Good Article on Vintage vs New Hi Fi Equipment

Have you even heard them before? Just because you like something over something else does not make it better. Are you comparing a Ferrari over a Hugo? You might like the Hugo, but the Ferrari will smoke it in every way. C'mon, this is all about money, not technology, not vintage, not old gear. It's about money, people just do not have the money or care to spend it on upper end gear or anything for that matter, and they take it out on people that do. If you are happy with your gear, fine, but please do not compare it to higher end gear.

 

Yes it is. People are trying to compare less expensive gear against upper high end gear. It's all about money, nothing else. I'm sure if these people had the money, they would be buying more expensive gear and eating in good restaurants instead of McDonalds.

 

Right, and that could be a fair statement, but to compare them against some $20K speakers is ridicolous, and this is what some of these people are doing. The Nola Boxer's are some very fine speaker for the price.

 

I think people like their vintage gear simply because they've been listening to it for so long...not necessarily because it's better. It just sounds "right" to them.

 

If it is about money, then the 'good' old stuff, to buy now, is way overpriced.
Stuff folks have held, that is a good deal.
And i agree it is totally unfair to compar old stuff to new 'high end' stuff.
The problem IMO was the drift of the posts is that the old stuff is BETTER than the new stuff (at any price?)
If it is by price, then one has to allow inflation to enter the picture.
that old nickel candy bar now costs $1.25
Those 1953 Klipshorns would be a pretty penny adjusted for inflation.

 

I threw my HK 490 in a dumpster after a blast of straight DC smoked a set of speakers, it wasn't worth repairing IMO and I didn't want to foist it on anyone else.

 

That's the same exact way as I feel about it.

Some of the really good gear from 20-30 years ago still does sound great today! Some did have a certain sound, flavor, which is fine by me. My main amp was made in 1987 and it sounds quite fine, no flavor, just straight. Even audiophile(ish) if you like the audiophile cleaner sound. It's a fine sounding amp. It will hold it's own to $2500 amps, no problem. Maybe even a higher, or much higher priced amp.

But it is 25 years old so for a totally proper comparison it would have to be tuned up and new caps and maintenanced for a proper comparison. But I'd be willing to bet that it will hold it's own in any sound/feeling test right now. It's really a nice amp. But it is only 25 years old. (Sansui AU-X901 'Vintage', which is really a rebadged Japanese domestic AU-a707i. Is it a great amp? There are better, of course (but maybe not in vintage). But is it a really fine amp? Sure is!

Still using 1970 speakers too. 2 pair sound great, one needs new caps, and in the 4th pair I blew an impossible to find woofer. Oh well. I'll find one someday. All have AlNiCo magnets too! Are they great speakers, no. Do they sound really fine, yeah, they sound pretty nice, I think I'll keep em!! Maybe get a pair of JBLs someday...been saying that for 40 years! LOL.

I like my gear for what it is, but...

Yes, 'great vintage gear' can be purchased much cheaper than new gear, and still sound outrageous. And for the regular guy that would have a lot to do with it. Not everyone can drop $4500 down for a new amp. Let alone the rest of the system.

But some guys like me just like the 'quality vintage stuff'. For whatever reasons, for many reasons really.

Sound is one major reason, build quality another...but there are many other reasons too.

And having a fine sounding specific vintage rig is like 'something special' to us.

It's all fun!

 

Just like the historical fact that hot rodded American cars often beat the daylights out of expensive Ferraris in racing, the fact is that certain old units when properly upgraded are far superior to some new high end gear that is very expensive. Few people who buy high end audio can even read a schematic anymore much less understand the circuits and why they do or do not do certain things.

Some very expensive high end gear is in fact very good and some of it is in reality mediocre.

Just like Leica cameras, it is an undeniable fact that many of the most expensively PACKAGED high end audio equipment is in fact bought for prestige by technically ignorant people and is bought because it is expensive and can easily be discerned. The Leica is a great camera, although the M Series has been cheapened in manufacturing since the M3 and M4-2/M4-p, quiet, unobtrusive, reliable, the optics are excellent (but not better than the best Nikkors, but they don't come in M mount...) and everyone would like to have one: but the fact is, those sold new are often bought for prestige and status and to show off. Any camera salesman that says different is lying, pretty much, I've seen it.

This is not saying very expensive stereo equipment is not worth it, only that price and performance are only tangentially related.

It's also worth mentioning that a Ferrari is in some ways not a very good car, or at least, for many years they weren't. The reliability and ruggedness of them were just as bad as Yugos for decades.

 

Why do you think people went back to tubes? It was because tube equipment sounded better than the mass market SS equipment of the day. The new shiny solid state equipment was prestigious and stylish: the old tube stuff was dorky, weird and not fashionable. But it sounded better.

 

I have the money, I prefer vintage, and I rarely ever eat in a resturaunt. Almost never. Maybe 5 times in the last 6 years. Nothing wrong with a Wendy's 1/2 pounder with fries!! Even a BK Whopper works just fine! Or a sub from the food store. I ate on the road for 30+ years non-stop...I've had enough resturaunt food. Unless it's in Korea, Thailand, or Japan. In Singapore, which has super outstanding resturaunts and hawker stands, I just usually eat what everyone else is eating. Just regular. And have a few Tigers.

I wouldn't want a high-end stereo. No need really. I, myself, prefer vintage gear anyway. Why? Sounds great and it just fills a special place in my heart and soul. No new gear could ever do that. Even when it's turned off, and when I look at it, it sure puts a smile on my face!!

It does sound fine, and when it's playing I rarely ever think about the equipment. I'm just listening to the music. But I really do love my 1970 wooden speaker stands!!

It did take me 5 years, and 6 countries, to find all this very specific stuff. So...it is kinda special, to me anyway, even my NOS 1980 Ortofon MM cart, from Germany, which sounds outstanding really. They made good carts back then. (And now too.)

I really wouldn't want new equipment. But that's just me. But I do have a new CD player, but's that's it. The new CD players do sound great! Which is why it's my only new piece of equipment. Everything else is old, or older, or way old. Perfect!

Now if I could only get a 1964 Sansui AU-111 tube amp!! But I really don't have the room for it. But I'd make room for that!! Again, maybe someday. Just like the JBLs, it's been 40 years but I really don't want to rush into anything! Maybe someday. The stereo sounds fine as is.

 

My system, apart from the universal player and the phono pre, is exclusively vintage. I'd love to upgrade to modern higher-end stuff if I had the money.

 

I was thinking to go today and check out a working Technics SU 8080 integrated amp from 1976, for a reasonable enough price - the equivalent of 65 litres of diesel.
As prices were being mentioned before, I see that in 1976 it cost in the USA $450, which in 2012 is calculated to be $1600
A modest 250% inflation in the USA, but 560% in the UK.

Is there a checklist of things you can do which would give a fair idea of the condition of the innards?

 

My take on 70's gear having experienced at least mid-fi stuff at the time is that generaly amplifiers where inferior. Those early 70's Sansui solid states though had a nice almost valve like sound. The cheaply made NAD 3020 from c1978 blew away all but the most expensive Japanese bling amps due to better real world speaker driving ability and simplicity. This in my view started the trend (in UK at least) towards minamilism.

The vintage tube stuff from 50's/60's was better so it's no coincidence that there has been a return to amps based on these designs with modern components. Conclusion is much modern gear is superior if you can afford the prices for the mid range to high end equipment. If you are on a budget 'Classic' may be the way to go but only for certain selected models and then usualy they will need refurbishment.

 

Ive found that in "general" the upper mid stuff ( which Is what I call it) from the 70s and 80s era, the likes of NAD, ADCOM, Harman Kardon and a few others, was always superior up through the pre-video age stuff from Pioneer, Technics, Sony and Kenwood and so on.

Those brands, the "Japanese ones", for lack of a better word, were always more about Power bang for the buck, lots of controls, and flashy displays, but no real power into low impedance loads, or not much current for sustained deep bass at high levels.

The upper mid stuff I mentioned seemed to be mostly all about decent but not fantastic sound quatlity, in a fairly austere layout.

My old HK actually has all SEPARATE components, resistors, caps, etc, not Integrated circuits, AND has immense Power reserve for a lowly 20 WPC unit.

My newer HK with more video type crap, and Surround it rated at I believe 85 WPC and its not as good sounding as the little 80s unit.

 

2012 Klipschorns would be a start. I like the sound better than the Palladium P-39F Floorstanding Speaker which is $20K a pair.

 

The NAD might have been better sounding. But it is a 30 watts/channel amp. Used as one it was reliable and great sounding on efficient speakers. But that Soft Clipping and so called dynamic headroom was only good for millisecond peaks. Quite a number of these amps were paired with unsuitable speakers which made some of them prone to needing repair often. And asked to deliver more than they could really deliver. The wattage wars began due to the common popular speakers in use back then, the acoustic suspension AR, KLH, Advent, EPI, ADS and their ilk.. All of which needed gobs of power and high damping factor for best bass control. The Bose 901 also popular for years needed high amounts of power to play best.

 

I have two vintage '70s Sansui receivers which I had restored 2 years ago. One is my beloved G-4700 which in the fall of 1978 I paid a (at the time) whopping $500 for. It sounds absolutely beautiful, and I have it paired with modern Paradigm Titan Monitors. Does it exceed the performance of modern high-end gear? No, but its sound is really, really nice. The other is a 1975 model of the Sansui QRX-6001 QS 4-Channel receiver, and it too sounds great. I've always found that Sansui gear of that time was very well designed and made.

 

You can find examples of really fine gear from any decade- it is really hard to make general statements over which era is better. I love vintage gear and I love tubes, but what I DO like about some contemporary high-end gear is that it often is based on vintage technology, but they also take advantage of advancements in technology. A perfect example is some of the modern SETamps. Based on a design from the 40s, but with vastly superior transformers in many cases (though with a high price tag to go with it).

For average components, vintage stuff has the advantage of discrete components vesus today's curcuit boards, but the high-end stuff usually has high grade disctrete components.

But I would take a nicely restored Fischer or Sansui over a modern Sony or Denon any day.

 

Why would I have not listened to the system in my own living room? lol... Why is it about money? I never even consider money when deciding what my music sounds best thru. I just dont find my modern living room system nearly as enjoyable as my basement and den setups, despite it costing an arm and a leg more. And since they are all systems that play music in my house, I will indeed compare them despite their cost differential

 

NO ONE built single ended amps as anything but the cheapest and lowest power output section feasible until the Japanese started doing it in the late sixties and early seventies. The WE 91 was simply the ERPI version of a Bell and Howell, Kodak, or Moviola listen-to-the-soundtrack-for-cuing type of amplifier. It was assumed (essentially correctly) that push pull was better in every way as long as you had a differential driver to run it with.

The Japanese started doing it and no one over here knew anything about it until an article called "Tubes in Japan" by Alan Douglas-a non-audiophile, marine electronic engineer and antique radio buff who had decided to learn to read Japanese-was published in Ed Dell's magazine. I knew a LOT of hard bitten DIY tube guys back then and my dad did a lot of this work himself and neither I nor anyone I knew knew about this, so I am safe in saying no one did. If they did not one word appeared in the mainstream hi-fi, high end, or hobby electronic magazines. Within a couple of years the existing tube high end commercial builders (Capt. Catchfire was the only exception, although Dennis Had did some just after that) were all talking in interviews why they did not build single ended, and Joe Roberts-trained as a Boasian anthropologist-started his 'Sound Practices' magazine. I saw this whole thing from the ground up and I'm just over fifty. Already this is forgotten history.

 

Bingo. Some of these units are pushing 40-50 years old or more. Like a classic car many of them need a lot of TLC to be restored in order to improve long term reliability and fidelity, if you don't do that many of these units are garbage and you are better off buying something new. When they are in good condition or restored they just as capable of doing the job as anything else.

 

Bingo again. Fisher 500C, McIntosh C29 and MC2105, Dual 701 and 1019, Nak Dragon, various speakers, all restored by people who know what they're doing. The latest era audio I own are a pair of B&W 805 Nautilus speakers and they're great but I enjoy my 1968 restored KLH Model 5 speakers just as much. TLC is what it's all about IMO.

 

I went from a SX-1010, which i quite liked... to a Scott 222C, just b/c i wanted to try tubes, now to a 1990-ish Sony STR GX-80ES... and i'm totally digging it. sounds great, and modern enough that i don't really have to worry about it. i guess if it blows up, i'll probably have to throw it away... but i only paid $50 for it!

 

Let's hope there's no explosions. But I agree there is nothing worse than paying a lot of money for something only to have it break down or blow up. What a bummer. That's why I pretty much only buy cheap stuff these days so I don't have to worry about it.

 

I first caught wind of this trend in the summer of 1975, when some friends and I drove down to Hope for a tour of the Klipsch factory. At the end, when they showed us their then-new R&D test and listening room, there was a pile of Japanese language hifi mags with pictures of various direct-heated triode amps. They also had some product brochures there for Onlife Research (Dynavector) tube amps, also in Japanese. The engineer there was kind of joking about it, mostly because of the high quoted distortion numbers. One of PWK's famous quotes was "What the world needs is a good 10-watt amplifier", and this seems to be evidence that he was still looking for one in 1975.