Amps from the 1980's -- What gear holds up sonically? Reliably?

Great thread Erik! I was 20 years old in 1980, so the 80s gear was my intro into high end gear having owned a Mitsubishi DA-R8 rec’r & B&O RX tt in the early 80s to owning a B&K ST-140,  Music Reference RM5 pre & Rega Planar 3 by the end of the 80s.

i also had a TAS & Stereophile subscription back then and several issues of HiFi Heretic & other defunct magazines as well, so I ended up reading about a whole lot of gear that I never got a chance to hear.

Currently, I’m thoroughly enjoying a Tandberg TIA 3012 integrated, (and Erik, as you mentioned earlier in a post), it is a deep, rich sound as compared to my aural memory of the B&K ST-140 sound, more like the higher powered EX442 Sonata that I owned back in the day too.

I’ve owned several other 80s products as well but a few that really stood out were the B&K amps, the Onix OA-21s & Onix OA 20/2 integrateds, cj MV50, Mac MC225,  Music Reference RM9 & RM5 pre. I also auditioned a VSP Labs TransMos 150 & an Acoustat TNT120 that were both very memorable as well.

I always wanted to hear/own a Perreaux amp, PS Audio 200C, Forte 1a, Spectral DMA50 or Motif amp as I thought they were amongst the coolest looking pieces back in the 80s.

Hey Boxer - you wouldn't happen to have one of Jeff Korneff's 6bq5 integrateds would you?  I had one many years ago, sold it to someone in Washington state who was using it with Klipschhorns.  What an amp!  I now have a couple custom SE int amps built by Ed Duda, the chief amp designer of the old Lafayette Radio Corp....  And yes, what a hobby!!!

I'm with you, I wouldn't hesitate on any of his designs either.  I had one of his early 6bq5's.  

Can you post a picture of it, I'd love to see what it looks like.  Very interesting with 6bq5's for input tubes....

Not sure how you post a picture here, but you can create a system in one of the other pages and list your system in one of the applicable categories and add pictures.

Funny, I'm finding myself squarely stuck in the 80's when it comes to audio gear and rather enjoying it.  Been a classic B&K guy for a long time as this is my 4th B&K amp (2 - ST140's, an EX442 Sonata & now an ST202), but would love to try Perreaux, VSP Labs, Moscode, Acoustat, PS Audio and maybe a couple others.  I like the sound of Mosfets too.  I had a Tandberg 3012 integrated that was lovely as well.  To me, nothing is as tubey, warm, and as reasonably priced as B&K, which is why I always tend to revisit this amp.  

Which 80's amps do you love and why?

I'm sorry, what does HEA stand for?

IMHO, I have found the class D or Chip Amps all are missing something.  To me, they all sound a little dry and all need a tube preamp to compliment them.  They are quite musical though :)