Tír Na HiFi

Anyone remember Strathearn Audio?

I´ve just been through some of my inventory of my collection of Hi-Fi and I´ve come across some Strathearn-Audio decks that I have.
At the time I began collecting these decks I was living in Glengormley, Co. Antrim. I had a working SM2000 in black, around 1977, but I wanted a silver one. Then the company went bust! Like any collector I wanted to build up some spare parts. I couldn´t buy parts on their own so I began to collect different decks in various states of ill-repair from private owners. I managed to gather around 9 decks..... including a couple unused in their original boxes.

Over the years I have heard many negative "hand me down" stories of Japanese toy manufacturers and English bean-counters. That is what you will find on the Internet.........however there are some worldwide hi-fi affection-aires who seek this 1970s anomaly.

I just want to know what you guys in Ireland think of Strathearn? Also I would be very interested in any information you might have on Strathearn´s [Cranford University]´ investigations into a "Strathearn Amplifier"! I know there was a prototype. I have never seen it.

I welcome any information at all about Strathearn Audio. I would like to complete my history.....fact or fiction!

Stephen

a very big welcome to the forum -i enjoyed looking at your photo of your systeym -i have heard quite a few stories of stratherne i have one friend who knows quite a bit he told me he heard a large transmission loudspeaker of theres. also noel cloney had a stratherne record player which played backwards
-i have a friend in england who distributed klipsch in british isles and sold nottingham analogue record players to japan and tannoy to japan he speaks about stratherne i will ask him also his findings

Read up about Strathearn a while back. Memory a bit hazey, (and you may know this already) but the company was supposed to have been part funded by the British State, some sort of regeneration project for Belfast. Views online about their products seems mixed but there is a lot of praise for their hybrid ribbon drive units, which were used in the early versions or predecessor of the legendary Infinity IRS towers http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/archiv ... 25336.html