Classics and Cults. Bogus Journalism?

Anyone remember the Paragon preamp circa 1978? Or the Electron-Kinetic amplifier by Jon Iverson of about the same time? But BEL is definitely alive and kicking.

Oops. The John Iverson (not Jon) amp was called Electro-Research, the A-75 I believe.

Back in the mid to late 70's a company call GAS (Great American Sound Company) presented two power amps to the market. They were called (for those of you that don't remember no laughing, this is true) Ampzilla and Son of Ampzilla. If my memory serves correctly they got some rave reviews then promptly disappeared. I remember seeing a used one advertised about two years ago. Anyone remember them? Anyone ever have one? Thanks, Doug

Garfish, thanks for your kind words and Doug, there was even an amp by Jim Bongiorno, designer and proprietor of GAS called Grandson (of Ampzilla). All his designs carried a huge pair of sexy looking watt meters in front, were full of fairly cheap parts, had plenty of slam and slightly nasty highs when pushed. That's all I can remember. Don't know what happened to JB. RCPrince, I've also owned one of the early BEL's, beautifully made and layed out, the bass of which indeed proved as a revelation at the time, but I also remember sweet and quite extended highs. Used them for a while on Quads and later to drive my Maggie bass panels, where they proved to be a bit underpowered. Drubin, John Iverson's career as a designer and businessman I think, is a typical case in point to my first post in this thread: He was always undercapitalised, was catapulted by positive reviews in the press into a flood sudden demands he could not meet, hence got heavily into debt in building up the necessary production infrastructure, tried to sell direct, when his turnover slowed, annoying his dealers, was understaffed, so that repair turnover time was long, so annoying his customers as well and one day or rather night, the man just disappeared, leaving house, wife, production place and has to my knowledge never been seen or heard of since. But enough of gossip already! Sorry for the typo: Modjieski's preamp was called the Beveridge, not Beverdige, as I had written. Perhaps someone remembers now?

With respect to these talented geniuses blowing up their businesses, do you think any of them were sensible, smart businessmen? Or was the problem that they were passionate but creative and difficult mad scientists? Is the audio business that tough? It seems to me that making, selling and servicing hi fi equuipment shouldn't be as complicated as, say, open heart surgery or putting men on the moon. I remain ready to entertain offers to finance a talented designer/engineer if anyone is interested. Please feel free to write to me directly.