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John Boulton Signature Series on ebay

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Photos for reference. Gotta love that rotary dial for dialing in the record you want to hear from the 50 LP changer.
 

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Very rare and unusual! At first I thought the claims that is was solid state were mistaken: in thumbnail scale on a laptop screen it looked like all-tube, but enlarged it looks sure enough like solid state... but look at the caps used! Sort of dates it and says something about the build quality, too.

Sure would like to hear what that would sound like, restored!
 
Those meters are most curious. Think this would bring those Frankenstein speakers to life??
 
John Boulton sold very high end systems in the 60's and 70's that featured wireless remote controls. From the little box, which was originally beautifully finished, you could control the record changer that fed the living room, change the FM station being heard in the den, etc. In their last days, they added custom features so you could warm up the Ferrari while having coffee in the kitchen, and turn on the heat in the country house before you left your city apartment. Boulton started as an electrical engineer working for Mies van der Rohe on the Seagram Building before starting his own company. Check out the pics at johnboulton.com including his astonishing never finished 34,000 square foot "glass house" at Chalan Farm.

link: http://homesoftherich.net/2008/12/chalan-farm-the-glass-mega-mansion.html
WW
 
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As Bill said, Boulton was one of the whole house stereo originators, and his installations were "cost no object" projects. Actually, a huge cost was the object, for the moneyed wealth of the East coast, as they liked to brag about how much their Boulton system cost.

I heard two of these systems while I was in the military, and they were both dated, long in the tooth, and quite underperforming by the mid 1980s. Unless you own an architecturally significant sprawling house that demanded one of these systems in the 1960s/70s, and have both the deep wallet and significant hearing loss needed to buy, repair and install the system without hearing how limited it is today, don't get it.

This system was at a Conneticutt estate sale a couple years ago, IIRC.
 
Old thread but thought I would mention that there is a guy parting out one of these systems you know where and it might be an interesting project considering the very low starting investment as it almost can not be less expensive.

Never heard of the guy but appears he sold only a very few and they were not for the likes of the Chevrolet class.

I wonder if with a decent recapping and cabling if maybe there might be a swan in the ugly duck's looks.
 
"he sold only a very few"

I think he did a little better than that. I used to stop in the New York showroom and it always seemed busy. Besides, you need to sell more than a few to be able to afford a 71,000 square food all-glass house. The house, BTW, was never occupied as it apparently had unsolvable leak/design issues. It was on the market for $18-million, then in 2009 it failed to get a $3-million minimum bid at auction. So if you would like to live in the Phillip Johnson glass house but need 39 times the space, Boulton's place in Princeton may be for you!

Correction - looking around to see whatever became of the house, I ran across the fact that he married *very* well, so maybe he did just sell a few.

WW
 
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I read that John Boulton's wife, Prudence was an heiress to the Flagler fortune.

Bouton equipment seems to have value from a standpoint of curiosity but little else.
 
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