I think it's always difficult to compare old hifi equipment w/ new stuff for the obvious reason the former is "old" & probably does not sound as good as it once did. Who bought a receiver back then & didn't use it much & took great care of it? Not many! Besides that, some of the parts themselves wearing out or getting very noisy even if well cared for?
That said, I find it interesting that the better quality tube based equipment from the 60's (Mac, HK, Marantz, Fisher etc.), if brought up to original specs as needed, can still mostly hold their own vs. much of today's stuff that isn't heroically sized / priced. Forget about amps or preamps that cost north of $10K. There simply was no amp or preamp that cost that much back then even adjusted for inflation assuming about the value of the dollar is about 1/10 what is was back in 1960.
If a company can't make a great sounding amp, pre amp, DAC etc. that is very reliable for $20K, $50K, $100K or whatever absurd amount beyond that, they're in the wrong business. You can buy a very nice car (BMW, Merceds, Audi, Lexus etc) w/ a half decent sound system for that which has WAY more complexity, parts costs, engineering & can get you to & from your favorite hifi store in style!
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Crustycoot, yep, similar findings.
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They had character. You knew it was a Marantz when you heard it, a Sansui, an Onkyo, a Kenwood, or a Mac. Each had its own sound. I don’t know if you can really compare that in todays terms…..they all sound more alike in my opinion.
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Try to remember that quality of electronics in the 50s & 60s was judged by Stereo Review and Audio on their specs. Even design engineers of the era were spec oriented. When subjective listening came along with Stereophile and TAS specs went out the window critically. They are both important but the overall sound of a system, not one component, is what matters. Did Macintosh get better when they went to solid state from tubes? Better specs but less great sound. I came to realize recently that my whole system had been voiced subconsciously around my Counterpoint hybrid amp. When it and it's tubed input died it created whole bag of worms from front end pieces to cables trying to restore synergy with the speakers (ML stats).1
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We should add, at the same time some darn good sounding speakers were becoming affordable, AR turntable changed things, and the music content was revolutionary!!!
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Worked in a couple of stores in the 70's that sold a wide selection of receivers from most of the "hot" electronics companies of the day. There were definite levels of quality in build and also in sound between brands. It wasn't all that difficult to pick out certain brands in blind tests on a pretty consistent basis. I am not into calling out the weak sisters (we thought) of the day. I recently bought a really nice oldie from my personal favorite line of the day. Always loved the look and performance from back then. The look is still great but performance wise it has lost a lot of its shine. I still love the look.
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Selling audio in the 70’s and early 80’s, I went through a lot of equipment for my personal system. The best receiver I ever owned was a Kenwood KR9400. It was a beast but also sounded excellent. I was driving a pair of Rectilinear 7 tower speakers, around $800.00 a pair with a Thorens TD 125AB Mark II turntable and a Shure V15 type III cartridge. I also had the Advent cassette deck which was a rebranded Wollensack (3M) deck. I have vivid memories of the sound of that system which was all good. Like a dope, I sold it when the next latest and greatest thing came along. It took a long time but I finally learned my lesson.
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I have all marantz vintage separates, recapped vs recapped marantz receivers. Marantz 15,16,250,500 amp with marantz 7t, 7c, 33, 3300 all sound better then the 22xx series.
Marantz 18 receiver can sound very good, marantz 15 and 7t and marantz 20 in one.
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depends... I gave up on the "vintages" from the 1970s after I did some serious A/B testing vs. the newer little Marantz nr1200 amp and that little Marantz blew 'em all away (including the vintage Marantz)
that said, I have used an Onkyo Integra receiver from 1986 with excellent results for years... tx88
also, my totl Pioneer Elite receiver from 1999 sounds rich, deep, gorgeous
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Do any members out there have a vintage stereo shop. that way we could compare old equipment versus new equipment, head to head in the same room on the same speakers. I would like to hear the results of this if somebody out there can do this for us please. I also have a question the modern equipment does have room correction which is going to give it an advantage, but is there a way to add correction to older equipment like that? I would also like to see a comparison of old tube equipment versus new to equipment and old transistor equipment versus new and just find out which is the best. Hey, this is a great subject, way to go. Very interesting.
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I wish there was a shop @jason-mc9. Why I work on my own equipment. New vs vintage really isn't a fair comparison unless capacitors have been charged to match new performance.
I have always heard huge improvement over a recap. 40-50-70 year old capacitors just don't work the same as new.
@curtdr nr1200 marantz? I would have to take a listen. But I directly compared a marantz 7t with marantz 16b recapped serviced. Upgraded signal caps, filter caps, change out of spec resisters.
I compared it to a Marantz PM8006 integrated $1500. There was no comparison with 7t and 16b were so much better. Friend has a marantz 30 class D integrated, he was shocked I really wanted to like the PM8006 but felt sterile, flat cold. Nr1200 being more of an intro amp. I don't see it beating PM8006 or a dual mono block separates from the 70s.
22xx serial 1970s I could see it beating it but I am open minded take listen when i get a chance.
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Of course to be fair the old equipment would have to have new caps and have all the parts and switches cleaned but what I really want to know is old spec tube equipment, new spec tube equipment, old spec transistors and new spec transistors all factory fresh all tested at the same time in the same listening room I’m sure each is going to sound good with certain speakers and not with others but inquiring minds want to know
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In Junior High School (70’s) I bought a Pioneer SX 535 with lawn money, and after awhile I came to the conclusion it was terrible. My next purchase as an audio salesman was a Kenwood KA-5500 integrated. It was a sweet sounding amplifier, that I wish I still had. I wish I’d have used my salesman’s discount to buy a Marantz, but I wasn’t a fan of FM so I’m sure the Kenwood was the better choice. Marantz had the great knobs, especially the tuning knob but the Kenwood had meters!
My guess is that the Kenwood would still stand up well to modern amps… my buddy who had a Dynaco ST 70 amp liked the sound of my Kenwood.
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My first system purchased in 1973 was a Pioneer SX828 with Large Advent speakers, an Advent cassette deck, a Thorens TD160 turn table, and a Sure V15 Cartridge. The Pioneer, putting out 54 watts into 8 Ohms, is currently driving DCM Time Windows in a second home condo in Vermont. The DCMs from my 80s system. The source is a BlueSound Node.
Overall character of a classic receiver is smooth and sweet as chocolate pudding that many people like and that is forgiving of poorly engineered recordings but presents an opaque picture of reality unlike modern electronics that are as clear as a Riedel wine glass in the right system. Dynamics are acceptable but far from the micro dynamic and macro dynamic resolution produced by today’s equipment. Resolution in general is characterized by absence thereof. Images are distinct but without the air that is present between images that presents the three dimensional, dense, and palpable images of today’s equipment. Timbre makes instruments recognizable but that’s about it. The tuners are able to pull in the signal well in metro areas and sound as acceptable as FM can sound. That said, they produce very nice un-fatiguing sound four hours of background listening and that renters of my ski condo enjoy. I also enjoy the nostalgic sound when there for background listening. They are built for reliability if maintained by cleaning volume and balance controls and recapping the few caps they have as evidenced by my almost 50 year old unit. In conclusion, they are far from todays standards, pretty to look at (oiled wood, blue and white lights glowing, satin finished metal), reliable, and excellent for background listening. Some like them better than today’s equipment. Appreciate them for what they are. To each our own ears. It amazes me how far technology in our hobby has evolved
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True. Electronics have come “a long way.” Todays electronics are wave soldered using micro component SMDs and SMD semiconductors, robotically positioned on the computer designed boards, from computer designed and modeled circuits.
The old stuff was designed by hand, individual circuits using discrete components.
Yeah, we’ve come a long way. But not sonically.
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There’s more to this than just the specs - I have a vintage system of Sansui AU-9500 with JBL L65 & Luxman TT at my summer place. It’s equal parts nostalgia/performance but it brings me just as enjoyable an experience as when I’m listening at home in my dedicated room. That vintage system fills the place with great music and good times. I can say emphatically that the vintage pairing of Sansui and JBL has a magical quality. Like a time machine for me... STILL sounds amazing and yes, all the vintage pieces have been upgraded and redone by a fabulous shop in Massachusetts that specializes in "better" vintage gear. So, maybe not better, but not worse - just different although equally enjoyable. Just my opinion.
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You really can't compare the vintage receivers to modern receivers even if you put modern caps and resistors, it changes the original sound of the vintage receivers when this is done.
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That could be another comparison. Put new old stock capacitors in an older piece of equipment and then have modern capacitors and other components installed in the same piece of gear or a second identical unit just to hear the difference.
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All great responses! Where to start! Testing specs don’t really show much. Distortion is low in vintage amps and modern gear. Noise floor has improved with preamps. Transistors in well made vintage amps had carefully selected transistors. transistor quality control was not as good as today. They tested matched transistors for each amplifier for high performance. Upside of the times.
Today they don’t, good enough mindset. Now there’s class D etc.
Kenwood KA-5500 is a great sounding amplifier! ST-70 I was never big fan. Same with the Mark III mono blocks. They made clean tube power, affordable or used to be lol.
Pioneer SX828 is great sounding unit. Favorite receiver from Pioneer to be honest.
Sansui makes some great gear too!
I’m not one to replace resisters for no reason. Capacitors I do change, in theory there supposed to sound like the specs. Tired caps change the sound as new production caps would. All part of the fun. When I recapped 7T, earth shattering change. I kept the resisters, changed the diodes, caps etc. Made such a huge difference. Transistors used in the 7T were selected for performance, no reason to change those ever unless there noisy / failed
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My HK430 into ADS L1290ii sounds really quite good in my shop/gym. I'm always surprised. But I have three other systems in my house that sound better, all with recent components.
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My Sansui Au9500 sounds great!
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Also looks awesome and build quality is just off the charts.
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Sherwoods were (and remain) sleepers.
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Nostalgia plays a large role in the interest of vintage receivers not the sound quality since many are not audiophiles. If the vintage buyer was concerned about SQ they would purchase a Belles Aria(an example) over a 40+ year old Marantz, Pioneer or Sansui receiver.
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i generally agree with @jsalerno277 above regarding as the sonic character of vintage vs. modern receivers, although "good sounding" is of course a subjective quality and many find the older stuff to be musically pleasing notwithstanding the higher level of resolution of modern gear. i also find the older stuff to synergize better with speakers of the same era. however, i do think the prices of vintage gear have gotten out of whack--even , even considering their aesthetic virtues there's no way i'd drop a grand on a mid-level 70's marantz or sansui.
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I've owned Modern gear, Tube and Solid State. Vintage gear sound better once restored, not including receivers in the list.
Owned a Marantz PM8006, Marantz 7T Marantz 16B blew it away. No comparison in detail, bass, musical enjoyment. I heard things in the recording completely masked by the Marantz PM8006 being $1500. Your looking at 8-10k for new gear to match at least.
Now there is a Marantz PM7200 that does class A made in 2000's Cap upgrades and upgraded the power transformer to toroidal transformer. Very special amp!
HK430 has amazing amplifier section, Add a tube preamp into HK430 with La Scala's. you would be in for a shock. :)
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the HK430 is one of the receivers that got blown away in direct comparison w the new little Marantz nr1200. it wasn't even close. I was disappointed because although the HK looks way retro-cool, and it does sound good for a vintage, in honest listening it doesn't hold up to even modest moderns.
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I had a Yamaha CR 820 and some Tannoy Cheviots in the late 70's. That combination is my baseline today. It was pretty much perfect to me. To each his own, right?
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my wonderful refurbished HK430 just started a very loud hum...guess it's done
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I still use the Advent 300 receiver ( 15 watts) with vintage Boston Acoustics speakers in my den system and no complaints. Is it high end? No! But it sounds pretty damn good!
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Not able to do a refurbishing but it looks so good I’ll still keep it… thanks though
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You bet! if you have any questions message me anytime!
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I have some Boston acoustics T1000 great speakers! I've heard good things about the Advent 300.
I still have Advent Loud speakers. Not accurate, look nice sound good
Henry Kloss was a class act!
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I sold off all of my former mid to late 70s Sansui and Marantz units. A few years back thought I missed it. Went and bought a few Sansui and Marantz receivers, got them checked, aligned, ran them for a few months. Nice looking, fun to retry for a minute. Reality set in - those were good old memories. Did not sound nearly as good as I had recalled. Re-Sold to next the next happy vintage owner.
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Just had my 1978 Pioneer SX-1280 recapped. The amount of headroom this has for normal listening can certainly be matched today, however there is a warmth that It has that many spend $$$ searching for in a modern amp. Upside, a fully restored SX-1280 is glorious. Downside, It is like a classic car, It still has a propensity to need attention. ✌🏻
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It was, after all, the Age of Radio.
I discovered that I had to go back thirty years and more to find a fine tuner.
And there are some gems among them.
The Tuner Information Center website (fmtunerinfo dot com) is a valuable resource.
Is there a fine tuner made today?
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had sansei 7070 and 9090.
descent, the looks is what grabbed me. sounded good.
if you like it, USE IT.
who cares what people think. enjoy.
still use a mass prod yam 90W receiver for recording LP to CD with software. all is fine.
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I had major GAS in the 70s and 80s and went through all sorts of Japanese receivers and integrateds. Were they completely accurate in their reproduction? Most not, but most of them had big, warm, rich sound that was satisfying. Can't think of a better word. I worked at an audio store while in college and took home most anything I wanted. The bigger Pioneer receivers like the SX-1980 and the Sansui G-33000 were actually very good with huge power reserves but capable of pretty "articulate" reproduction. Problem with those was, even then, they were very expensive. An overlooked one in my opinion is the Sony STR-V7 which had a much more clinical sound. I still have a few pieces but, like most, use my more modern equipment these days. What I miss about those days is that the industry was healthier, big investment was put into new things (sometimes gimmicks), and new approaches were developed seemingly every month.
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Can anyone describe the sound of a failing capacitor or tube in a vintage unit? Unfortunately I have never heard a tube in a peice of audio gear. Now guitar amps I have heard plenty of and they sound great.
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RE: Sherwoods are sleepers
AMEN! My first decent piece of gear was an S-7600 receiver - fabulous FM section and good sounding, if modest, power output. Used it for 10 years. Later had a bedroom/office system based on an S-7310 - another fine piece of gear. Briefly had an S-9900 behemoth but a friend liked it so much, he paid me more than I paid for it. The US and Japanese models were very good. The later Korean gear was not up to Sherwood's standards.
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I still have my first real piece of good stereo equipment, a Sansui AU9500 integrated. Very highly rated at the time. Had it recapped several years ago just for fun but it sure doesn't stand a chance against newer equipment. Remember that piece is 50 years old.
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I recently had a vintage solid-state receiver cleaned up and an IEC inlet installed to allow me to use a high-end power cord. The results were a huge improvement in resolution and a decent improvement in transparency. The noise floor also dropped due to the improvement in resolution. I've also replaced the captive zip-cord power cords of a Sony ES CD player and ES tuner (1990s vintage) with high-end power cords with even better results. Both pieces are in my main system with the CD player used only as a transport. Granted, the power cords cost more than the components themselves, but these, too, are available as high-value items on the used market. Even a $300 power cord will give you a lot of sound quality over cheap captive power cords.
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I love this thread. It’s like a tour of every party I went to in high school and college. Listening to many systems then, I figured out pretty early on it was all about synergy, and specifications didn’t mean a thing if your amp didn’t pair with your speakers (but alcohol, weed and volume were great equalizers). In that sense, a vintage amp performing to spec (whatever those are for the old amp) paired with the right speakers will sound better than a modern amp paired with the wrong speakers. Some combinations just click. My friends who worked in hifi stores spent a lot of time figuring this out for the gear they had on hand because they knew they usually had one shot at selling you stuff.
My first experience with hifi was with my dad’s Garrard turntable and Fisher tube receiver feeding full range naked drivers stuffed up in the architectural structure of our mid century living room. Soundstage? I don’t know, the sound was everywhere. Bass and treble? Not so much, but oh that midrange was delicious. In the 1970s he got the idea he wanted to upgrade, I suggested Pioneer or Sansui. He opted for a solid state Macintosh receiver with a Philips Electric TT and large Advents. I was never really that impressed.
He gave me the Fisher, and it just seemed old to me and (first big hifi mistake) I sold it and bought a Kenwood KA3500 integrated, liking the way it looked and thinking I was being a “purist”. I paired the amp with Bose 301 bookshelf speakers and an AR TT and that combination actually sounded so good I had people coming into my dorm room from down the hall asking who was playing the guitar. I kept that Kenwood for over thirty years and used it with various speakers and even a sub and it didn’t embarrass itself up until the day it died. It did not sound as sophisticated as my newer gear, and probably didn’t even when it was new. I don’t miss the Kenwood, but I do wish I still had the Fisher receiver (and the AR turntable for that matter).
I was in a used hifi store recently and they had a plenty of big old Japanese receivers and integrated amps in stock (not many separates), and it was fun to reminisce looking at all those shinny hulks. But they’re not cheap now - the cost of nostalgia.
Earlier in the thread somebody mentioned the industrial scale of production and worldwide demand for receivers in the 1970s kept quality high and prices competitive. If you are looking for a bargain now, I would look at the top of the line AVR receivers from a few years ago from the likes Denon, Marantz, Arcam, Yamaha, Sony, and maybe NAD, but they went through a bad patch for quality. In the 2000’s these were company flagships and high production rates and intense competition resulted in quality components, toroidal transformers, and decent sound. Most have a direct signal feature that turns off all the signal processing and turns the units into essentially big integrated amplifiers. An Arcam AVR 600 will sound several times better than a Pioneer SX1280 and will cost you about the same amount of money on today’s market.
As for spec coming back into fashion, you must have spent some time over on AudioScienceReview, LOL.
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Fun thread. I live in a zone between new and old with a restomod assemblage of modern separates supporting a system based on serviced and recapped Crown PS-200 amp from a little church in Virginia. A good DAC with bright 2549 interconnects, Mogami 3103 speaker cables, a REL T5i sub and a pair of mahogany Wharfedale Linton 85th Anniversary big baffles combine to deliver the best of both worlds LOL.
Total investment $2500 - and a ton of free fun figuring ways to refine that high current 155 WPC into 4 ohm signal!
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Yes. I own and use a Pioneer SA-8800, SX-3800, M-72 and C-72.
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I had a Pioneer SX1250 in 1976 I think it was. I loved it at the time. (less than $600.00 at the PX). When I came home with it, I bought an Onkyo 303 preamp from CRAZY EDDIE. I used it with the amp section of the Pioneer. I couldn't believe my ears! The 303 blew the pre amp of the Pioneer away. That was the beginning of my audio journey. I also had a Sansui 9090DB. It sounded terrible at least with my Bose 901's at the time. They were pretty though! Joe
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I have a Fisher 400 and 500 tube receivers which are very warm and tubey sounding. I keep them as souvenirs. I also have Sherwood 7100 which is also very good and cheap. My two Yamaha CR620s are used for my big screen TVs and provide excellent low cost sound (Tom Port of Better Records uses them to audition hot stampers with Legacy Focuses).
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