Whatever Happened To SAE?

04-15-06: Mitch4t
Paris Audio was so intimidating to me that I only went in there once.

Agreed. I own a Sony ES 6 disc changer that I bought as a demo from Paris Audio during their Going Out of Business Sale, too. 1991 I believe it was. I thought I had way overspent for my budget...but that player has been my favorite piece of gear for 15 years. I still have that changer, and it sounds terrific.

Jafox....the Recycler is still going as strong as ever. You can still buy it at the newsstands and at your local 7-11 in Southern Cal. It is also on the web. I bought my first pair of Infinity Kappa 7 speakers out of the Recycler about six years ago. I didn't find out that I had paid waay too much until I joined Audiogon.

My visit to Rogersound Labs was in 1972 or 1973 when I was a student at UCSB. At the time, the serious speakers in my limited view were the JBL L100 (which to this day I just don't "get"), the AR 3a, and maybe something from Rectilinear. Rogersound had some "angle", but I don't remember what it was -- the driver cones didn't move, or they moved a lot, or something. I remember the demo focusing on something like that. And of course it was all factory direct, cut out the middleman. Didn't buy a pair, nor did my friend who took me there, but it was fun.

Actually, Tom Campbell said (big inhale): "Bellflower, Torrance, Long Beach, Costa Mesa, West Covina, Reseda, Van Nuys, CAL STEREO NOW!!!"

When I first went to Rogersound Labs (Van Nuys only) in 1973, their top speaker design was a large 4 ft. tall transmission line model a la IMF.

I was happy just to go to places like Now Sound, Federated, University, etc., until I visited the Jonas Miller (Beverly Hills) store in 1974 and heard stacked pairs of Quad 57's. That experience and hearing double KLH Nines at Hi Fi House (Pasadena) sent me down the road to perdition and ruin.

Remember Quintessence? I had their preamp for a little while back in around 1973 or so. I worked for a dealer and tried a couple of them- each one sounded a little different. I remember putting the preamp to the 'challenge' of an ARC SP-3. The ARC sounded so much more musical. That was my next preamp.