ETF France 2018

I got around £500 for a broken one a few years ago,beautiful looking beasts.

I remember that - fun day out that one

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Yes,was a nice boxed reel to reel from Kingston,Jamaica,can’t remember if it was an akai,teac or sony

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Not now you have told these b’stards all about it. :joy:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/lou-donaldson-blue-breakbeats-LP-NEU-724349470910/382174106977?hash=item58fb5a1561:g:r54AAOSwjyxZdKHh:rk:4:pf:0

A fun day including the big shoot out for SET amps. 16 pretty amazing entries whittled down by in a knockout competition to a final won eventually by an amp using Eimac 100TH valves. This had started life as a kit amp in Tokyo years ago being shipped back to France & smashed up in transit so never used until recently rebuilt by a French contestant. Whopping Tango output transformers.


Power supply on separate chassis.
Actually the winner should have been Menno Van Der Veen’s more prosaic looking 300B amp which sounded fantastic but the ignorant cnuts here chose the wrong one!

Want these records.



Some gins.
Bauer pre war horn system


WE permanent magnet compression driver

Magnetophon




Ultra rare Fairchild MC cartridge from 1958. Io

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How much did it go for in the end Guy?

All in all a fun weekend.

My highlights were a late night session with the mono system set up by Jeff Jackson, Dave Slagle & Walter Clay. it’s worthy of some further comment. Source was the diminutive Sony PSQ7 DD turntable, standing on blocks of delrin with its own arm disabled and a Schick 12" installed next to it. This worked surprisingly well. Cartridges were various types constructed by Slagle including some with field coil magnetics.

The phono was an lcr design by Slagle & the power amp was a cute design using a type 50 as output. I liked the aesthetic of this amp with the valves alone at the front presented like ornaments on shelves and all the ugly stuff round the back. It could almost be hung on the wall. The speakers included a WE24 horn driven for the most part by a WE555 field coil driver. (The bass was a straight conical design built just prior to the event by the organiser Tim Gurney (who also lent the WE24) That horn had an Altec 15" behind it. Tweeter (the round wooden bit) was Coco’s Jeff jackson made field coil design. This system sounded really good playing mostly Jazz, Blues, Gil Scott Heron & some newer HipHop/Rap stuff .Very enjoyable for what was really just thrown together almost on the day.

I had a really interesting & lengthy talk with Walter about the Fairchild turntables (of which he’s a fan, owner & perhaps the leading proponent).

He also said that he has very many unused pre-recorded 7.5 ips R2R tapes which he might be prepared to let go so I shall pursue him on those.

Another great sounding & friendly room was being operated by some guys up from Southern France who’d brought a pair of Altec a7’s as well as a further single cabinet with a small WE horn above powered by a Lamar (permanent magnet, 555 equivalent) driver. Both the mono & stereo systems in there gave exceptional results & resulted in me having to order music.

It was nice to meet Jean Hiraga again. He’s a charming & helpful chap.

Frank Schroeder too. Always good company & an encyclopedic knowledge of all things analogue.
Joe Roberts & mostly Herb Reichert gave an entertaining not too technical talk.

The food (they were catering for 120 or so at each meal) was generally good with some odd Norman quirks. On Friday a plate arrived bearing a large slab of nice looking & succulent beef but which tasted a little odd. We soon realised it was ox tongue which i think had been tenderised in vinegar prior to cooking. Apparently a local delicacy but not my thing although (unlike Coco, who was also dodging any fish) I did eat it. Courses were puctuated by platefuls of large blobs of Camembert/Brie style soft cheese. I did feel I’d consumed a little too much of the curdled dairy stuff by Sunday!

The other realisation was how attractive this part of Normandy (Le Perche) actually is.100 odd miles down from the coast & you really are into bucolic landscapes, lovely unspoiled villages with charming architecture, quiet roads & nice food. You don’t really need to go further down to find authentic France. I think we’ll be returning for a gentle driving holiday at some point…

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210 Euro I think. I don’t know how high the other guy would’ve gone.

Fuck :slightly_frowning_face:

Happy to group buy if that might be helpful.

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Moar Tape.

A few more pics.

Meat Wagon.

Goto horns in the flea market

the main hall system used two large baffles each with 3 Siemens 8-10" drivers and some kind of subwooferage I think.

Worked pretty well in a hall with 100+ people in it.

quite a few single driver efforts about.

Not sure whether this link will play.
Some mellow morning jazz on the Altecs.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/67yss2cyg5984bm/VID_20181116_112800571.mp4/file

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Nice house

Ten a penny in Belleme

Not sure buying will be involved :+1:

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Excellent. Tape theft ftw.