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Anyone heard of London Acoustical Developments (LAD)??

Beobloke

Beobloke

Super Member
Bit of a long shot, but just wondering if anyone here had heard of the company LAD (London Acoustical Developments), who seemed to make DJ and professional type turntables??
I have one of their GAJ828P units and also have a model GAJ835Mk2 which is a double turntable mounted on a single chassis with a separate control panel for rack mounting - pics of both attached.

Both are very nice units and well put together in a sort of home-made-by-somebody-who-knows-what-they're-doing kind of way!

Just interested to find out something about the company, how old these units are and what others they made. As far as i've been able to find out (which isn't much!!) they were a small British company based in London, and it looks like all i need is a GAJ942P and a GAJ835Mk1 and i have their entire output!

I have asked on the Vinyl Engine site, but drawn a blank, so any info would be gratefully received!
 

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Sorry for the late reply ;-) A company local to me used to distribute these decks. The high-end DD deck was promoted as a competitor to the ubiquitous Technics SL1200. That appears to be a Jelco SA750 arm - quite an expensive arm for a DJ deck. With those kind of overheads and without the backing of a firm like Matsushita, it doesn't surprise me that LAD faded from view - which is a shame, as they had some original ideas on the DD units.

If there's anyone out there who worked for LAD - I would love to hear from you.

Justin
 
jelco and london acoustical developments

Hi, I have a brochure from L.A.D from 1987. The GAJ 942 SP
and the GAJ828 P are listed as having more torgue than the GAJ 828, 1.5kg/cm rather than 800g/cm. The jelco arm fitted to the 828p is a 370h, which is the same base as the 750 and they both have an oil damper but I do not know what the difference in construction is. The 370 is 229mm long. The arm info was provided by jelco themselves. I will post a copy of the brochure if its of interest to anyone?

Mike.
 
yoffieee said:
Hi, I have a brochure from L.A.D from 1987. The GAJ 942 SP
and the GAJ828 P are listed as having more torgue than the GAJ 828, 1.5kg/cm rather than 800g/cm. The jelco arm fitted to the 828p is a 370h, which is the same base as the 750 and they both have an oil damper but I do not know what the difference in construction is. The 370 is 229mm long. The arm info was provided by jelco themselves. I will post a copy of the brochure if its of interest to anyone?

Mike.
Click to expand...

Yes, please post - I'd be very keen to see it. Thanks! :yes:
 
lad turntables

heres the brochure from 1987
 

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lad turntables

Its a fiddle getting the pictures down to a size that will upload, Hope you can all read the details.

Anyone have an idea how much a low milage gaj 825p is worth ??
 
yoffieee said:
Its a fiddle getting the pictures down to a size that will upload, Hope you can all read the details.
Click to expand...

ImageShack is your friend. :yes:

Examples:

lab60kr6.png


92467269nd9.jpg



Now back to the Laddies discussion.
 
yoffieee said:
Its a fiddle getting the pictures down to a size that will upload, Hope you can all read the details.

Anyone have an idea how much a low milage gaj 825p is worth ??
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for those - very interesting!

As to the worth of a GAJ828P, the going rate for the (very!) few I've seen seems to be around the £50-£70 mark. I paid £66 for mine, which is in very good condition.

Incidentally, my 828P is an earlier version than in your catalogue, and is bright blue! Hard to Find Records in the UK do a very nice metallic blue Vestax headshell that looks very tasty on it! I'll post a pic when I get a chance..........

Looks like all I need to complete my collection are an EL80, which was their last deck (a devleopment of the 942) and a GAJ 835S unit. I actually have three of the GAJ835 twin units, which is one more than I need - if anyone fancies the third one, drop me a PM!
 
jelco on lad

That seems cheep as its got a decent arm on it. There was someone on ebay selling old motor units for these, they say they are jvc dd systems. I think they had some arms too, for about 200 dollars. Does anyone know the difference in build quality between the jelco sa750 and the sa370 ? What do jelco mean by single cross point suspension? Is it a gimble type of system?

found a trade price list too, coming soon !
 
lad trade price 1987

Heres the old price list, and a pic of the 828p I have here. Looks like its the same colour as the one beobloke has, bright blue, looks a bit dull in the pic. The later ones were like the brochure.
 

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Thanks for posting the brochure, Yoffieee.

Jelco arms aren't particularly cheap (the 250 is used for the Koetsu arm - of course, you pay for the Koetsu legending!). The LADs sound like potential bargains. I nearly got a 942 a while back, but the postage from Canada would've been expensive to the UK.

Yoffieee - you seem to know about these TTs. The thing that's always intrigued me was how a small OEM developed a DD mechanism. The precedents for small OEMs developing DD motors aren't exactly numerous. JVC Video motor you say? Got a link?

Some of the Jelcos have fluid dampers - you unscrew the knurled wheel on top of the spindle and underneath there's a reservoir.

Justin
 
lad internals

Hi, if I get chance this week I'll take one apart and take some pix. It should be a doddle to re mount the motor and arm in a better plinth as the sub chassis is already soft mounted on rubber bushes. The original plinth is just steel plate. It was the arm that has always been of interest to me. I always wanted to have a go at swapping one into a technics 1200.......

From the trade price in the eighties the arm cannt have been that expensive back then.
 
Lad

I bought a fair bit of stuff from LAD which is London Acoustical Developments. They were based in Wimbledon, and did pretty well in the 80's then faded away. It was a 1 man band and I met him a few times, nice chap.
I have a pair of mint 828P's had less than 40 hours work. If anyone want to pay me lots of money for them I'd be pleased to sell them!
Regards
Stu
 
Funny how this thread keeps resurfacing!

Since the last update I have found a pair of EL80s - on UK eBay and less than ten miles from where I live. :thmbsp:

They're both mid-fettle at the moment and then I'll be keeping one and selling one.
 
Lovely blue on those LAD decks. I'm now busy fettling and faffing with a newly acquired MR-711 and the work will include a respray. I'm still thinking about originality but that blue on your LAD decks is very tempting...

I also recall seeing a store in central Cape Town? during the mid 70's, mid 80's with a neon sign outside with LAD. I never went inside and can't recall if it was an audio/disco gear store though.

tripod
 
It is a nice blue but, ironically, both my recently acquired EL80s are black! Still, the writing on them is blue so all is not lost.......
 
L A D Turntables

Beobloke said:
Bit of a long shot, but just wondering if anyone here had heard of the company LAD (London Acoustical Developments), who seemed to make DJ and professional type turntables??
I have one of their GAJ828P units and also have a model GAJ835Mk2 which is a double turntable mounted on a single chassis with a separate control panel for rack mounting - pics of both attached.

Both are very nice units and well put together in a sort of home-made-by-somebody-who-knows-what-they're-doing kind of way!

Just interested to find out something about the company, how old these units are and what others they made. As far as i've been able to find out (which isn't much!!) they were a small British company based in London, and it looks like all i need is a GAJ942P and a GAJ835Mk1 and i have their entire output!

I have asked on the Vinyl Engine site, but drawn a blank, so any info would be gratefully received!
Click to expand...
 
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