Rare Audio Gear in South Africa

[mafioso]

Hi

In an earlier post, we saw a tantalising glimpse of JDZA's delectable audio rarities and I'm sure other members here also have prized and valuable audio gear. A few days ago, I had a call from  a local gentleman who owns two Neumann cartridges, for example.

As JDZA wrote, South Africa's demographics and late start of TV transmission, the wealth of mielie, cattle and wool farmers and 'old money' scattered throughout the country surely encouraged a considerable number of well to do locals to acquire some really high end audio equipment.

Has anyone here acquired some of this equipment and do you think there are still undiscovered audio equipment from say when stereo started - lurking in cellars and lofts?

OK. I'll start. I regularly used to be transfixed by a friend's 'object of derision' - a fearsome nightmare pre of knobs and sliders called "Galactron" from the land of the Prancing Horse. Hope there are no Customs Officers on this board. I was once upon a time complicit in smuggling this beast out of the country in an old fashioned doctor's leather bag - a rather large bag, I must add. It had to go back to Italy for repairs and there it was promptly attended to and came back in the same bag in fine fettle - complete with a set of fine, free of charge Italianmade interconnects. The trouble was, it came back to the Customs at the airport and not at the point of departure which was Customs Cape Mail. More trouble was that the friendly Italians at Galactron forgot to mention the equipment was returned here after repairs in Italy. Some really fancy adlibbing and Italian charm was needed to free the beast from Cape Town Customs.

mafioso

[jdza]

Well I hear a rumour of some really exotic ruby cantilevered ,wood bodied  cartridges floating around Cape Town.

As I said just about everything had distribution here at some stage so ARC,Lev ,Cello and the like are really so every day.

Schalk Havenga's repair shop used to be a real eye opener in the old days.One of the hottest amps in the US at the moment is the very expensive German made ASR. Yet I dinstinctly remember one of these perspex beasties lying belly up on Schalks workbench more than 15 years ago!



pic fro half note audio

How exotic is the ultra high end Swiss FM acoustics amps? Well a 811 will cost far on the wrong side of R1m.Yet in the 80s they were available here,distributed by a pro eqp company.




One of the funny stories told by our mate Genesis is about the day he went to look at a pair of Infinity IRS speakers. Selling at $50k 20 years ago these were serious high end and seriously large .Apparently  Mike stood looking around the room for several minutes but not seeing the speakers. Eventually as he was about to scold his host for b*sing him he turned his head to be confronted by an EMIT staring him in the eye.These speakers were so big he thought they were a wood panelled wall!



pic from 6moons.com

[mafioso]

Hehehe , JDZA

Very nice gears. The latest I hear about the needles is of one being made in snakewood/ruby, complete with titanium nameplate.

I once heard speakers like that. Can't remember so well but I think they were flat panels and I thought they were patio doors...

The turntable on the occasion was one of Clearaudio's wedding cakes and the cart was a wood Grado. Into the mix was Tact room correction equipment and my host was fiddling with his laptop most of the time. It seems there is no limit as to how highend you can go...

mafioso

[jamster]

There were a couple of the better Cello Music and Film systems imported. One entire system recently changed hands for R70k. A steal, and I wish I had been told - would have snapped it up.

A lot of AJ van den Hul's off-the-wall product ended up here, thansk to strong local distribution. Joel has a set of amps as evidence of this. I also had a preamp/DAC combo that was simply sublime.

A few pairs of duntech Sovereigns (drool).

Roy Witelson's 'Super Sovereigns' built for Rob McConnel.

I know of at least one set of KAS.

Wadia 7 and 9 - at its time an unbeatable combo. A few sets around.

IRS V

Wilson X1 Grand Slamm

[oradba69]

A friend of mine has a pair of Tannoy Westministers as well as a pair of Tannoy Kingdoms.

[DEWAUDIO]

My mothers cousin has a surround set of "Royd" bookshelfs here in town. Funky 'little' speakers with "avant-garde" stands, hand-made in Scotland.

Lovely sound. Never have seen another set anywhere in SA.

D

[jdza]

Let us just go slightly off track to what is currently available here:

The current cream of the crop in digital front ends are DCS, Esoteric, Meitner, Accuphase and earlier on Levinson.Each and every one of these are available right here. What's more they have all been reviewed by AVSA. Are we still  backward?

Apart from the Meitner I heard all of these and ended up preferring the Audio Aero Prestige (also available here)- so much that I refused to return it and paid for it straight away. Ironically that is the one AVSA seems to have liked the least.

You can play the same game with all other components:Turntables-Current mega machines (>$100k) are Continuum, Clearaudio ,Transrotor and Blue Pearl. The first 3 all have distribution here and I am sure the last probably too.

The problem is that some components seem to be picked up by "Abes Bait Shop and Hifis". (Honest) Abe then gets one for himself and for 2 mates at distributor prices and then promptly stop bringing them in.Woe the poor chap who then buys the fourth one Abe had to buy to secure the distributorship. Of course there are a lot of honourable distributors around as well.As always Caveat emptor -especially at the high end of the market.

[Cleansound]

Let us just go slightly off track to what is currently available here:

The current cream of the crop in digital front ends are DCS, Esoteric, Meitner, Accuphase and earlier on Levinson.Each and every one of these are available right here. What's more they have all been reviewed by AVSA. Are we still  backward?

Apart from the Meitner I heard all of these and ended up preferring the Audio Aero Prestige (also available here)- so much that I refused to return it and paid for it straight away. Ironically that is the one AVSA seems to have liked the least.

You can play the same game with all other components:Turntables-Current mega machines (>$100k) are Continuum, Clearaudio ,Transrotor and Blue Pearl. The first 3 all have distribution here and I am sure the last probably too.

The problem is that some components seem to be picked up by "Abes Bait Shop and Hifis". (Honest) Abe then gets one for himself and for 2 mates at distributor prices and then promptly stop bringing them in.Woe the poor chap who then buys the fourth one Abe had to buy to secure the distributorship. Of course there are a lot of honourable distributors around as well.As always Caveat emptor -especially at the high end of the market.

JDZA

You have raised a very sobering issue here.
"Abes bait shop....." is the one that has to get out of the picture for sure, I am in retail and we often get the one or two clowns who thinks that he can grab the quick deal here an there, the problem is that "Abe"actually causes more harm than good.
We are surely not backward in S.A.
The only backward attitude we have adopted as audiophiles, I believe, is not giving enough credit to our local designers and good product manufacturers.
I must agree as well, there are a numerous amount of honourable importers and they have absolutely no lack of back-up support on offer.

[DevillEars]

@Anton: There is another overriding factor in this equation and that is a South African failing - we are far too tolerant of crappy service and don't do enough - individually and collectively - to help stamp out the sphincters that rely on this trait and continue to shaft "Jan Publiek" at every turn.  It's almost as if they view the general public as "fair game" and it's "open season" all year 'round....

We used to have vehicles that offered the consumer some form of recourse - I refer to "Star Line" (in Jhb) and "Argus Action" (in Ctn) - but pressure from advertisers (who were also the culprits and targets) saw both discontinued.  The Carte Blanche "exposes" are too limited in terms of how many instances they can address.

It's almost time for "consumer vigilantes" to start stringing up these "Richards" from the nearest lampposts....

[Cleansound]

@ Dave and JDZA

My real problem with these "sphincters" is that they are like any of the three of us, they have a passion for audio and most things hi-fi.
The problem these clowns have, is that they seem to think "wow, here is a way for me to make bucks" forgetting the issue of warranty, good back-up, good advice, good relationship etc.etc.etc.

[mafioso]

Hello Devillears

Dear Maureen Marud (bless her soul) and "Argus Action" is still very much with us. In fact her column has more prominence in what used to be the "Tonight" section. She features much more than in the past on the Argus Smalls section's front page. A really formidable lady.

mafioso

[RS4]

I know I am reviving an old topic, I appologize in advance.

My friend has a full Cello 5.1 System in his cinema which has not been used in around 4 years! I knew he had top notch equipment but we never watched a movie in there for years.  I'll try make a point of taking some photos on my next visit. I'm not sure of the processor but I'll make note when I'm next there!

The clarity was incredible, I enjoyed listening the entire time. He couldnt understand how I could just sit and listen for over an hour!

[mafioso]

Hi RS4

Cello was tied to Mark Levinson and apparently had sound quality to match the price tags.

mafioso

[Schalk]

A lot of AJ van den Hul's off-the-wall product ended up here, thansk to strong local distribution. Joel has a set of amps as evidence of this. I also had a preamp/DAC combo that was simply sublime.


Roy Witelson's 'Super Sovereigns' built for Rob McConnel.

Those amps of Joel's....face down somewhere in the murky recesses of my workshop...together with some Soundlab Electrostats belonging to a certain Mr Sime...

Goes to show, I HATE doing repairs I'd rather build something new than fix up something old. When someone gives me something to repair it usually gets committed to The Dungeon

Those Super Sovereigns by Roy, currently in Centurion, all 450Kg per side of it
Driven by two channels of one of my Theatre Power 7 channel amps.
I think he also called them The Epa Grands ??

Almost forgot, I have quite a rare (nowadays at least) set of cans to fix. A set of Jecklyn Floats. Electrostatic phones from yesteryear. The guy bought a set of BW Mono's and a Genesis Pre from me. I could not very well say NO when he wanted these repaired. That was some time back though....the Jecklyns are also in The Dungeon

[Shonver]

My friend has a full Cello 5.1 System in his cinema which has not been used in around 4 years!

Now that's just downright criminal!