whatever happened to Barzilay?

[chicks]

The included speaker cabinet has what looks like a Bozak crossover so it might be Bozak components in there! I wonder what the third cabinet is for, doesn't look like a speaker cabinet. Unless there's a tambour door over the front...

Bart

I think you're right about the Bozak components, they look a lot like the ones here: http://www.classicaudio.com/forsale/misc/bozak.html

I think the speakers do have tambour doors...

Looks like these Bozaks might be a good deal: http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ele/959438633.html

 

[avguytx]

Here's a couple of recent pictures of mine that also show my Quantum 3's being in the rotation (while I was adding XLR jacks on the SDA's). The Tambour doors are just cool. Great for hiding the gear unless you want to see it all. I have an IR repeater setup so the Harmony will work the A/V system or the Carver setup...or both.

Check out the crazy looking cats eyes on the far left in one picture. Weird. I just noticed that. Sorry the pics aren't any better. It was tough getting them to turn out at night with the inside lights. Obviously the garage pics turned out much better. Crud.

 

[johnda]

tensleep,

your cabinet is beautiful! I really loved those units. My dad had his made by Churchill and it used Bell electronics, Garrard turntable and Jensen speakers. It really sounded good. Those Bozaks had a great sound. Your unit is one of the nicest I've seen. Congrats!

 

[tensleep]

tensleep,

your cabinet is beautiful! I really loved those units. My dad had his made by Churchill and it used Bell electronics, Garrard turntable and Jensen speakers. It really sounded good. Those Bozaks had a great sound. Your unit is one of the nicest I've seen. Congrats!

Thanks for the compliments!

We are in the process of relocating to Dallas, so I have our house on the market. The Barzilay cabinets are an integral part of the furniture that we are using to show the house. I cleaned the cabinets with Murphy's oil soap and water and a green scrubby pad. I then oiled them with Watco's rejuvinating oil. I love the way that they turned out. I still have more to do, including reworking the crossover networks on the Bozaks. One thing is for sure - these babies will be making the trip to Dallas with me!

 

[Brian]

I have a tall Barzilay cabinet. It had the Sony STR-6065 and Miracord 50HII in it when I got it so, from the early '70s. I actually bought the system only for the cabinet. I gave the changer to a friend and still have the Sony. When we moved into this house, the movers were able to get it down into the basement but suggested it probably would never move out as there was only a paper thickness in room. Since then we've put in marble tile that added almost a 1/2 in thickness so I guess they were right.

I use it to house whatever setup I am using as a main system at the time.

This furniture is well worth saving as the quality is not there anymore unless you want to spend thousands.

Looks like someone has bought the name and is manufacturing and selling using the marque:
http://www.wiederusa.com/furniture.cfm//Sofa-Bed/Children-Furniture//BARZILAY-train-bed-211.htm

 

[two dot]

So glad to find this thread.

I recently bought a 1963 Barzilay Design One Stereo cabinet for 35 bucks.

It is so beautiful and I have filled it with Mc gear... until I can find the appropriate tube stuff to go in it.

It is a 5' center unit with sliding doors, top loading TT secion and 2 beautiful lattice grilled speaker cabs.

I will post some photos tomorrow.

 

[jhoyt]

An older gentleman just gave me a Barzilay setup that he had since the '70's. It had a Pioneer SX-737 (in like new condition), and a Dual 1015 TT. He kept the Akai R2R, but I have a feeling I'll be hearing from him about that soon...

The speaker cabinets, same as Redboy's, are loaded with Heathkit coaxials. I have pics in the camera, and will post them when I can. But the furniture is so beautiful, I can't believe it was originally a kit. And reading the details of Ira Barzilay's life makes me want to cherish this furniture as very special.

 

[Tucker26]

More on Barzilay

We purchased our first Barzilay modular walnut furniture in 1968 as newlyweds and continued to add to it over the years until they went out of business, and then much later found someone in LA on one of the first Internet audio lists (before the Web) who wanted to give away a number of cabinets as he no longer had space for them. So I paid to ship them from LA to Boston, cleaned them up, and incorporated them into a wall system. Several had been slightly damaged so some time later I repaired them and modified them slightly to accommodate my audio and home theater components. I had built the first ones from kits obtained at audio stores but later saw new factory made units that matched from a furniture store that sold the full line of factory made Barzilay furniture at the time. I could no longer obtain any Barzilay standards for stacking the units into a final wall unit which I wanted to do, so I custom made some in my wood shop using solid walnut shaped to complement the "official" Barzilay ones. I built an addition on my home in order to have a home theater space and had the architect design an alcove to accommodate the Barzilays where all of my control equipment now lives, including a front projector.

Some may be interested that a designer named Jack Benveniste designed many if not all of the Barzilay furniture including my series. Somewhere in my archives I still have a Barzilay brochure/catalog which shows all of their furniture available as of the mid-eighties. A company named CWD later made modular audio furniture after Barzilay went out of business. I have one of the CWD cabinets used for media storage too. It is also high quality mostly solid walnut, but not quite as elegant as the Barzilays.

 

[Omegaman]

Heres my Barzilay with Fisher X-100, FM-100-B, Sony tube reel and Garrard Lab 60 table with EV Wolverines

Simple Dracula coffin design 9 feet long

 

[VWGUY]

Just saw a Barzilay cabinet with matching speaker cabinets at GW, neat thing about this set was the "roll top" style door on main cabinet in really nice shape.

They were asking $34.99 before discount.......

Had I only known their value! They were gone when I went back to have a second look.

 

[Brian]

Just saw a Barzilay cabinet with matching speaker cabinets at GW, neat thing about this set was the "roll top" style door on main cabinet in really nice shape.

They were asking $34.99 before discount.......

Had I only known their value! They were gone when I went back to have a second look.

Ouch! Considering that there is so much discussion about consoles being worth no more than the equipment and persons just leaving them when found, it is a bit of an anomaly that the Barzilay is sought after. So, do not feel to bad if hour first reaction to seeing kt was to pass on it.

 

[jerry finn]

Hi. We've had a Barzilay wall system since the early 80's- it's been through 8 plus moves and still looks great. However, we had it in storage for a few years, and now can't find the pins for mounting the shelves/cabinets to the rails. The holes in the rail look to be about 5/32-3/16 diameter and I guess we could make some... but hoping to find an easy source for 20-26 pins.... any ideas?

 

[David Dowdy]

Picked these up for $50. Very cool stuff.

 

[2526]

mine

 

[KentTeffeteller]

View attachment 2933123
mine

That, friend is one spiffy installation. Nice Barzilay and superb taste in this system. Thanks for sharing it. AK at it's very finest.

 

[twiiii]

For us it was mostly the dark woods and the speaker cabinets were rather flimsy. It was lot cheaper to buy other products in the form of closed and opened racks and shelving. People wanted great speakers and they couldn't be installed in Barzilay Cabinets. People were moving to speakers with smaller foot prints that were tall and slender, too. Getting the sound off the floor. Living inn the Southwest near OLD MEXICO customers wanted a wider variety architectural design, too. So we had two cabinet companies build cabinets for customers. Some to match certain Altec designs with wrought iron on the front for instance. MCintosh Mediterranean center cabinet and a pair of ML-4's or ML-2's was just way beyond most people capability. I had a set of Bozak Moorish still do. But the system is no longer Stereo but home theatre. So the speakers are in front of me and the cabinet is to my left.

 

[gizzyman47]

The wife and I found this Barzilay at our local thrift for $20. Almost mint condition! Best part was that it came with a McIntosh 1700 receiver and a Dual 1019 turntable. The Mac is in great working and cosmetic condition. Speakers were absent though. Would like to think that it had some nice JBL's in it!

 

[mightythor]

I've had my eyes on a Barzilay for at least a year and finally purchased one. I have come across 3 of these styles at estate sales and most had the JBL speakers in the cabinets, which placed these out of my price range. I love the MCM cabinetry and the quality build. It is a shame that no one took over the business, however, I can appreciate why not too many people can do business in California.

I do not know what speakers these cabinets had originally as the owner had replaced the speakers (I assume the originals were blown), with a pair of cheap Boston Accoustic bookshelf speakers and just set these inside the cabinets. The Sony receiver, Sony RTR and Dual TT are the only components that came with the console. These are the pics from the estate sale.

 

[turnitup]

The wood quality of the Barzilay lineup was just mind boggling. Wish I had room, and had a MCM cabinet in the house. I’ve run across a number of them over the years at estate sales and they are incredibly beautiful pieces of furnature…