What were considered high end audiophile components in the 50's?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Murphy13, Sep 8, 2014.

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  1. rl1856

    rl1856 Forum Resident

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  2. rl1856

    rl1856 Forum Resident

    Location:
    SC
    A rebuilt Fairchild, Russco or similar broadcast rim drive, when carefully mounted in a well designed plinth is capable of surprisingly good sound by today's standards. The problem is that some effort and forethought is required to get the best out of these TT- not everyone wants to invest the time or money so it becomes easy to criticize.
     
  3. HAmmer

    HAmmer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukee WI
    This is a great thread. Excellent reading
     
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  4. nm_west

    nm_west Forum Resident

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    Abq. NM. USA
    Maybe not high end to the masses, but certainly good enough for these old ears. :agree:
     
  5. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    Yes, as correctly stated the idler drive broadcast turntables are capable of amazing performance. But not plug and play. They need rebuilding idlers, replacing motor mounts and worn parts, cleaning, relubrication, and proper plinth systems. But they are very musical and super reliable and great sounding when fettled correctly.
     
  6. captwillard

    captwillard Forum Resident

    Location:
    Nashville
    I think you are commenting on sound quality, I was commenting on companies that helped to usher in high end audio as we know it. Of course there will always be debate if a product from Linn, Levinson, or other high end manufacturer is really worth it and I suppose it is up to the listener to decide. The LP 12 has been around for a long time, so people must think it is pretty good.
     
  7. fortherecord

    fortherecord Senior Member

    Location:
    Rochester, NY
    The Golden Age of HiFi /Stereo audio was 1957-1963. McIntosh, Marantz, and AR, were the kings in the States, and also Quad and LEAK in the UK. All before transistors took over. No doubt great advancements were made later in turntables and cartridges.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2014
  8. Burt

    Burt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kirkwood, MO
    That was the golden age of hi-fi as a consumer product, but 1949-1955 was when it was being worked out on a technical level and emphasis was placed on building as opposed to buying. You could buy a Dynaco cheaper than building if you didn't have a well stocked junk box and weren't inclined to scrounge surplus by about 1958 and the magazines found that the parts guys were much poorer advertising buyers so they de-emphasizd tech content in favor of lifestyle and consumerism. That was why they discontinued Audiocraft as Ed Dell correctly wrote.

    By about '64 the writing was on the wall for the dominance of Asian consumer manufacture, because we were putting all our engineering talent into defense contracting, space, jet engines, etc. and they had talent to devote to consumer, and also because they were prepared to do what it took to get market share and we were not going to stop them. Also, solid state changed the paradigm because while specs were a fair way of evaluating tube equipment-it cost money for shielding, parts matching, stout quiet power supplies and elaborately interleaved heavy transformers-solid state allowed you to fake it in a lot of ways. Especially after "operational amplifiers" went from $100 Philbricks to 25 cents apiece in 1973 dollars.
     
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  9. Burt

    Burt Forum Resident

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    Kirkwood, MO
    Stu was a very good designer whose designs are sadly misunderstood or they would be more emulated.
     
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  10. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    The Linn TT is excellent TT and an enduring classic but seriously how many people were buying these in the 70's?
    I'd heard of Thorens and Garrard a very long time before I'd heard of Linn.
    In Seattle in the mid-70's or so I went to the original Definitive Audio.
    AFAIK, they were the first and only Linn dealer that Seattle has ever had.
    I don't remember the price of Sondek but I do remember thinking NFW am I'm spending that much on a TT.
    Personally, I'd say as far as TTs, Dual, Thorens and Garrard did far, far more to introduce and convince people to buy high-end gear than Linn ever did.
    I'm not knocking Linn in this POV, what I was knocking them before about was introducing the High-End Tweak$$$$.
    This of course is an American perspective because that's where I live.
    Perhaps in England, Scotland, etc., more people were exposed to Linn earlier than I was.
    I would say that 2 enormous omissions in this thread are Jim Winey(Magnepan) and Bob Carver(Phase Linear).
    To me it's enjoyable to think back on those times and in a small way relive how f'ing astonishing the improvement we heard was.
     
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  11. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    Certainly the Japanese took more than a fair market share at the low to mid consumer level. I remember the Sony transistor radios, Teisco electric Guitars, and Japanese Christmas tree light bulbs. I remember the Christmas lamps that blew out almost immediately, (vs made in USA GE bulbs) my father mumbling "cheap J bulbs". The transistor radios were low priced and reliable. The Teisco guitars were in fact very cheaply made, advertised "steel reinforced neck" although non-adjustable which eventually bowed anyway. These were imported in droves by whatever name plate the buyer chose, Tele-Star, Tulio, Sears Silvertone or Wards Airline. In the midst of Beatlemania, they sold like crazy. My first electric guitar was a Tulio purchased at Big Scot discount department store. Eventually by the late 70's they took automobile industry. Whatever was originally made in America, the Japanese would improve upon the design, (with relentless persistence) and then eventually offer a better product at a lower price. This made possible the second golden age of audio, the solid state era from approx. 1969-1979... before inflation took its toll. The solid state audio components were indeed great sounding (upon their own merit) and affordable to the working person living from paycheck to paycheck. Magazines such as the vastly popular Stereo Review, High Fidelity, and Audio, tested them, romanced them, as their advertisers supported the magazine. I remember Julian Hirsch's articles, and the wealth of information, and education for a growing and very enthusiastic market.

    It was an exciting time for the mid level high fidelity enthusiast. You didn't need to be a hobbyist, nor affluent, just some knowledge of product and the love for them and the music they reproduced. My first system was Pioneer, an SA-500a amp at only 10 WPC, ( a great little amp) CS-66E sealed cabinet speakers, and the original AR turntable. This system was good enough to reproduce symphonic music program faithfully or The Moody Blues, Tubular Bells, or Edgar Winter's Frankenstein with the kick drum hitting you hard in the stomach. This was a generation who invested time into their hobby, and knew stats and how to interpret them.

    This was also a time that established companies such as Marantz and McIntosh went solid state. I can not recall any tube gear being advertised nor tested, although a few may have been featured. By the late 70's, inflation forced the manufacturers to raise the price, or make quality compromises, (or both) many who elected to maintain quality of internal components but rather made compromises in the cosmetics, going to fake woodgrain contact paper (that peels off in time) and plastic knobs. Eventually by the early 80's operational amplifiers replaced discrete transistor topography, or prices increased beyond affordability. The transition marked the end of the golden era of solid state, as these op amps out-spec'd discrete transistor, but not well received by audio enthusiasts. They cited the sound lacked depth and life, too sterile, much as the tube aficionados complained about the transition to solid state back in the early 60's.

    I believe it was during the early 80's as solid state has lost its teeth, that there was a new wave of tube high end gear, Mark Levinson, Krell, Hafler, Oracle, Acoustat, Apogee, thus the new term "high end" commensurate with price and uncompromised quality.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2014
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  12. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    oops! I am on the wrong track for the tube products, not Krell, not Hafler, and not the speakers I mentioned which are best matched with high current, high power solid state amps. For the tube gear, I should be thinking Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, Jadis... Certainly Levinson, Krell, and Hafler were high end, as was Phase Linear and later on, Carver's own product line. As I see it, the 80's ushered in the high end consumer market, and conversely as the quality of mid priced hi fi products declined sharply.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2014
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  13. Burt

    Burt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kirkwood, MO
    Yes, the first ARC products were actually rebuilt Dynacos and they even sold kits for a while. TAA had an article on rebuilding a Dyna the ARC way, using the characteristic Boegli wiring of the opt primary as a cathode winding and cross coupling around the driver. The first commercial post-transistor revival tube products would have come out in the very late 70s and there were a number of them by '85 or '86. Carver was big on the other side, the first Krell products were fan cooled affairs and Mark Levinson was out there too. Hafler was still budget gear, but well made budget. I can't remember what year Carver came out with the tube Silver Seven, it was a big deal, but I don't know if they actually sold more than a couple. Jadis had a product that used a McIntosh style circuit as I recall but again I think very few were sold. Quicksilver was in the magazines a lot, c-j (they used lower case exclusively) and VTL. VTL put out a book with all their schematics and some discussion, I realized from that that they were using a copy of the Radford OPT at first glance which David Manley was QUITE surprised I'd figured out, when I met him. I was too busy looking at his then-new-wife who was fairly hot looking (as I recall she cleaned his clock a few years later) to pick up on that then.

    That was when Tubes in Japan blew open what was going on over there, and between a demented vacuum cleaner salesman in Kansas City and Joe Roberts' magazine coming out, single ended went from a DIY craze to commercial products in the saloons in roughly 18 months, and all of a sudden, measured performance was irrelevant. McIntosh, meanwhile was holding down the "scientific" fort and swearing "Never Again!" to the tube blitzkrieg. (Never Again! lasted until '99 or so as I recall.)

    To think, I saw all that, and may I say not in a shy way.......That part of the ride I was on the train. I remember it well.

    But yet, I'm still relatively young. It depresses me so many others of comparable age or older, do not.
     
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  14. captwillard

    captwillard Forum Resident

    Location:
    Nashville
    Linn put themselves in an elite class with other manufacturers to be sold through a network of Boutique shops. That is what I consider high-end. Whether, or not, it really is a superior product (or was) gets down to the old debate of are high end products worth it...at what point do dimshing returns set in. Every time I have heard a Linn, I liked it...a lot.
     
  15. Burt

    Burt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kirkwood, MO
    Linn's signature product, the LP12 turntable is a copy of another product and at its introduction featured a bearing that was not as good as its competition, a wooden plinth prone to warping and a motor used in small clocks. It has been upgraded a lot-the Cirkus bearing now used is quite good-but it was clearly marketing over substance and a deliberately snooty image was the idea.

    "Whether the high end product is worth it" depends on its really being better than the alternative. If it costs five times as much and is actually not any better, that is a different thing than if it is five times more expensive and two and a half times better, or even ten percent better. In the latter case, one may well say that the difference is worth it if one genuinely values the result.

    My father used to repair camera equipment and he always loved the people who stated that Zeiss Ikon or Leitz lenses were superior to all others. He would give them some 2 1/4 Kodachrome transparencies (oh, the days!) or if they were darkroom guys a few negatives to print (35mm Double X film stock in Acufine or Rodinal, don't remember which) and offer to buy them steaks for two at some place in LA if they could distinguish those he shot with the 80mm Planar or the Leitz whatever it was and those from Nikkors. He never bought anyone the steaks and he was 100 percent honest about it.
     
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  16. alfajim

    alfajim Forum Resident

    Location:
    san rafael ca
    Have you actually heard any Spike Jones? They are a hoot funny as he** my mom had two or three Spike Jones sets
     
  17. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    Amazing: Garrard 301 - $87! Nowadays you can't get them with an arm, refurbished and on a plinth for less than £800 and that's maybe the low end! Great post, thank you.
     
  18. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    Heck yeah!
     
  19. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    Even when translated into 2014 dollars, it would be a top bargain at $761.35!
     
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  20. Doghouse Riley

    Doghouse Riley Forum Resident

    Location:
    North West England
    Some of the classic 50s jazz albums, still selling today, were recorded on a portable Ampex reel to reel "multiple channel" tape recorder.
     
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  21. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Late 70's, early 80's, yes. Era of the Linn LP-12, and even more to the point, the era of John Curl's legendary Vendetta Research SCP-2 phono preamplifier. The Vendetta research phono preamp sold for just under $2000 in 1981, regarded as an absurdly high price for a stand-alone phono stage in an era when practically all receivers, amps and preamps had one built in. But the Vendetta research preamp was built to a better than Military standard and measured extraordinarily well. It enabled lovers of low-output moving coil cartridges to realize the full potential of those unwieldily beasts, with a black background and a degree of resolution simply not possible with transformer coupled LOMC cartridges. And as far as I can tell, the Vendetta Research preamp pretty much initiated the accelerating price of audio gear in the highest echelons. The SPC-2 was the first true 'cost-no-object' bit of audio gear.

    http://www.stereophile.com/phonopreamps/640/index.html

    John Curl's current work is a continuation of what he started with the Vendetta Research SPC-2:

    http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/constellation-audio-perseus-phono-preamplifier/

    One more thing—the cusp of the 80's was also the time when speaker cables and audio interconnects started to be sold as 'components', with prices closer to a 20 watt amp from Radio Shack than 20 feet of 16 gauge zip cord.
     
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  22. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    When I first started in audio in 1974, the high end wasn't officially a niche yet. But top of the line components did exist. The transition from DIY from the 50's to assembled high quality components was a slow transition which covered perhaps two decades. During that interim, high fidelity (high fidelity stereo) as it was called had become available to those who were not electronics geniuses, and who could afford ready to play mid-priced quality components, such as Pioneer, Sansui, Marantz, Tandberg, AR, ADC, Ohm, Epicure/Genesis, Boston, Magnepan, and even Lafayette and Radio Shack got into the act. There was the influx of countless makes and model components to choose from. I do recall reading in the Pioneer speaker literature, 16 Ga. zip cord was recommended and in the shortest lengths possible. There was no such thing as Monster cable, nor any other specialized audio cable.
     
  23. RDriftwood

    RDriftwood Vintage Member

    Location:
    Midwestern US

    I guess I missed this thread earlier and I'm late to the party. I wanted to thank Burt and others for the info and comments Re: Williamson design tube amps. I picked up a pair of Heathkit W4-AM monoblocks cheap a few years ago, had my tech check them, replace caps & such, and replaced some tubes with NOS tubes. The power transformers had been replaced with larger transformers before I bought them. (Apparently the W4-AMs had a high power transformer failure rate). I wasn't expecting them to have ultra high sound quality... but they do. I must admit they are not the prettiest amps but they sound great. I also have Fisher and McIntosh MC30 tube monoblocks and the W4-AMs hold their own in comparison (especially considering the cost) - but with a little less power. I'm currently using them to power Tannoy System 8 monitors in my home studio and they sound absolutely wonderful compared to the amp I was using previously for that purpose (a Hafler solid state P230). I bought the Hafler new in the '90s and never did like the sound of it - way too harsh sounding for me.

    Pics of the W4-AM amps here...
    http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...ed-tube-amps-i-need-help.320459/#post-9000279
     
  24. bluesky

    bluesky Senior Member

    Location:
    south florida, usa
    Scott too.
     
  25. Burt

    Burt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kirkwood, MO
    They weren't exactly hard transitions, it was more of "what was being brought to people's attention". There never was a time when you had to build your own equipment, there were always commercially made electronics and complete speaker assemblies. Nor was there an end to people who did build their own. The percentages changed of course.

    McIntosh started selling amplifiers in about 1950-1952 and high quality electronics made then certainly included several others. Notable high quality electronics back then included the REL 646 "tuner"-really a self contained receiver-the Brook triode amplifiers, and several Stromberg-Carlsen units. Very few people ever built an FM tuner except from kits with pre-aligned RF strips because the needed RF design skills and test equipment were beyond even the experienced ham radio operators of the times.

    Audio homebrewing really had two golden ages, the late forties and early to mid-1950s, and the late 70s through mid-80s when Ed Dell's The Audio Amateur published many world class products and supplied parts through Old Colony Sound Lab. Unfortunately, the early high end saloon owners and writers for the "mainstream" high end magazines pretended as though this just wasn't happening. Where DIY really impacted the later high end market was after Joe Roberts published his Sound Practices "zine" (and it was a "zine" much like Star Trek fanzines [both regular and a subgenre called K/S] and, say, MLC the Madonna fan club magazine) and a fair number of people who had no previous interest in electronics or building stuff started building single ended triode amps and horn speaker setups. This later crew was primarily "urban hipsters" who had never seen nor would have been interested in Ed Dell's magazines nor mainstream electronics publications.

    However, I am pretty sure Roberts had never even heard of any of this stuff before Alan Douglas had an article on the Japanese tube audio phenomenon published in TAA. Much of the appeal of this "ultra-fi" (ahem) genre was that it involved very simple circuits that took little technicianship or knowledge of circuit theory to make work. When these things became trendy, and the hi-fi saloon owners felt they had to cater to this market commercially made units came on the market from many vendors. While ARC, conrad-johnson, and the other better established vendors eschewed that market, people like Cary Audio /Dennis Had, Wright Sound, and others were eager to fill the demand and did.

    This was significant because while companies like ARC (for example) always combined claims of superior perceived sonics with measurements reasonably congruent to what mainstream equipment offered, the SET generally measured dismally by accepted standards. This changed the official line of high end salesmen correspondingly.
     
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