Martin who owns Audio Reference has a load of that stuff in his house. I went round so he could fit a new arm to the Clearaudio TT I bought.
Nice guy but he said that as his daughter is a concert violinist she could hear the changes to the sound when he moved those up and down to “tune the room” He also had lumps of wood hanging by bits of string to tune the room and all the equipment was sat on diamond tipped mpingo cones.
The speaker cables were £15k per metre and were pretty much just copper pipes for “skin effect” reasons.
It would be foo heaven for the members of the whatsbest forum.
Oh yeah it’s absolute arse gravy with added sphincter truffles.
Had a cracker of an argument with Colin Wonfor on PFM who claims that skin effect is a major issue for speaker cables. Gave up once his army of shills turned up.
When I worked with video electronics we did experiments to see what type of cable gave the best results for high res analogue signals and it turned out to be solid core with quite thick insulation.
Everybody was expecting all sorts of multi star and fanciness to be the one.
I really like that this guy left things to his friends - I deal a lot with this type of circumstance. At the end of the day really what you want is for things to go to a good home, perhaps raise a little funds for the family and be enjoyed. I remember one place I went where the owner had some Tannoy Autographs, his son paid house clearers to take them away…
Indeed.
I knew a woman who told me that her dad was into old stuff, radios and stereos and stuff.
Her and her mum cleared out his workshop after he died.
She told me that there were hundreds of weird light bulb things that they chucked in the skip.
I had the most amazing fossil collection - with some genuinely important specimens - bought in as a visitor enquiry at the NHM: hundreds of beautiful and rare items, but covered in moss and algae and dirt, all the data gone that would have made it useful.
The family had just moved into an old house in SE London, and found them dumped on a rockery: someone’s lifetime’s passion and work. We can only guess that that someone had passed-on years earlier, and the wife - resentful of the devotion she felt should have been hers - gleefully tipped the lot on the garden before the old boy was cold…
The other end of the scale is when the vultures move-in to pick the carcase: ignorance often prevents them realising the most precious assets. I’ve had to watch from the sidelines as this has happened, and, from what little I can glean, I suspect the same is happening to my recently-late friend’s belongings right now.
I’m one-of-one people alive today who knows how important some of his stuff is, but the family simply ignore communications, fearful that I might make a claim on his estate, when all I want is to see that important (but largely valueless) specimens, books and research/writings go where they should; I’ve no interest in anything else.
I do wish people would write proper, explicit and most-of-all enforceable wills!
A friend works with Very Dangerous Indeed stuff, and it’s not that uncommon for old Arthur to pop his clogs and a few weeks later they get a phone call from the widow about the very heavy thing with the on it that she’s found in the garage.
As the ‘Greatest Generation’ who fought in WW2 pass on, some finds have been very lively. I can’t find the article now but one of the chaps on the Vinyl Me, Please forum put up one from Des Moines Iowa where the family of one chap who’d died were mildly surprised to find he’d had an active Panzerfaust 60 in his garage for 60+ years.
My best man’s uncle lived his life in Southend. When said uncle passed away they found a Mills bomb in amongst the sundry crap while clearing his house. Cue Irish bloke ringing the bomb squad. It turned out the grenade had been deactivated so no harm done. Eventually, they discretely took it home to Ireland on the car ferry concealed at the bottom of a bag.
My NS1000s were saved by the teenager who sold them to me from his house-clearer mate’s “To Burn” pile.
I went to an auction of NIB valves at a place near here a few years ago where the auctioneers had been called in to shift the deceased’s old furniture. They happened to notice the valves in a skip and told the family to forget the furniture and concentrate on the electronics. They saved some very nice stuff, but the three previous skips were long gone.
The Sad fact is this happens every day. Stories of irreplaceable stuff that went the way of landfill haunt me. In many ways finding or making written agreements with friends is so important. I guess most people like to think they will sell their stuff when the time is right but only too often something tragic and sudden occurs - It’s here where fantasy hits the tarmac and stuff gets launched by disinterested family or the just plain ignorant executor.
My Mrs, wonderful person though she is, sadly knows nothing about hifi and is not too good with money/numbers either - she relies on me for that.
I have arranged with a fellow audiophile, whom I completely trust, to sell my set-up and records, if/when I cark it. My wife also knows and likes him and is totally agreeable to the arrangement.
on it that she’s found in the garage.
