When they were young: introducing a few audio classics

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• Gotham Audio was owned by one Stephen Temmer, a man about whom nothing good can be said. He was a tyrant and a jerk and he made life difficult for anyone who wanted to own and use Neumann products in the US. He was probably the reason Neumann never did distribute much besides mics and record cutting equipment in the US.

• Neumann made wonderful power amplifiers and all manner of other stuff, most of which used odd tubes like the now famous EL156. Even the sockets were odd. The main reason German electronics never sold here was price, they were enormously expensive and American power amps were cheaper and just as good. Also most German equipment was 220-240 volt only. You had to run a 220 volt outlet or use a autoformer or transformer.

  We had a Wandel and Goltermann tunable FSM that was that way at work. They had a replacement power transformer specially made for it and installed. When we had to send it back for maintenance they sent it back because it was modified, without calling first. We had to put the original transformer back in and send it back again and they were real jerks. When HP came up with a box to replace it it was ceremoniously chucked off a bridge into the river and we never bought another German box again.

  Temmer was a bastard, but he wasn't any worse than those guys. Ethan Winer writes about him on his blog.... .ethanwiner.com/U47-FET.html