Meinl Live Sound - can anyone tell their age?

[Mike]

Strangely enough, I dug out this old thread viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3277&hilit=meinl+live+sound
because I have just bought a 12" MEINL LIVE SOUND conga which does NOT resemble the Floatune mentioned in this thread at all.

I was lucky on Ebay, for the seller wrote "konga" and hardly anyone would bid, so I got the drum for only 40€ in good old Germany!

It´s good as a complement in our rehearsal room.

The features are convincing: Good hardware: Traditional rims, 10mm hooks, 9/16" Nuts, a very thick (4.5 mm), totally smooth skin,
massive single-ply construction (I mean solid staves) and all in all little wear and tear.

I show you these pics, but I am really curious: Does anyone know when this series was started (or rather, discontinued)?

Just a hunch: The print on the skin as well as the screwed-on handle tell me that it must be somewhat older.
BTW: Yes, there is a crack, but it is only small and can be mended easily.

Any advice is highly appreciated.

[maelopr]

I have a pair of Meinl Live Sound bongos, and if I can recall I got them around '94, '95. Excellent traditional hardware and also have the regular wood block in the middle (not the free-ride hardware). They sound awsome, I still use them regularly.

[Mike]

Thanks for the reply, maelopr!

SO I guess my conga is almost 15 years old!

Very good sound, it produces a round open tone and booming bass tones.

It´s amazing that you don´t really find much information on this series on the Net at all.

The wood seems to be rubberwood, but there is no "Made in Thailand" or anything on the label.
I wonder where the drum has been made then, but perhaps by the mid-1990s the outsourcing process had already started...
Dunno.