8 Dec 2012
Wow! Fancy finding this on the internet!
I met Mike at the Heathrow Show in about 1982/3. He co-exhibited The Source in the room I was working in. I had a Linn Sondek at the time, and was setting it up for the show. I was just stunned by how completely the prototype of The Source blew it away, and I prevailed upon Mike to sell me one. I duly received one of the first production units (from a batch of five, as my memory tells me).
What Mike told me was that the manufacture of the first five units was so difficult that the vendor refused to accept further orders to the same specifications without a very significant price hike. Mike told me that further production would be done to lower manufacturing tolerances, but that he planned to offer a "Source Pro" model at higher price with the higher tolerances and a nice hardwood plinth, rather like the one on the picture at the top of your blog. Mine is all black. I don't know how that story ended up playing out.
I spoke with Mike a few times after that. I remember how much he enjoyed his Dahlquist DQ10's. Then, at one point, his phone stopped ringing and I heard no more. I had not heard that he died so young.
I still use my Source as my everyday turntable. I use an original Rega RB300 arm mounted on an Aluminium armboard I custom-designed for it so as to avoid having to use spacers. I have an Ortofon Kontrapunkt a. The drive belt is worn out, though.
I really enjoyed your blog post. Thank you!
Richard
3 Feb 2013
My name is Mike and in the early 1980's a friend, Doug and I both lived and worked in Fort McMurray Alberta Canada. We were both interested in HiFi and formed a small hobby company, Michael Douglas Audio, to build loudspeakers. We would buy our drive units from the UK. On one visit there I went to Wilmslow Audio and saw the Source turntable, I had to have one and took it back to Canada with me, my friend Doug was impressed and also bought one.
We ended up being the Canadian distributors for the turntable, we submitted it for review to a Canadian audio magazine of the day and it was a stellar report, it was adopted as their reference turntable. Mike was very happy about that.
I never personally met Mike but my friend Doug did at the Las Vegas Audio show. Mike brought over and gave him two of the then new larger power supplies for our personal turntables. We both still have our units and they both still work perfectly.
Thanks for your comment - not many people leave one - maybe they are shy, or there's nothing to generate controversy ....!
It was interesting to hear about the Source Pro as an option. That sounds very "Mike". I know he did have a couple of decks made with Rosewood plinths but whether the parts were higher tolerance or not I don't know. He did play around with variations of the basic bearing design.
Source-Odyssey made some decks with rosewood and also gold plating, but the parts were selected from the normal production run.
And, yes, I remember his Dahlquist DQ10s.
Feel free to send any photos you have of your deck and I'll stick them in the Gallery.
John