20 Vintage Amps That Prove They Really Don’t Make Them Like They Used To

I recently sold my 50 year old McIntosh MA6100, and purchased a brand new Micromega M1. Both sound great but the Micromega has more grip, more power, a remote control, Bluetooth and streaming. Both are beautiful to look at. New gear wins for me.

NAD's 3020 was my foray into refined audio reproduction. It was paired with Spectrum Audio 208A speakers, Toledo.  I bought the combo from a mail order place in Grand Rapids.  All my undergrad partygoer friends were blown away … great synergy, dynamics and sound for a 20 watt piece. 

I still have it.

Fun article!

I owned two of the amps in the article-Harman Kardon Citation II, Dynaco Stereo 70. Compared to the amps I have now ARC, Unison, they are euphonic and transients are slower. They were also lacking in top end, but so were the speakers that were made during this period.

Nostalgia plays a big part in this. Romanticizing about a past amp or lover elevates it's perceived status. Much like revisiting that gf we were so crazy about as a young man and finding disappointment, revisiting an old piece of gear disappoints. 

the few times ive read thru those headphonesty clickbait articles theyve been counterfactual, nonsense or just plain bad propaganda. 

in this case, i enjoyed looking at photos of these classic amps. 

I once owned that Bryston amp. 

Like many audiophiles, I am no longer a spring chicken, and have developed many systems over the decades. Roughly 45 years ago, I used the following system in my funky coach house in Evanston, IL:

 Bryston 4B amp ($1,200 then; ~$4,700 inflation adjusted)

APT-Holman pre-amp ($575 then; ~$2,200 IA)

Magnepan Tympani IVA speakers ($3,800; ~$15,000 IA)

Nakamichi 600 cassette deck ($600; ~$2300 IA)

B&O 4002 turntable (~$700; ~$2,700 IA)

And I paid for the system from tips that I earned as a waiter at a local restaurant, though most components were purchased second-hand.

All these amps were excellent designs for their days but many of them had negatives too. Parts are way better today(except possibly NOS tubes) and power supplies which are the true heart of an amplifier are way stronger today. Plus I'd never get near a non-linear single ended amp(Ongaku) that can't even produce a proper sine wave into a load(the negative half is not the same as the positive hald and that's endemic in singled ended topology).

Perhaps though we got more per dollar then(even with inflation figured in) in the old days given the zillion dollar costs of many of today's amps. And I did own a Stereo 70 and 1st generation ARC amps(mu Dual 70 was by far the least reliable amp I ever owned).

As with many things, we are nostalgic for days gone by.  However, I feel it would also be true to say "they sure didn't build things back then like they do today".  As knowledge and materials have improved over time, it would be unreasonable to think the best of anything made today, does not exceed the best of yesteryear.    

The design of many of these amps is timeless & in many ways as good as almost anything today. The parts quality on the other hand is all over the place w/ some good & some not great that can be really improved w/ better parts which many people have done.

The Conrad Johnson Premier Four which I owned in 1985 was probably the best 3 dimensional imaging amp I’ve ever heard & beautiful mid range & tone if not slightly  rolled off in the extreme frequencies. The Dyna Stereo 70 I grew up w/ was overall similar sound just much less power. Both are true classics! 

@atmasphere + 1

I have a Futterman Harvard Music H3a. Mine is a bit different than the photo here. Just a pair of HB5 pentodes connected to an Altec autoformer per channel. This was a special order to drive a low impedance speaker system. I bought it from the original owner who used it in the 60’s.

The Futterman OTL is NOT a circlotron! It is a totem - pole arrangement with one half of the output stage as a cathode follower and the other half having unity gain. Julius used 60db of feedback to reduce distortion and lower output impedance to make his circuit work with 8 ohm speakers.

That page is the biggest dealer in fluff, disinformation, and general weirdness that I've come across. I delete their posts when they show up in my FB feed.

@quincy This is an interesting article and worth reading. 

But the premise of the article is false. There are plenty of amps out there that are built 'like they used to' in that they are built with high quality parts and construction (including point to point wiring), meant to last as well as sound good. 

Wow!  Great story!  Thanks for sharing!

I owned two of them in my life and they were good...

My actual Sansui alpha is not the same as illustrated here but posterior of few years and the peak of Sansui tech.,..

He drives my headphone from the headphone out better than the best tube  headphone amplifier and pre-amplifier  i bought (a very TOP design very well known) but the difference were so staggering i returned the new tube amplifier immediately..

Think about that: a powerful Tube amp with a top linear power supply beaten by the headphone amp out of a vintage Sansui amplifier...

I thought i was upgrading changing my Sansui alpha and the return back cost me money but i dont regret the lesson...

Vintage top product dont means obsolete...

Vintage means you need to clean and put in in his original state, thats all...

( As a sidenote the TOP new headphone amplifier had a way better noise floor level  control but was unable to drive into the third dimension with natural timbre my heaphone AKG K340  it takes me 15 minutes to decide so much the difference was staggering in spite of a higher noise floor with the Sansui)