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The Best & Rarest of all Stereo Gear

When it comes to stereo gear, to me, besides sound and build quality/reliability, the next thing I look for is how rare it is. There is just something about very rare, one-off, stereo gear that makes it very enticing to find and acquire. Over the years, I've been lucky enough to have found some rare gear and there's still others items that I'd like to find.

Recently, in my local CL, there was a very rare pair of Symdex speakers available for $50 that retailed at over $2200. When I inquired about them, they were gone. There is very little on the net about these speakers and later was lucky enough to have found a pair of Paisley Research AE-500 speakers. The Paisleys are amazing & are really giving my Omega Grande 8's a run for their money.

How about the Wingate 2000a amp? In 30 years, I've never seen one of these beauties for sale. Does anyone remember the EJ Jordan shoe box sized amp and preamp?

Please share if you are fortunate enough to have owned any ultra rare gear or if you are looking to acquire something unusual. (I'll share my own list of rare acquisitions and wants in a follow up post. I didn't want to make this initial post too lengthy).

Look forward to hearing your responses, thanks for reading,
Lou

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loanidan's avatar
loanidan
3 posts
 
Hello Lou,
I have an EJ Jordan preamp that I am considering selling. It needs a little work, but sounds great.  I was looking for information and saw this post.
please let me know if you're interested or have any information on these. 
Thanks,
Dan
seattle, wa
martykl
3,578 posts
 
Two brands come to mind:

MFA (Moore, Frankland and Assoc).  Bruce Moore had his own eponymous company, too, which produced the Companion (sic?) preamp.  I think it was his highest profile design and it had its moment in the sun some time back.  However, the Companion was always made in boutique quantities, so they were never commonplace, despite the high quality and positive press.  The MFA stuff was even rarer.

Audire gear was designed by a former NASA guy called Julius Siksnius (sic?).  I once bought his Diffet preamp and a matching power amp from Crazy Eddie, a big box discounter in the metro NYC area.  They somehow got the franchise before Audire pulled it and I bought the pair on close out.  I probably should have hung on to it.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 
I had a pair of Braun made version of the old Quad ESL, only pair I’ve ever seen. Peter Walker allowed Braun to make them for the German market only. I sold them to Brooks Berdan---he wanted them for his Hi-Fi museum.
don_c55
1,025 posts
 
I have a Spread Spectrum Technologies Son of Ampzilla 2000 power amp.

Designed by James Bongiorno from GAS (Great Sound Company) and Sumo fame.

Very few were made and sold. Few dealers, due to the fact that James had an abrasive personality.

A SOTA sounding 100 w/pc amp, with a 2400 V/A transformer, and unique circuit design.

Very rare.

Also an original Koetsu Black MC cartridge  designed by the founder of Koetsu in the early 80's.
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ivanj
35 posts
 
The first strain gauge cartridge was from Panasonic or some other Japanese manufacturer. Win, Rowland and so on just modified or had special interface electronics built for them. You could actually change the stylus, I recall. I tried to get MLAS to build a special board/interface box for the JC-2 but Mark was into the Goldmund and the nude EMTs...before they hit the conventional consciousness and importation under their own name.
Then there was Ikeda-San, the FR1s, and finally his own company. Mark, Jeff and others went with Ikeda-san's MC Decca and private labeled it, we shan't hear its like again!
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