LOST (and Found): Neumann SX74 s/n 637

[tubefan]

A Neumann SX74 cutterhead was stolen from Fedex distribution in Inglewood CA this month. Serial number 637. If you find or are offered this head for sale please contact me, there will be a finder's reward. Thanks!

[tragwag]

holy crap, best of luck finding it! I'll keep an eye out

[rsimms3]

Is this the same one I just read about over on FB that found it's way home after 2 months?

[piaptk]

If so, let’s hear the story!

[tubefan]

Yes. Amazing news! Found by a man at a pretzel bakery. Unopened.

[soeffingodly]

Always nice to hear good news!

[piaptk]

Do you think it just fell out of the truck?

[rsimms3]

From the Acoustic Sounds FB page -

"Meet Jeremy (he’s on the left in the photos). On the right is audio technician Dylan Constan-Wahl. And this is a crazy story of a nearly frustrating loss and miraculous recovery you have to hear to believe.

As we’ve posted previously, we’re perpetuating the legacy of famed mastering engineer Doug Sax and his award-winning independent audio mastering company he founded, The Mastering Lab, by carrying on his high-quality mastering standard, using Doug’s own cutting lathe and workstation that we’ve relocated here and installed at Blue Heaven Studios.

To appreciate the story let’s start from the beginning. In our inventory we have three lathe cutter heads; one is a working model, two were in need of repairs. These are positively rare components — there were about 1,000 Neumann cutter heads originally made (none since 1982!), and about 550 or so Neumann VMS70 and VMS80 lathes, and maybe half of each are still in use around the world. The value of a functioning cutter head, therefore, is basically priceless.

Positively rare too, are the small number of technicians who repair Neumann cutter heads. We sent Dylan in Los Angeles the three heads; he sent the two broken units off to New York to one of only the few remaining repairmen in the field, who happens to be 87 years old! Dylan kept the working head for testing and cleaning.

So, Dylan did his thing; he boxed up the working head and sent it on its way back to Kansas. The package never arrived. Records showed the package with the missing cutter head was entered into the FedEx system — but never left California.

Gone forever, Acoustic Sounds CEO Chad Kassem thought, pessimistically. He didn’t know how much bad news/good news was to come in such a short span of time.

Wednesday night — almost two months since Dylan had shipped the working head back to Acoustic Sounds — Chad was home watching a movie when news via text came of the death of his friend and familiar Blues Masters at the Crossroads performer Leslie Johnson, a.k.a. Lazy Lester, in California. Less than 10 minutes later, his phone rang. He thought it was someone from Lester’s family since the call was coming from California. It was not.

The man on the phone was talking fast and sounded apologetic.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to call you but I’ve been procrastinating, you know?” the man said. He explained he’d been in a minor car collision recently; he offered cash to the other driver to pay for the damage. Some time afterward, out of the blue, he got a note from the driver and most of his cash was returned; the repair had been less costly than he’d assumed.

So Jeremy, the gentleman standing with Dylan in the photo, who had himself benefited from good fortune by the return of his money from the driver of the other crashed car, had an inspiration. Pay it forward, he thought. He glanced at the FedEx box resting on the table.

This particular FedEx box hadn’t been delivered. One day Jeremy was driving behind a FedEx truck, only the driver hadn’t securely latched the cargo door. As the truck hit a bump, the door came open and out popped a package. This package, that Jeremy had stopped and collected.

Our package. The package with the priceless wayward cutter head.

Jeremy and Chad spoke. He told Chad the whole crazy story. Chad told him Dylan would be by the bakery where Jeremy worked to collect the package; Chad offered the young man a reward but Jeremy refused — the feeling of being a good Samaritan was reward enough, he said.

Oh, and Dylan brought the cutter head to veteran mastering engineer Kevin Gray to check for any damage; none found — it works.

Chad had been frustrated by the loss of the box containing his lone already-working cutter head. And losing Lester to cancer was a heartbreaking blow. But then getting Jeremy’s call in such short order, with such a crazy tale of finding the valuable gear, was a lot to take in at once.

“It was a bad news/good news situation,” Chad says. “That was a lot of serious news in a short period of time.”

And Dylan and Jeremy? They cheered the happy ending to this tale with handshakes and a soft pretzel."

[Kris D]

Mike and I pay a guy to just follow Len around.... you wouldn’t believe how often a Westrex head falls out the window going over a speed bump...

[Ritter]

Both good and bad news, but an amazing recovery story for that cutter head.

[piaptk]

Not sure I’m reading this correctly, but he had the box sitting around for a while BEFORE his money for the car wreck was returned and he only decided to return the box he had retrieved from a FedEx truck AFTER someone else did a good deed?

I mean, obviously glad it found it’s way home, but this dude doesn’t exactly sound like a hero. Sounds like he was going to do something sketchy and then got guilted into doing the right thing by the universe.

Seems like the universe gets the hero points on this one.