My Current Bliss

This is really, really sweet.

Sansui SP-L750s restored, regrilled, rephotograhed.

SAE 3022 photos.

Vintage 1979...a Darth Vader of an amp.

SAE 3022 exposed.

My bliss tonight.

The Mission Cyrus One sounds great driving a pair of Energy Pro 22s, just arrived, in black.

Just arrived. Camber 2 loudspeakers.

  The final version of what were initially the Rega 2 speakers. Renamed Camber after Roy Gandy, Rega proprietor freaked out when he learned that his Canadian turntable distributor was producing unauthorized Rega badged speakers. The excellent Camber woofer is better built than the Audax woofer in the early Rega version, and equally good sounding. The Cambers have proper binding posts, not spring connectors. I really like these speakers, and have always liked this form factor, slim and deep.

Just Arrived. SAE 3022 integrated amplifier.

  From Davids Audio: "Another item you rarely see for sale, the 3022 was an early attempt by SAE to produce an integrated amplifier. Presumably to reduce engineering/manufacturing costs (I suppose), rather than developing a new product from scratch they merely tacked together a 3000 preamp and a 2200 amplifier, tied together with common sheet metal.
  This led to a completely unique and funky design - rather than having the inputs on the back panel like a conventional system, the inputs are tucked away in a slot on the side of the unit. If you look on the right side of the picture below, you can see the opening where the input jacks are located."

Over three quarter million served.

Mission 710 Update

I was pretty sure that the pristine looking woofers in the Mission 710s I got last week weren't original, but wanted to confirm it. I was right. The original Peerless woofers were long gone. After some deliberation, I installed a set of Seas woofers that would've been in 770 Freedom 4s. The new woofers polypropylene cone and more rigid cast chassis, combined with the same Seas tweeter used in the first 3 generations of 770s, make them sound much more like 770s than Missions original bottom of the range speaker.

 Thanks to The Speaker Shop team for sorting out a crossover issue for me.

Marantz 1200 pictures.

The Marantz 1200 is fixed.

I just got it home, swapped out the Mission Cyrus One (which hasn't left my system since I finished it a couple of weeks ago), and fired it up, driving the Spendors. It sounds fantastic, with incredible weight in the bass that comes from insanely over engineered vintage gear.

Just arrived. Energy Pro 22s.

Wow. I wrote the same thing 13 days short of a year ago! This time they're black. If you've never heard a pair, you really should. They're a modest landmark in Canadian speaker design (I mean all 22s, though the 22 Reference Connoisseur is the high water mark), and they still sound great.

Spendor Type BCII photos.

The grill frames are great, but the fabric needs cleaning.

B&W LM1 speakers.

I don't understand why manufacturers recycle model numbers. These are not the new LM1s that look like computer speakers, or home theatre rears. I have a pair of cast aluminum originals, made, I think in the late seventies. They weigh about 15 pounds each,and have a 5 inch woven kevlar woofer. The basket of the woofer is the same casting as the front baffle, meaning that effectively the woofer is the front baffle, giving the system extraordinary rigidity, which at least partially accounts for the incredibly uncoloured sound this speaker delivers.

Holiday (In Canada) Monday Update

Just arrived: Marantz 1200 integrated amp. Vintage 1971. One hundred watts per channel. Made in Sun Valley, California. Needs work. Sounds great through headphones, one channel weak through speakers. Spendor BCIIs, in stunning, near mint condition, sounding amazing! Pictures soon.

Just arrived. Mission 710s. The original Mission 2 way monitors.

Mission Electronics debuted with 3 models. The top of the line used a Celestion tweeter (big surprise to me), a Coles super tweeter, a 5 inch midrange of unknown (to me) origin (when I had the 720s I should've looked, but didn't), and a 10 inch (probably Seas)woofer in a sealed cabinet. The middle of the line used the same woofer and mid with a single Seas tweeter in a sealed cabinet. The baby of the line used an 8 inch woofer and a Seas tweeter in a ported cabinet... the prototype for the 770.

Recently arrived. Just restored. Merak M3s.

I haven't seen a pair in 3 years.

Mission Cyrus One photos.

I'm very happy with this amp, and finally got the time to clean and repaint it. Having it in pieces helped me appreciate the superb industrial design even more. As you might imagine, I'm very excited to finally have a Mission amplifier in house, and will have more to say soon.