Classic Indian amps of late 70's

[hemantwaghe]

Actually I did some research and this looks like a Luxman K-8 with a black faceplate instead of the silver that was sold on the Luxman (it also had a wooden casing)...I compared the specs and they seems to match exactly...

Can anyone please correct me if I am wrong as I want to nail it down to the right deck and get it here in the US (decks like K-8 go for $20 to 30 here in the US) and I want to get one for nostalgia's sake as I have some sweet memories of this deck from my days as a teen in India...

Must be luxman K-8 as model Number matches exactly.Standard trick used by importer and grey operators ( I think they must be showing original cataloger to customers!!

 

[Harmonix]

Can anyone please correct me if I am wrong as I want to nail it down to the right deck and get it here in the US (decks like K-8 go for $20 to 30 here in the US) and I want to get one for nostalgia's sake as I have some sweet memories of this deck from my days as a teen in India...[/QUOTE]

Yes it was Luxman K-8 and it was Cosmic's first deck with tape bias control probably India's first. Prior to Luxman; Cosmic Cass-deck was well known for its co-badged Cosmic-Akai GX-C39D.

 

[ankj24]

isnt Ahuja a brand which had been there for many many years. i have been seeing them since my childhood. And i have heard some branded companies are outsourcing their product manufacturing to ahuja.

would be deligted to see manuals/info and very early ahuja equipment.

 

[bhaskarcan]

Finally - thanks to this forum I found the deck I recall from my teen years...It was the K8...and it was made by Cosmic...For some reason I kept thinking it was sold by Beltek.

Clearly this was a deck that was imported and re-badged as Cosmic...Anyone know who the original maker was (most likely Japanese)...

And does anyone still have this machine?

Thanks
Rajiv

Hi Rajiv,

Just saw your post. My elder brother has this deck(Cosmic K-8) in perfectly pristine condition. It really sounds fantastic. I never believed cassette sounds so good until I heard this one.

BTW can you tell me what is "Sendust head" & "double gap" erasing? I've never heard them in any deck.

Best regards,

Bhaskar

 

[sarith]

ARPHI 1994 product brochure​

Is there a way to bring back these era or some how go back in time?

 

[prepress]

Why don't you look at THIS THREAD, it is AWESOME.

 

[Naturelover]

Why don't you look at THIS THREAD, it is AWESOME.

And this one.

 

[tanaka]

I owned the 30 Watt Cosmic amp and the cosmic bookshelf speakers. I don't remember the Garrard player but in those days the sound was remarkable.

 

[Danieljohn]

Hi
thanks for posting these pics Anil we had covox-5000 speakers with stereomaster LAB-3000 amplifier & cogram-4000 turntable enjoyed a lot:yahoo: somehow we lost them to bad times:sad: anyway now i have covox-7000 but sadly fullrange drivers been reconed before i purchased i tried Bolton but they too closed bcuz of Mr.Monga is no more so i'm still searching for covox-5000/7000 speakers in original condition & stereomaster 6000/5000/5000 amplifiers with VU meters last but not the least Cogram-4000 turntable

The pictures brought back a flood of old memories.

Sorry Guys, I do Not share your enthusiasm for Cosmic products. Personally I found their sound VERY poor and the products shoddy.

As an engineer, when I looked inside, it was even worse than the outside

The CO-60 was probably the least offensive of the COSMIC products. Their LAB 3000 and LAB 5000 Amps and speakers were Terrible sounding products, at fancy prices. I am glad that the company died.

COSMIC had to its credit, the registration of "KOSS", and "Nakamichi" Band names in India. It registered these and other brand names as its own brands, in India, and even tried marketing its shoddy products under these brand names.

Its best prioduct was probably the Akai GXC-39 Cassette Deck that it rebadged / sold under a JV in India.

On the other hand, there were FAR better products, buy other companies.

The NOVA amplifiers ( AN 101 and 201 ) were SUPERB for that time and age. Also the fit and finish was WAY superior.

I alos liked the BEVOX speakers.

And dont forget the Arphi "Super-Challenger" speakers. VERY Good products for that time.

There was also ENBEE who made some good amps and a 12 Band Equaliser...

Because you never heard COSMIC COVOX-7000/5000 speakers with stereomaster series LAB-6000/5000/3000 amplifiers if you ever do you will change your opnion hyeah:

Mr. Mrunalrane could you pls send me your Covox-1500 speakers pics to [email protected]

Hi Tanaka do you still have Cosmic bookshelf speakers if so which model are they

^ Because these guys are primarily analog players ... ?
And for digital equipment you need to have a certain expertise.


... am just guessing here though.

Hi Alpha you are absolutely right they wer pure Analog guys

Oh man COSMIC is what got me started out into audio.I still have my fathers Cosmic Lab 3000 MKII with the beautiful large VU's in pristine condition.I regularly power my Klipsch RF-7s with it and I am telling you this amp has soul,my yamaha pales in comparison,yes it is not as fast,but by god its good.Beautiful tonality,warmth and excellent power.
I also use the amp to power my headphones ,it delivers rocking power to the cans at a resistance level that just makes them sound better than any other amp I have paired them with.Still love staring at those VU's ,hypnotic stuff that.

Hi Adhiraj same here too man I agree with every word u said regarding sound quality & comparing with all the other stufffffhyeah: My Dad's Pioneer SE-205 Were driven by Cosmic stereomaster LAB-3000 only my amp had a remote button which let u select switching on/off the speakers while listening music thru headphones wher as ur MK2 had A/B speaker selector buttons which also helped the same thing. We too enjoyed staring those beautifull VU meters combined with Cogram 4000"s lights & needle sound effect wow we use to switch off the lights to enjoy its visuals :yahoo:

There is a shop in Kolkata where a friend of mine recently bought a Lab 3000 ,they sell a whole bunch of other vintage stuff,all refurbished,saw a few technics some old akai's. Will give the number if anyone wants.

:sos:O yes Adhi pls let me know [email protected]

I was also thinking of creating a new set of speakers along the lines of the Arphi Aquarius using two 12 inch eminence or RCF drivers with a high end ribbon tweeter.Basically the Aquarius in a newer avatar.Two big 12 inch mid basses with tweeters crossed over at 2000 Hz.Just have to find the damn room to put them in hehehe..............

:clapping:Thats great but I'm hoping you would be use one 12" Fullrange driver atleast that way u will have a pleasure of crossovering the ribbons at their sweetspot:licklips: [Above 10 khz ] with simple seamless first order networks Selecting A TL enclosure will give u a virtual 15" subwoofer effect Trust me on that Being owned them for more than 2 decades now

Kenwood was also there (rebadged !) in 80's.
My first secondhand system was this kenwood tape deck, pre Uranus sonodyne amp and sonodyne speakers with 8" woofer!Tape deck had soft controls
Unfortunately i never used the speakers much as I paired this with Bose 201`'s! (Used) Although in testing I felt that sonodyne spears sounded better than Bose ( in fact far better) my mind was not ready to accept that how a Indian speaker sound better than bose!( Than time i was %&*P( bosophile- whatever it means!!!

Later I sold those speakers for 800 or 1 K! - Now I felt those were good speakers!

Anyway people still swear by arphi speakers!!I've seen one with elaborate wood carved grill! I think the drivers were 15"not 12 and sound was rocking!

BTW I heard a lot about a Sikh Getelman in dadar ( central mumbai) who was expert in speakers building-especially 12 inch woofer one! k was told tht this guy is keeping the legacy of arphi alive ! Now any member can throw any light if this gentelman still functioning? Who is he?I heard similar stories about a parsee gentelman ...In fact founder of PULZ was earlier quiet active in HOME hi Fi -but now his focus is totally commercial....

I had appx 10 years old DNM Pace leaflets -but unfortunatly I lost them. Sad ..
Anyway in 1 Blog I found an Akai Bush scanned Ad
Ref(akai bush - Google Search)

Hi Hemant I wonder how you could have liked sonodyne & not Cosmic You even almost regret selling them now anyway Pls dont just go on criticize the whole Cosmic products be specific which particular Amp Speakers Combo you dint find good enough just like you mentioned CO 60 was least offensive but I dont like that amp at all I have that amp rightnow with me i prefer listening thru Kenwood KRX-69 over it thou I have its matching original condition Cosmic-JBL 8" Fullrange speakers:licklips: & Sadly Bose did not made any BIG Acoustic Wave Guide:licklips: speakers till now I wish in future they do if Bose would have introduced Acoustic Wave Guide 201's back then it could have sounded far superior than sonodyne's [ & Arphi's which you have sold it & 15"Arphi's which you mentionedhyeah:] then you would have felt much better that an imported [Mr.Amar Bose an Indian:lol:] made speakers sounded Great than a locally made sonodynes:clapping:

norge ,cosmic and sonodynes are so called audiophile companies of india.

:lol::clapping::cheers::thumbsup:hyeah::yahoo::licklips::signthankspin:Thanks & felt good hemant for Agreeing That Cosmic is an Audiophile company of india

hi, those cosmic amp adverts bring back so many memories....i remember when i was a 10 yr old kid, sitting for hours admiring these beauties on back-cover full page adverts in the Elektor magazine...really love these amps...never owned one though!!

Hi reuben same here too its just that we had them & me my younger brother use to stand in front of the speakers & enjoy the vibes:yahoo: it was fantastic being around them Great times Great Deck:licklips:

Hi Anil,

Fantastic thread you have made, really have been happy reading the response from fellow members.... keep it going!

Can someone post pics of the Cosmic LAB 3000 Amp & the speakers that were sold with it??? I haven't been able to find these pics/ they are special as they were part of my dad's audio set up & i was a young fella back then!!!

hyeah: Very very Special Denom not just bcuz our dad's owned them but technically they wer far superior than anything ever manufactured in india till now no indian maker was able to build speakers like Cosmic made Periodhyeah:

I have a phillips integrated tuner amp LH718 with full range drivers - never replaced. all functional, only the outer casing and amp facia's gotten aged..

Wow are these Philips Fullrange speakers 8"/12" Ticonal magnet ones:licklips: if so pls post few pics or send them to [email protected] if not any make Fullrange driver speakers Rocks compare to conventional speakers

We had arphi mini monitor speakers that were connected to an Sony amp and akai tape deck. All were purchased in 1982 with the amp and deck from germany and speakers from India. The amp died within 6 months and the speakers were in cold storage till 10 yrs back. Do not know how the arphi`s sounded as i was 4 yrs old then.

My dad gave away the akai deck to a friend. Unfortunately i have no pictures of the deck since i was young then. The deck was amazing- feather touch tape deck operation, fluorescent bar graph display --other features i do not remember.

The Sony deck was based on STK series chip with o/p of 40+40 watt RMS. Again it had a SMPS power supply (Ligato linear- pulse power supply) which was new then. The amp was covered with cloth while playing and the PS died due to overheating. I have the manual for the amp and specs are amazing. The amp is still with me.

10 yrs back powered the arphi with diff amps but the sound was terrible. The paper cones deteriorated and soon all drivers died and were replaced with boltons. Now the sound quality is acceptable. It was a 2 way speaker with 8" woofer and passive radiator at the top. It is my main setup now.

In comparision cosmic deck and speaker combo was amazing. Heard it at a cassete dealer in 90`s who used it as a demo unit for playing tapes. The deck was mechanical with gaudy LED bars for level display. Was not expecting much but during a demo the sound quality blew me away. The bass was very deep and clear midrange- music i had never heard before.

:clapping:hyeah::licklips: Tejas naidu Thanks for sharing you experiences Cosmic did the very same thing to us througout our Lifes

 

[hemantwaghe]

Because you never heard COSMIC COVOX-7000/5000 speakers with stereomaster series LAB-6000/5000/3000 amplifiers if you ever do you will change your opnion hyeah:

The poster Indianears have some top of the line audio components and worked on some very good stuff .. so his advise cannot ignored.

Danieljohn you have pretty romantic views about Cosmic but my opinion too is they were pretty average . add to that horrible build quality . In fact inmy opinion mass market Technics and Sansui amps and even speakers beat cosmic hands down . and I am not referring Mid / High end models ( Like AU D 11 , AU 717 }

In fact many of those mass market Jap amps are solidly build and are still usable today . This cannot be said about cosmic. If you are thinking that Good Condition Cosmic is not available as it is "rare" or owners are "not parting" with it . no - most of them do not remain in good condition.. also being a dealer I can say that many of the dealers do not touch cosmic as it is difficult to sell ,compared to what price you buy and comparing the japanese stuff you get . and in terms of reliabality Japanese stuff wins hands down

By the way we talked in past right ? But sad to say I normally do NOT keep Cosmic ...

 

[Danieljohn]

The poster Indianears have some top of the line audio components and worked on some very good stuff .. so his advise cannot ignored.

Danieljohn you have pretty romantic views about Cosmic but my opinion too is they were pretty average . add to that horrible build quality . In fact inmy opinion mass market Technics and Sansui amps and even speakers beat cosmic hands down . and I am not referring Mid / High end models ( Like AU D 11 , AU 717 }

In fact many of those mass market Jap amps are solidly build and are still usable today . This cannot be said about cosmic. If you are thinking that Good Condition Cosmic is not available as it is "rare" or owners are "not parting" with it . no - most of them do not remain in good condition.. also being a dealer I can say that many of the dealers do not touch cosmic as it is difficult to sell ,compared to what price you buy and comparing the japanese stuff you get . and in terms of reliabality Japanese stuff wins hands down

By the way we talked in past right ? But sad to say I normally do NOT keep Cosmic ...

hemantwaghe inside my stereomaster LAB-3000 & Cogram 4000 most of the components are imported infact my speakers were Coral FLAT-10 [japanese] & Cosmic was the only company who offered TL encloures combined with high sensitivty big 12"/10" fullrange drivers [Triaxials Dual cone+Vented Alloy Dome in the center taking care of ultra highs] Alnico magnet tweeters & simple seamlesslly crossovering first order networks.
now could u you Pls inform me which reliable Japanese maker made TL's with 12"or 10" Frds I would love to own them I completely agree with you hemantwaghe when it comes to reliabality of amplifiers I experienced that a lot but we loved their speakers a lot & I know you never heard COSMIC COVOX-7000/5000 speakers with stereomaster series LAB-6000/5000/3000 amplifiers or seen inside amplifiers. No we dint

 

[hemantwaghe]

hemantwaghe inside my stereomaster LAB-3000 & Cogram 4000 most of the components are imported infact my speakers were Coral FLAT-10 [japanese] & Cosmic was the only company who offered TL encloures combined with high sensitivty big 12"/10" fullrange drivers [Triaxials Dual cone+Vented Alloy Dome in the center taking care of ultra highs] Alnico magnet tweeters & simple seamlesslly crossovering first order networks.
now could u you Pls inform me which reliable Japanese maker made TL's with 12"or 10" Frds I would love to own them I completely agree with you hemantwaghe when it comes to reliabality of amplifiers I experienced that a lot but we loved their speakers a lot & I know you never heard COSMIC COVOX-7000/5000 speakers with stereomaster series LAB-6000/5000/3000 amplifiers or seen inside amplifiers. No we dint

My mind cannot process word written after words .... will you construct some sentences in English please? you should respect your readers ..

 

[deba]

1970s and 80s were the true period of quality hifi.......now its all mp3 and sounddocks..........

 

[Danieljohn]

My mind cannot process word written after words .... will you construct some sentences in English please? you should respect your readers ..

:sad:Sorry Hemant I cant help with your mind related problems, I respect readers & you also, but not your opnions so get use to it or leave it
Cuz even if i talk to you directly in your language you wont be able to understand what Am I talking abt cuz our wavelength does not match

 

[hemantwaghe]

hyeah: Very very Special Denom not just bcuz our dad's owned them but technically they wer far superior than anything ever manufactured in india till now no indian maker was able to build speakers like Cosmic made Periodhyeah:

have you heard

cadence
audire
nibbana
rethm
acrostic portrait


where? with which gear ?

 

[sarith]

Hemant I respect readers not your opnions get use to it or leave it

I think Hemant was referring to using space/gap between sentences so it's easy on reader's eyes

 

[Danieljohn]

have you heard

cadence
audire
nibbana
rethm
acrostic portrait


where? with which gear ?

Hemant Its Acoustic Portrait not acrostic portrait & I respect all these makers a Lot, Especially Audire & Rethm line of products because they resembled my

speakers Infact in 2002 AV Expo The Second & Third Rethm speakers were displayed with 8" & 6" 16-Ohm Bolton & Lowther Fullrange drivers in Horn Speakers

wher as We had 4-Ohm [Lightning Quick] 10" Bolton Fullrange in a well built [superbly cross braced] TL's & I dont prefer light bass sounding horn speakers at all

to me only TL's will do & I like Audire for their association with Feastrex one of the ultimate [Only 9"] Fullrange driver maker in recent times but in india they too

have gone with only a sealed enclosure & passive radiator type setup for their speakers none of them made a big TL's with big 10"/12" Fullrange drivers.

Trust me Mr.Hemant no one can do what Cosmic had done :clapping: nibbana audio have TL's but they are all low sensitivity conventional small woofer tweeter

designes & Cadence wow I love their 845 Triode Amp But they run at lethal voltages very Dangerious. Lastly to me Cosmic is still my & lot of other cosmic

owner's India's only Legendry High-End Audio company who made Fantastic [Fullrange-TL-combo] Speakers:clapping:

 

[Danieljohn]

I think Hemant was referring to using space/gap between sentences so it's easy on reader's eyes

:sad:Hi Sarith yes i got that but I type & post very spontaneously I'll try to use space/gaps

 

[jls001]

speakers Infact in 2002 AV Expo The Second & Third Rethm speakers were displayed with 8" & 6" 16-Ohm Bolton & Lowther Fullrange drivers in Horn Speakers

Rethm uses/used Bolton drivers?

 

[sarith]

Rethm uses/used Bolton drivers?

I read somewhere (AV MAX article I guess) that they used Bolton 6" woofers for a model of their speakers which received good reviews in Europe. I guess the speakers were 1-3 lacs (I could be wrong)