A find of vintage gear born in heaven

You were in Detroit ?? Damn son,you might have dropped a line.
I remember when you hit the road.Great to hear from you again.
Congrats on the "find".
:tresbon:
 
This story being drawn out is at the same time exciting and painful. Want the rest of the story... now. Paragon are worth what, $20M - $40M?
 
MRL_Audio said:
This story being drawn out is at the same time exciting and painful. Want the rest of the story... now. Paragon are worth what, $20M - $40M?
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Hey slow down, Im craftin' over here. :D Whats a good story w/o some suspense? It also has a "who shot JR" ending but I'll spare you those details.
The going price for a paragon is 15-30k. Not braggin', just saying' since you asked.
One of the reasons my knees where shaking for two days. Seriously. I had to sit down a lot in that week following.

....So while Im over in the corner stroking the wood......of the cabinet :D, he starts yanking out boxes of records.
Most were Japanese and Korean issues of 50-60's popular music. There were a lot, maybe 200 to 300.
So Im putting through the boxes and titles and he's telling me that he got rid of his good TT's in the 90's when CD's came out. Micro Seiki and Thorens as I remember, then when I opened the next box, this was staring me in the face and I almost choked, again.





Fisher 400CX.

By this time in my vintage audio life, Ive had a couple of these already but none that shone like a jewel. The only things wrong with this set was a seized volume pot and several of the knob caps were laying in the bottom of the box. After I fixed those items, and as you can see, It looked brand new with absolutely not one mark on it. Fantastically clean.
He said that he had bought it thru the PX and used it for two years before the Audio club he was in all agreed that this was a better set up.



50 pounds of the rarest and (after I fixed it) sweetest sounding integrated I've ever heard. Sansui AU-111.
Not working and missing tubes, the old guy told me I could have it for free if I took everything.

Time for a banana dance. :banana: :banana: :banana:

There were a few more things like TT cartridges and assorted tubes, Mostly all Hitachi and Toshiba, but nothing more to display. (as if it weren't enough).

The AU-111 just needed tubes and a few bypass caps replaced. I cranked that sucker to the moon and hosted a "Ho-down" in the clubhouse with it before it went to its new owner.

Note: Theres a guy in Florida that thinks he is now the shiz...and I agree. :yes:

Well, here is were the story ends, we've had twists and turns, and a cupola' bends, but it all came out ok.

Now I'm pretty sure that Ive had my lifetimes largest score which kinda makes me sad :tears:

Now what is there to look forward to? :D


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Thanks for indulging me. I have to ask because it's killing me? Where is all this goodness? Did you decide to keep it all net of the Sansui? Sell some and keep some? That Fisher is a beautiful piece.
 
Sorry, its all gone to people that live in houses. :D

Hey, if anybody here on AK were the buyers of any of this stuff, how about a follow-up?
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wow, just wow!
now, one more thought crosses my mind after reading all this.....it never occurred to you that you should at least take one picture of the paragon?! seriously, how many of us here have ever even seen one in person? but you've sold one. i would've posed with that like it was abraham lincoln. anyways, i thought i was envious of all your travels, but now i'm definitely envious of your finds. good job! :thmbsp:
 
gogofast said:
wow, just wow!
now, one more thought crosses my mind after reading all this.....it never occurred to you that you should at least take one picture of the paragon?! seriously, how many of us here have ever even seen one in person? but you've sold one. i would've posed with that like it was abraham lincoln. anyways, i thought i was envious of all your travels, but now i'm definitely envious of your finds. good job! :thmbsp:
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Yeah, I was thinking that same thing for awhile. I did have 6 pics on my phone and they were ok, its a pretty good camera, but I never transferred them to my computer before that phone met a grizzly end.

I usually get a pic of cool gear before it goes away, I have a pretty big rogues gallery but this one assed out. I do have some ephemera from the find that has pics but you can of course google it.

The catalog from 66' is cool.






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:thmbsp:

Good stuff and stories...

resound said:
FOR WHAT? 1965 JBL PARAGON. thats what the spare drivers were for.
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I've only seen, in person, one of these in my life. I bought a high-end turntable from a guy here in San Diego who had one in his living room.
 
Thanks, resound, for the awesome tale. The only guy cooler than you in the story is the old guy - he's like a kick-ass audio-angel. He was all about AudioKarma 50 years before the internet.
 
Junknewbian said:
Thanks, resound, for the awesome tale. The only guy cooler than you in the story is the old guy - he's like a kick-ass audio-angel. He was all about AudioKarma 50 years before the internet.
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You can say that again! Buying up a dozen ST70's so guys could build them, ordering a Paragon, and having it wait on Mare Island for pickup!

Wow! So resound, have you been back to him to see if he had any literature or other stuff pertaining to audio? Even vintage catalogs would be of interest to us.
 
I am curious what this haul cost you to take away? What a story - it does happen in real life, not just dreams.
 
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