. Perhaps it will inspire someone to make a copy.

 

[naboo]

Ahhh I remember now. Had a little watt meter on it, I couldn't believe how little power was making so much noise.

I'll help you move it downstairs but I'll need a bit of help from other "young" guys

 

[Agaton Sax]

The Yamamoto amp left chez Sax as I had moved from quatro to tri amped. A move I never regretted. The move was in anticipation to get the fabled Lamm 6c33 SET. A pesky virus and bad timing and, like always, bad communication on my side meant the Lamm went to Austria. I spent hours and hours A/B ing the Yamamoto vs my First Watts where it now had to drive a total of 3 drivers in the midrange. It was as close as dammit, just like Srajan said so many years ago. What finally made me stay with the FW was a barely audible hum from the Yamamoto. To hear this you had to put your head right in the horn.

So here you have a SET that has the tonality an immediacy of a SET but could run with solid state regarding to speed and resolution. Remarkable. Also in S form the quietest SET I ever encountered. Do I miss it? Strangely no.

Of all the SETS I had, the one I really miss is the Cary 805. With its huge 1930s made 211 output tubes it had magic. But it had an inherent low level hum that made it unusable in my application. The person I sold it to ,still use it daily in, what I deduct, is a cinema role- and despite daily use it still has those Wim Bowman supplied, now unaffordable, prewar 211s.

But of all SETs nothing floored me like THAT amp. In the early to mid 1980s ,Martin Colloms went to Japan. He wrote up his visit in HFN. In a small block, separate from the main article, he wrote of the Japanese strange obsession with Single ended triodes. Luxman had just released their gorgeous 300B SET and there was a picture of it. A Luxman fanboy, I fell immediately in love. I showed it to my neighbour. He was an old man who ironically was younger than I am today! Anyway, he was a "Radioman" in Cape Town immediately after WW2. In his spare time he travelled around and showed movies. He disappeared in his rat's nest of a garage and came out with the most gorgeous amp I ever saw.

It had a chromed front panel with a stunning power meter and cast chassis. What it was, was the audio section of a pre war, French made, Pathe projector. It was single ended with an output tube that may have been a 45 or 2A3 or one of those. It sounded stunning . I was absolutely gobsmacked.

He was going to rebuild it and build another for me that I had 2 for stereo. He had all the parts as it was his workhorse. But he fell off a roof and died.

Do you see a pattern here? Skollie, Blue Angel, was busy building a modern interpretation of a Neumann cart at my insistence and died before he finished. Genesis just finished the tails for my TAD/Kinoshitas and was going to build a radical speaker wire for them but died. Then there was this. Oh boy stay far away from me and special projects! I was going to ask Schalk to make me... and Ghost to modify... but now I'm sure they wont!

 

[HC1]

I had the opportunity to listen to the Wilson Audio Chronosonic, Boulder and TechDAS combo(In a commercial listening room). That was impressive.
B&W Nautilus 801 with ARC Reference 750s, ARC Ref 5 phonostage and TechDAS(Think it was Air Force 2 Premium). In a large room.
A HT system with four JBL Everests in front, and a lot of custom DSP stuff, the room got compensated for.

The 801's did stand out for me. I know they are not for everyone. My preference or opinion might differ in the future.

 

[Agaton Sax]

I suppose it has become fashionable to knock B&W. I do notice that in my top 10 B&W feature twice, as does Magnepan ( I am a huge fan and past owner) and rather shockingly Linn!

It has been a long time since my knowledge of B&W 8 series was anecdotal rather than absolute but I did scratch my head at the measurements. With the new 801, it measures well, and the memory of those with the 15-inch woofers in a cavernous room on stands high enough for a bookshelf stays. They left 15 inches a long time ago and for that, they should be punished in a painful way but I suppose that in Britain and more importantly, the Far East rooms are small At the time, I remember saying to my wife that they were very close to my Khorns. She just grimaced as she disliked both and still says my best speakers ever were Dynaudio floorstanders

 

[JohnDoe]

The OP mentioned systems which "ring your bell" and not necessarily high end, esoteric or expensive. For me some systems I have heard were certainly not the best in the so called audiophile terms at all BUT they rang some bells (tickling my interest) in my audio journey till date.
In the late 80's I went to an older gentleman's home to collect something. At the time I was not into serious audio. He invited me into his garage where he had a Nad 3020 hooked up to set of AR18 speakers. The source was a technics cd player which model nr I cant remember. I didnt ask if this was a second system for the garage, if his wife has banned the electronics from the rest of the house, and/or if the garage was the only place where he could enjoy his music in peace.
In any case when he played (we had electricity back then....) me some music on that rather humble setup it left me with such a positive experience about quality stereo audio that it, amongst others, contributed very significantly to start of my enthusiasm for stereo audio. Listening to that small system that day definitely rang a bell. There were many other occassions for sure but this is one which I fondly remember.

 

[HC1]

The OP mentioned systems which "ring your bell" and not necessarily high end, esoteric or expensive. For me some systems I have heard were certainly not the best in the so called audiophile terms at all BUT they rang some bells (tickling my interest) in my audio journey till date.
In the late 80's I went to an older gentleman's home to collect something. At the time I was not into serious audio. He invited me into his garage where he had a Nad 3020 hooked up to set of AR18 speakers. The source was a technics cd player which model nr I cant remember. I didnt ask if this was a second system for the garage, if his wife has banned the electronics from the rest of the house, and/or if the garage was the only place where he could enjoy his music in peace.
In any case when he played (we had electricity back then....) me some music on that rather humble setup it left me with such a positive experience about quality stereo audio that it, amongst others, contributed very significantly to start of my enthusiasm for stereo audio. Listening to that small system that day definitely rang a bell. There were many other occassions for sure but this is one which I fondly remember.

Same experience with a Radford/AR system with a Technics CD player as a source.

A friend of mine came over to assist with a few changes to my main system. While testing it a customer of his came round to pick up a remote control we found for his preamp. He was interested to listen to my ancient Sansui 220 valve receiver and KEF Concertos standing around the corner. He was way more impressed with what came out of the Sansui/Kefs than anything coming from the main system. I have to admit that the pairing sounds quite musical. I keep asking myself if anything more than that is really worth the effort.

 

[Markc]

I have a pair of vintage Audio Physic Step 1 speakers, with the original stands, they have very cost-effective drivers, the simplest of crossovers, a single resistor if I remember correctly.

They are rather agnostic to what amplifier you use, anything good will do, they make one of the most enjoyable, best imaging systems I have heard.

I could easily be happy if this was all I had. I have had them for about ten years and will never sell them. I think I paid R6K for them, back in the day. You can have great sound for very little cash if you get lucky.

 

[Schalk]

The Yamamoto amp left chez Sax as I had moved from quatro to tri amped. A move I never regretted. The move was in anticipation to get the fabled Lamm 6c33 SET. A pesky virus and bad timing and, like always, bad communication on my side meant the Lamm went to Austria. I spent hours and hours A/B ing the Yamamoto vs my First Watts where it now had to drive a total of 3 drivers in the midrange. It was as close as dammit, just like Srajan said so many years ago. What finally made me stay with the FW was a barely audible hum from the Yamamoto. To hear this you had to put your head right in the horn.

So here you have a SET that has the tonality an immediacy of a SET but could run with solid state regarding to speed and resolution. Remarkable. Also in S form the quietest SET I ever encountered. Do I miss it? Strangely no.

Of all the SETS I had, the one I really miss is the Cary 805. With its huge 1930s made 211 output tubes it had magic. But it had an inherent low level hum that made it unusable in my application. The person I sold it to ,still use it daily in, what I deduct, is a cinema role- and despite daily use it still has those Wim Bowman supplied, now unaffordable, prewar 211s.

But of all SETs nothing floored me like THAT amp. In the early to mid 1980s ,Martin Colloms went to Japan. He wrote up his visit in HFN. In a small block, separate from the main article, he wrote of the Japanese strange obsession with Single ended triodes. Luxman had just released their gorgeous 300B SET and there was a picture of it. A Luxman fanboy, I fell immediately in love. I showed it to my neighbour. He was an old man who ironically was younger than I am today! Anyway, he was a "Radioman" in Cape Town immediately after WW2. In his spare time he travelled around and showed movies. He disappeared in his rat's nest of a garage and came out with the most gorgeous amp I ever saw.

It had a chromed front panel with a stunning power meter and cast chassis. What it was, was the audio section of a pre war, French made, Pathe projector. It was single ended with an output tube that may have been a 45 or 2A3 or one of those. It sounded stunning . I was absolutely gobsmacked.

He was going to rebuild it and build another for me that I had 2 for stereo. He had all the parts as it was his workhorse. But he fell off a roof and died.

Do you see a pattern here? Skollie, Blue Angel, was busy building a modern interpretation of a Neumann cart at my insistence and died before he finished. Genesis just finished the tails for my TAD/Kinoshitas and was going to build a radical speaker wire for them but died. Then there was this. Oh boy stay far away from me and special projects! I was going to ask Schalk to make me... and Ghost to modify... but now I'm sure they wont!

You only die once, once you have lived and survived a lot…

 

[Agaton Sax]

I just realised the best thing I ever heard was not a hi-fi system but a few words. In the very early 1980s, American Hi-Fi overwhelmed the Brits. As one could get all the British magazines but not the American ones from the local CNA, I got the British view. A long-forgotten publication called Practical Hi-Fi always had a recommended system in review. That month was an Audio Research SP8 and Krell KSA 100. The Krell wowed everyone who saw pictures.

Knowing I would never be able to own one, a friend said the Stan Curtis designed, amp published in an electronic mag would be close and the best he ever heard. Another friend who was an engineer got me a huge transformer and even bigger caps. Oh and fans and heatsink. I set forth and built this amp. It blew up. And again. By now I had spent a year's worth of food money on output transistors and in tears called it a day.

Surveying the Chernobyl like, room my friend uttered the unforgettable words: "What if, you rather had an amp or transformer with no electronic parts, no distortion and no sound of its own and you hooked that up between a low-powered single-ended class A amp and the speakers?" No doubt he saw no future for me in self-built high-power amps. "That" he carried on "Is a high-efficiency speaker, like a horn" Those words were the most prophetic I ever heard.

My neighbour, he of a messy garage and SETS, somewhere got hold of the plans of a Klipschorn. But it wasn't. It was in another British DIY mag and whoever designed it, clearly had never seen a Khorn or any horn. My friend built it and sacrificed a Wharfedale speaker to get the 12-inch bass driver. It resembled nothing more than a dog kennel on its side. It sounded even worse. My enthusiasm faded fast. Undaunted my friend built a la Scala clone from incredible marine ply. It sounded slightly better but still awful.

I left horns and went mini monitors in the close field. It was awesome. Then fate pushed me to a pair of Magnepan Tympanis with big American muscle. It was awesome. Then, 10 years later on a typical Free State early winter Saturday, I ran from a store and next door the local Butcher had a braai and the omnipresent DJ. He had the usual: An awful low-end consumer CD player, dented cheap pro amps and for speakers, the ubiquitous generic Piezo tweeters, Peavey mid horns and a homebuilt JBl type pro horn on the bass. It was screechingly bright but there was something... Something made me stop and listen.

A few years later someone advertised a pair of Klipsch Exponential horns in AVSA. All I wanted to know were they Klipschorns? He said yes and I bought them and travelled overnight the 1000km to get them. He lived in a less-than-safe area of the Cape Flats. And they were not- Klipschorns. They were better. This chap was German. In Hamburg, in the 80s someone had built a K Horn clone and sold them commercially. Typically build quality and finish were amazing. I later dismantled them and found very high-quality EV drivers and the mid horn was Klipsch all right but the older cast metal horn. Crossover pars ditto and monster wire but pure silver for mids and highs. The German insisted on demming them in the tiny bare room with a big Technics amp. My wife and I were deaf for a week. It was bright, it was awful but we both heard something. That same something as the Butcher's DJ had.


I fought those K horn clones. Seeking to further the ambitions of my friends, Schalk and Mike with their Genesis project, I placed my system on the Audiophile Club of Athens site. Result? Nada Fokkoli. Well, Genesis did sell a few of his wires to Greece and Schalk. Who knows? But a European horn lover did contact me and we started corresponding. Through him, I landed with the mythical Iwata horn and replaced the small Klipsch mid horn. It was very good. I already went from EV to JBL horn tweeter.


Now the bass horn stuck out like a sore thumb. So I just demolished the front of my house to build a horn. This year, that was 20 years ago.

"It was 20 years ago today, that Sergeant Pepper got the band to play"

 

[Family_Dog]

Classic tale, I just love this bit: "Now the bass horn stuck out like a sore thumb. So I just demolished the front of my house to build a horn. This year, that was 20 years ago."


-F_D

 

[Schalk]

I just realised the best thing I ever heard was not a hi-fi system but a few words. In the very early 1980s, American Hi-Fi overwhelmed the Brits. As one could get all the British magazines but not the American ones from the local CNA, I got the British view. A long-forgotten publication called Practical Hi-Fi always had a recommended system in review. That month was an Audio Research SP8 and Krell KSA 100. The Krell wowed everyone who saw pictures.

Knowing I would never be able to own one, a friend said the Stan Curtis designed, amp published in an electronic mag would be close and the best he ever heard. Another friend who was an engineer got me a huge transformer and even bigger caps. Oh and fans and heatsink. I set forth and built this amp. It blew up. And again. By now I had spent a year's worth of food money on output transistors and in tears called it a day.

Surveying the Chernobyl like, room my friend uttered the unforgettable words: "What if, you rather had an amp or transformer with no electronic parts, no distortion and no sound of its own and you hooked that up between a low-powered single-ended class A amp and the speakers?" No doubt he saw no future for me in self-built high-power amps. "That" he carried on "Is a high-efficiency speaker, like a horn" Those words were the most prophetic I ever heard.

My neighbour, he of a messy garage and SETS, somewhere got hold of the plans of a Klipschorn. But it wasn't. It was in another British DIY mag and whoever designed it, clearly had never seen a Khorn or any horn. My friend built it and sacrificed a Wharfedale speaker to get the 12-inch bass driver. It resembled nothing more than a dog kennel on its side. It sounded even worse. My enthusiasm faded fast. Undaunted my friend built a la Scala clone from incredible marine ply. It sounded slightly better but still awful.

I left horns and went mini monitors in the close field. It was awesome. Then fate pushed me to a pair of Magnepan Tympanis with big American muscle. It was awesome. Then, 10 years later on a typical Free State early winter Saturday, I ran from a store and next door the local Butcher had a braai and the omnipresent DJ. He had the usual: An awful low-end consumer CD player, dented cheap pro amps and for speakers, the ubiquitous generic Piezo tweeters, Peavey mid horns and a homebuilt JBl type pro horn on the bass. It was screechingly bright but there was something... Something made me stop and listen.

A few years later someone advertised a pair of Klipsch Exponential horns in AVSA. All I wanted to know were they Klipschorns? He said yes and I bought them and travelled overnight the 1000km to get them. He lived in a less-than-safe area of the Cape Flats. And they were not- Klipschorns. They were better. This chap was German. In Hamburg, in the 80s someone had built a K Horn clone and sold them commercially. Typically build quality and finish were amazing. I later dismantled them and found very high-quality EV drivers and the mid horn was Klipsch all right but the older cast metal horn. Crossover pars ditto and monster wire but pure silver for mids and highs. The German insisted on demming them in the tiny bare room with a big Technics amp. My wife and I were deaf for a week. It was bright, it was awful but we both heard something. That same something as the Butcher's DJ had.

I fought those K horn clones. Seeking to further the ambitions of my friends, Schalk and Mike with their Genesis project, I placed my system on the Audiophile Club of Athens site. Result? Nada Fokkoli. Well, Genesis did sell a few of his wires to Greece and Schalk. Who knows? But a European horn lover did contact me and we started corresponding. Through him, I landed with the mythical Iwata horn and replaced the small Klipsch mid horn. It was very good. I already went from EV to JBL horn tweeter.



Now the bass horn stuck out like a sore thumb. So I just demolished the front of my house to build a horn. This year, that was 20 years ago.

"It was 20 years ago today, that Sergeant Pepper got the band to play"

And I heard those bass horns myself including the “rest” that eventually make up the complete speaker which is a room or was it a room that is a speaker? Or almost a complete house become speaker where actual people live in or almost in a speaker? No place for a hammering babalas no ways

And one day before I peg I’ll just have to come listen to it again because it has changed some more?

 

[Agaton Sax]

And I heard those bass horns myself including the “rest” that eventually make up the complete speaker which is a room or was it a room that is a speaker? Or almost a complete house become speaker where actual people live in or almost in a speaker? No place for a hammering babalas no ways

And one day before I peg I’ll just have to come listen to it again because it has changed some more?

There is an important life lesson in that: I think my closest colleague and I are too different to be close friends. But we stick together like glue because we are dependent on each other. One thing we do agree on is that neither of us likes people. Yet neither are allowed to talk to anyone about finances as we will discount everything to zero.

So Hi-Fi is a solitary hobby. I listen alone and if I can buy anonymously. Then why is the moments or product you really remember not the multibuck bling in fancy boxes but those someone made for you?

Genesis had persuaded Schalk to make him a balanced pre-amp. This would be valve. Now remember, Genesis went up to this forum under the name of Transistor. This showed his absolute hate for thermionic things. So Schalkie Boy (You had to know Mike to hear that one) built the Pre. Genesis named it ...Uhh what again?

He was so raving about this that he drove ( he had bad eyesight so the sacrifice must not be underestimated) the 600 km to my house. We listened and I ordered my own Genesis immediately from Schalk. Schalk insisted on installing it himself so drove the 1100 km to do so.

On the second day, I came home and asked my wife where Schalk was. She just lifted her chin to the outside. There was Schalk in short pants and boots, sitting on top of the pool filter with a bunch of dirty wires in his hand and a huge grin on his face. He had heard a hum and traced it to the pool pump and was fixing it. Did he charge me for it? Not on your Nellie. It was the things friends do

 

[naboo]

Look, I found a photo of you when you were young:

 

[Agaton Sax]

That is very interesting. I have never seen that and have to wonder about building it from drywall. I must say that I designed and built this from the inspiration I got from Marcel Rogerro. Unfortunately, he spoke no English and my French really sucks. I managed to thank him a few years ago through Google translate, He died, aged 90, about 2 years ago.



https://www.marcel-roggero.fr/

https://forums.melaudia.net/showthread.php?tid=6797&page=1

 

[Agaton Sax]

This thread seems to be going in a different direction but anyway:

Here is the last piece of the puzzle. This was in a historic house on the lake Geneva shore. The owner was a retired diplomat who spent many years in the Middle East. Inspired by the brickwork of Iranian mosques he built this. It is also where the Iwata Gigue horn was married to a large horn for the bass. This was the actual original Iwata horn as used in the original article. He wrote this an Audio Asylum to another poster:

I have used Iwata 400 Hz horns on a three-way system in the past and am still using them on a two-way system with TAD-4001 drivers. They give me loads of musical emotions.
My horns have been hand-made in the eighties by J-F. Gigue and M. Etienne, two crazy Frenchmen, who have molded them using a cement formula of their own. It gives the finished horn the look and feel of being made out of stone. Their weight is around 30 kg a piece !
You can seen them on the site www.deviniere.europaudio.com which describes my three-way horn system on 2 pdfs.
I salute your four-way horn system and really appreciate the time and effort which you have undoubtedly put into conceiving and building such a marvel.

Regards,

R. F. Simond
Montreux
Switzerland



The owner subsequently retired to an apartment and the new owners use the horns to store bicycles. Much the same fate probably awaits mine.

The very last piece of the puzzle was the upper bass horn. Although designed to stretch to 1K the basshorns were never meant for that. That left a weak spot between 200 and 900Hz. The project nearly faltered. However, my Belgian mentor had, inspired by mine, built a small Iwata with a 1-inch throat for a tweeter. A bit of lateral thinking on my part and I upscaled the Iwata to a 3-inch throat. A pro dealer (Simeon Gold) and a white lie got JBL to resurrect production of that rarest of beasts, a 3-inch throat midrange compression driver, and the project could go ahead.





At this stage, we went looking for an Architect. Even the most impecunious of the type informed us that they only designed shopping centres. One day my wife complained to a friend who told us her husband was an Architect. He took the job. We visited him at his office and found him to be a partner in a multinational who really designed the biggest buildings. He however did this little project with the same enthusiasm and appointed a master builder to the project. The builder's son is a world-renowned Jazz percussionist who was then finishing a master's degree in jazz percussion . His dad, a Jazz lover and frequent visitor to the North Sea Jazz festival, built this, he said, to honour his son.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesivan_Naidoo

So a small idea took wings. The idea started in the very early 90s when I met the last president of Altec Lansing at a braai. He explained the A5 Voice of the Theatre to me in 2 minutes. I never forgot that and was honoured when he, aged 89, visited my house a few years ago, He was dying of an incurable disease but dug his wife in the ribs and said proudly "Those are Altec Lansing woofers"

 

[Schalk]

You never cease to amaze Johan. Such dedication and pushing the limits