Weekend Update

The Marantz HD-66 speakers have found a home that I can feel good about. I made no secret of the fact that these were not my favourites. The person who bought them is putting them in a gym/health club. His priorities were cheap, loud & bass heavy. He got all that!

The Sansui AU-101 has found a very suitable home, connected to a high end turntable with a fantastic high output moving coil cartridge, driving a huge pair of custom made full range driver speakers (over $2,500.00) with 104 db efficiency! The system rocks and the buyer feels it's the best solid state experience he's ever had. He paid $100. This outcome is what makes seventies stereo gear so satisfying to me.

The second set of ADS L520s are almost ready. The cabinets are almost finished being fixed (one requires more complex filling and veneer repair than I've attempted before). The drivers are at least as good as the ones in the first set, which were great!

UPS didn't pack the Realistic Mach Ones as they were paid to do (single not double boxes, no styrofoam peanuts), and the speakers arrived in Alexandria, Virginia with one woofer DOA, and one cabinet damaged. A claim is underway, and the speakers were insured, so in the end the buyer will get his speakers for free (the cost of the woofer repair will be covered). I resisted this deal for days, but agreed because the buyer did all the homework, but this illustrates why I insist on local pickup and audition. I will keep you posted on how UPS handles the situation, but wouldn't deal with a UPS store again (the claim inspector in Virginia told the buyer that "these boxes look like they were picked out of the trash" and that they weren't even UPS boxes). It is a shame when pieces of audio history are handled so poorly and damaged so unnecessarily.