One less Expert Gramophone radiogram out there

[chunnybh]

Yes the one on ebay already looks like it's way beyond my budget.
Just the tubes are probably worth £300+. I am sure this will go to an audiophile rather than a gramophone enthusiast.

This amplifier is based on the famous Williamson design and uses the very best components in its manufacture

The design is simply beautiful. Shame he replaced the original caps with what looks like cheap replacements.

Here are a few pictures of the other reflex speakers I was talking about.

[chunnybh]

I contacted the Ebay seller, selling the amp and he kindly send me some pictures of the radiogram before he gutted it. It looks fine to me but apparently it had serious woodworm and he was only interested in the amp and turntable. He has already sold all the parts and keeping only the Garrard 301 grease bearing in hammertone finish. You don't get many turntables more desirable than that.

Here are the pictures. Whiteley Bros corner speaker cabinet but the speaker had been changed. Does anyone know anything about the tuner,....Noroton

[emgcr]

Wonderful photos---many thanks.

[2Bdecided]

Thank-you for those photos Chunny (and original seller, if you ever read this). It still seems a shame to break it up, especially with everything such a perfect time capsule of the "best of the best" when it was made. I love the two separate arms.

£1,017.00 for the power amplifier (plus pre-amp) though. Isn't that too much for just the valves, but a surprising amount for a mono amplifier where you have little choice of finding a partner to make stereo? Do people spend that much to listen in mono, or do people create not-quite-matched stereo pairs, or is this a common design and people don't care about the manufacturing details?

I'm not suggesting audiophiles are rational - I guess people start to see original examples of this technology being as irreplaceable as paper mache horns or the Mona Lisa and value them accordingly - but if that was the whole story, the greatest value would have been in the original item. As it wasn't, this must have been bought to use with something else - just curious as to what. It's especially interesting if people do spend this amount of money to listen in mono.

"For posterity" (as another member of this board seems fond of saying ) I've uploaded some of the images from the listing.

Cheers,
David.

[Steve]

Do people pay lots of money to hear things properly in mono? Yes, they do! And more people are discovering the wonders of mono by the day.

In the past decade (and especially since The Beatles remastered CD's of 2009) there has been an ever-growing interest in MONO. I, for one, am too young to remember ever hearing anything played back in mono. It was all stereo by the 1970's. However as my generation are now discovering most of the popular recordings made in the UK before 1969 were mixed for and intended to be mono - the stereo versions of the same recordings were often made as an "after-thought" many years later when stereo took over.

As John Lennon once said: "If you haven't heard Sgt.Pepper in mono, then you haven't heard Sgt.Pepper".

[2Bdecided]

I'll agree with all of that - and 78s tend to be mono too

Yet I don't mind playing them through two speakers. I can play them through one speaker quite easily too if I really want to - without buying a £1000 mono-only amplifier. That's the thing: I can use a stereo amplifier in mono (with one or two speakers). I'll struggle to use a mono amplifier in stereo (unless I have a matched pair).

Even on here, I bet most people listen to music recorded after 1970 - don't they?


Maybe a single corner speaker is the way to go for mono listening - but I think John Lennon, George Martin, Geoff Emerick, etc were thinking more of a Danssette. I have a few of those, but they cost me less than my good Beatles records, which they would rapidly wear out - luckily I have so-so condition Beatles records to play on them. My kids do too .

Cheers,
David.

[chunnybh]

Lennon was right about mono. I'm still waiting for the re-mastered set to be releases on mono vinyl. The mono cd set was as good if not better than the stereo version.
Correctly setup Mono through a stereo system switched to mono, usually gives you a center point (between the speakers)where the music is coming from. When switched to stereo it looses the center-point and can be heard through both speakers.
I use one reflex corner speaker through a mono amp. The sound bounces off the corner walls and floods the room. Most Mono psychedelic LP's sound pretty awesome through this setup. 78's are a revelation.

[edisonphonoworks]

Hmm the corner speaker type reminds me of my klipsch shorthorn speaker, I only have one of those, and then I have an Electrovoice Empire cabinet (Klipsch) Both of them are corner horns, they seem to do very well. There is a Led Zeppelin recording playing on my youtube channel through the K shorthorn, using self built valve pre amped reel to reel using an Ampex 300 transport.