Retro Hi End Trivia Question

I recall the Quatre being sold locally in San Fernando Valley and advertised on LA Times classfied. I think Ahead Stereo was a dealer.

I owned Quatre book shelf speakers. Walnut enclosure was well made with small 4" woofer with front baffle covered with black RTV. It was a work horse thru my college years and annoyed lot of girls living below me in the UCSB dorm. One girls actually asked me to play girls on film as she kind miss not hearing it. LOL

Quatre speakers? Are you sure?

Boy does this thread take me back...to the summer of 1977 when I stumbled into Paul Heath Audio in Rochester, NY and a whole new world of gear openend up before me...Ended up leaving with a Quatre Gain Cell..GAS Thoebe preamp...Ariston R11s TT which I still have and is being reconditioned as I write this with a Grace 707 and a new 2M Bronze cartridge...JR 149 speakers with M&K subwoofer...no special interconnects or speakerwire were even back then..Quatre broke very soon..so did the GAS preamp...God has it been a journey since then

How about the SS Audire pre and power amps? Legato? Crescendo? Etc.

Back in the day, I bought a set of the pre and power amps at Crazy Eddie - a NYC based Home Electronics discount store - which had somehow gotten the line. The designer was Julian ?????, purportedly ex-Nasa.

Turntables were also in demand, more or less (IIRC) as follows:

B&O had the linear tonearms. Gerrard had the idler market, and Dual and (stretching the $) Thorens were the belt driven choices for common folks, with AR and Bic in more limited distribution. Linn was the emerging name for the big bux crowd, with CJ Walker, Coinessuer, and Systemdeck offering pretty decent Linn knock-offs priced somewhere in-between the Thorens and Linn models.

Micro Seiki was the high end Japanese unit and Technics, Sony, Denon, Kenwood, and Kyocera were the cheaper DD alternatives from Japan, equipped with S arms, straight arms, linear arms, fat arms, skinny arms, you name it.

Thems were the days.

Martyk1

Systemdeck! Now there's a memory.

How about the other Linn challenger the Pink Triangle turntable.

I remember one dealer tried to sell me on that by saying that Linn threatened to revoke his franchise if he sold Pink Triangle so he decided to switch....but I never believe anything Linn says.

Years after posting this thread, I found a Gain Cell in perfect cosmetic condition..

.I have rarely used it but it seems to work just fine and reminds me of the good old days....

How about Audionics of Oregon and/or the early Ampzillas?

The Denon turntables with the big glowing lights were really cool, too.