Bargains on ebay?

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Originally Posted by DSJR

TDL should have been more forward looking, but didn't and they sort of fizzled out as a company. very sad IMO.

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In all honesty they should have stuck to their guns & continued making really decent high quality stuff like they did in the early days with real transmission lines & not reflex transmission lines (wtf? lol).

I think that trying to cater for the lower price ranges is what killed them ;) You only need to look at PMC who appear to have taken over TDLs' slot to realise this.

As you say, it's a real shame, their old studio monitor series still go for crazy money secondhand :)

I agree. Their big transmission lines were excellent and some of the best on the market.
I would love a pair of PMC's (not the little ones though). They are probably the only speaker that I would consider upgrading for.

Ooh that reminds me........................

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Originally Posted by nat8808

It's getting daft - and when you ask why they pulled the auction you can tell, even though they don't say so, that they sold it for nothing.

Recently for example there was a Pioneer set of CT-950 cassette, SA8800 or 9800, TX9800 or 8800 all with wooden sleeves and with a Pioneer record deck, sitting in the system section for £10 start. It ended within two days and when I asked why he ended it and that I was intending to bid £150, he said 'Your bid would have come in handy!' meaning he'd sold it outside of Ebay for less.

That's £600 worth of Pioneer at least (the wooden sleeves would fetch more than £150 alone) snapped up by someone taking advantage of ignorance.

Only thing you can do in the end is to do the same yourself or only the bargains will be filtered out by chancers.

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I purchased some decent Naim gear from a seller couple of years back. Due to being inundated with stupid offers he decided to end the auction early and put it up for a very generous BIN asking price just to get rid with his phone number at the bottom. (Not ebay BIN, his own version) I was the first to call as I was off work at the time.

Couple days later I went to pick up and as we exchanged he told me he had eventually switched off his phone after my call because he had become fed up with people calling and treating him like an ignorant tw*t by trying to blag the gear off him for a nominal sum. One guy phoned with a very aggressive manner insisting he 'MUST' sell the gear to him for a £100 or he'll really regret it! I felt really sorry for him and rather ashamed. He was a really nice bloke who probably knew what he had but didn't want to milk it for all its worth. He had enjoyed it in the early 90's but was now moving away to set up home with his young wife. The thing is the chances are every one of those idiots that called have probably at some point posted on one of the hi-fi forums. When I got home I really felt like venting my anger on the PFM and the Naim forums.

I know more about what happened at TDL and didn't happen there. I also knew the designer of their drive units who also did the basics on the RTL series (John Wright "voiced" them).

Nothing wrong with the long ported RTL technique. It made the cabinets more solid and took the bass down very well and cleanly with no boom. The odd RTL3's could be transformed for the better with the mid brought up in level (replacing a 15 Ohm resistor across the bass coil with a 30 or 35 Ohm one IIRC) and the loading was improved too..

PMC are catering to a severely shrinking market, selling far less but at higher prices, which are now almost beyond belief IMO for what's inside them.

TDL really died when John Wright passed away. I'll have to look his achievements up, but I believe he designed the Goldring G800 range of cartridges back in the day amongst other things.

I think the RTL was more like the Daline (decoupled anti resonant line) in function & these indeed can be pretty good to say the least. A friend of mine has a pair of Dalines designed by Focal & in all honesty you just wouldn't believe the depth & solidity of the bass being produced by a single 130mm driver per enclosure ;)

As I remember, on the RTL2 it was a full-width partition in an "L" shape running from the top of the bottom vent around 2/3rds back and then up about half way up inside. A long port really and that's how the designer basically described it IIRC...

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Originally Posted by DSJR

..... although the bubbly vinyl wraps were truly horrid.

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Ahh yes, the finish. Remeniscent of 70's woodgrain, sticky back fablon.:lol:

My freind has some (battered) RTL2's, he likes them! I haven't really heard them myself. IMF were nice too, I used to have some Super Compacts


BACK OT!

I have just bought this... can't wait!


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Interesting. I presume it uses the TV as a display screen?

Yes Andy, it has HDMI output, but I will be using a TFT with a DVI connector on it (leads on ebay for a few pounds)

here...

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=735

Actually it is David (Swampy) who should take the credit, he let us know about it!