Listen to any audio professional who has made a name for himself as designer and manufacturer, Mark Levinson or John Curl for example, they've all been on the record saying the ascension of advancing design and manufacturing technologies has led to much better overall quality of both the parts and thus the end products. Vintage gear has a certain easy laidback sound that I can enjoy, but head to head with an upper end Levinson or even Parasound system quickly reminds one what hifi sounds like.
Did the Old Receivers Sound Good?
Before the high end started, we had all these receivers and integrated amps from Pioneer, Kenwood, Sansui, Sherwood, etc., all with incredible specs. Then somehow we decided that specs didn't matter and we started moving to the more esoteric stuff from Ampzilla, Krell and whoever, but the specs were not as good. My question is - Did the old Japanese stuff with the great specs sound better? I don't remember. I'm asking because many seem to be moving back to the "specs are everything" mindset and I was thinking about all that old stuff with so many zeros to the right of the decimal point.