[Sonnova]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:38:15 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:

I suspect (although I do not know for sure) that Acoustat of China does
not support older Rockford or James Strickland made Acoustat products. I
wonder if they have a US distributor? Looking over their site, it doesn't
seem so....

Does any company support a 25 year old product? And would anyone really
want to refurbish a 25 year old speaker? Some would, but probably not
many. The Acoustats were OK at the time, for what they were. However,
time marches on, and when I sold mine I never really missed them.

I have a friend who just sent a pair of Tympani 1D (circa 1980) speakers back
to Magnepan in White Bear lake Minnesota and for $1900 including two-way
shipping and new cartons they completely re-furbished them using the latest
technology. New magnets, new mylar diaphragms, new voice grids and crossover
components, new "socks", the works. He says they sound much better than they
did when he sent them in and in fact, sound much better than they did when
new. They have better bass and are more extended on the top while maintaining
the Maggie midrange that he said he fell in love with more than a quarter of
a century ago. While I cannot comment on how the speakers sounded BEFORE he
sent them back to Magnepan, I can attest that they sound very good now. As a
former owner of a pair of Tympani 3Cs with it's EIGHT panels, I can say that
for $1900, he certainly got a bargain.

I thought the amplifier was a good product, but after many years I sold it,
too (I read somewhere that the Hitachi mos-fets were a discontinued item).
I didn't want the thing to die on me, and then not be able to get it
repaired. One cannot be too sentimental about these things.

Acoustat is now made in Gaungzhou, a city where the midday sun appears as
the moon to the naked eye. There are rich people in tri-city area of GZ,
Shenzhen, and HK (across the bay), but the average Chinese cannot afford
much of a hi fi system, and they are probably not interested in any case.
It's all television and iPod knock offs. I wonder where they are exporting
the panels, since there is currently no US presence?

Looking at their press releases, I thought I saw something about them having
a substantial European presence.