Old Amps that can still Kick Butt

Has the OP ever had anything but older, vintage gear in his rig? What is the context of the comment in regard to performance? What amps have been directly compared to arrive at such a proud conclusion? Just curious!  :) 

Kick butt. What a joke. 

Set that old tube amp out by the curb, and you'll be ahead of the rush.
Class D is already starting to make such amps worthless sonically and in time, in terms of valuation. In a couple years such amps will be fairly worthless, and rightly so, as they will have slid from occupying a status of HiFi to MidFi. Class D is now so good that I would not dream of using any amp, SS or Tube, over five years old. It would be a waste of my time to even assess such amps. 

I predict that in a couple years those who are serious about an assault on SOTA will be looking to Class D to achieve it. Those who want a bargain will be looking to the other genres - an inversion of the historic norm regarding amps. It's going to be come bloody among amp manufacturers going forward. Not that I wish ill on other SS and tube amp makers, but such profound technological and sonic progress will not be impeded by nostalgia. The only justification that one might have to use an old tube amp will be that it is cheap. Looking at the other two threads started by the OP with the same dismissive statement, that is perhaps the motivation of this thread - pretend old, cheap gear performs as good.   :) 

SOTA sound is changing for the better right NOW, and Class D is a primary driver of it. Class A, A/B and tube amps? No, they are doing nothing of the sort. The glorious future of Class D amplification HAS arrived, and it will only get better! Cynical? Skeptical? You lose out. 

If anyone would like insight on this, read my review of the Legacy Audio i.V4 Ultra Amplifier review at Dagogo.com

daveyf, I have heard a lot of ARC gear over the past 30 years at dealers, shows, homes. I would not go back for any of it. Imo, the best ARC pre/amp were the past two years of AXPONA.

We are likely on the opposite ends of the warmth and coloration spectrum in preference. Even better tube/SS amps are occluding older recordings (i.e. 50 years) that with the i.V Ultra topology are opened up, revealed gorgeously at higher levels, and without any of the noise and distortion added by Class A, A/B and tubes. It’s a stunning experience, without strain, whiteness, etc associated with cheaper, previous class D.

Last night I was using the Eastern Electric Minimax Tube DAC Supreme with the i.V4 Ultra and achieving a sound quality level unmatched by some far pricier rigs/amps using both class A, A/B and tubes. Even the upper end gear is being outdone by the IcePower module featuring IceEdge technology. If current designs are being bested, I have no interest in returning to vintage. I would only do so if cost was the overriding concern. :)

I liken this development to the wider acceptance of Open Baffle speakers versus dynamic. Over the years I have come to dislike the box coloration of dynamic speakers. If I detect too much of it, I am unhappy. Increasingly I turn to OB and dipole to rid the sound of the cabinet contribution. Some prefer this, and would think OB and dipole to be "wrong". There’s hardly a happy medium in such cases. If you inherently think the warmth/syrupy/heavy sound to the bass, etc. IS good music, then likely no class D will satisfy and you would likely think the old amps are terrific. But, to me they are distorted, adding damaging character to the music. They also do not have the capacity to drive speakers dynamically like the i.V Ultra series and other class D now.
Just as I have worked to eliminate perceived box colorations in speakers, I am working to eliminate unwanted indistinctness and occluding of the signal in amplification. Once the improvement is heard, it is understood.

You may not want to be at the same destination sound as me, but trust me, there is a world of difference happening with certain modules/amps of class D now.

invalid, that’s not a bad guess, but actually the amp has revamped the sound quality of the DAC. I have been using the DAC with numerous amps for years. This amp has elevated the DACs performance, as it has the other DACs I have used.

BTW, for better performance, the tube has been removed from the DAC. That was a trick learned long ago when the DAC first came out. Rolling discrete opamps has elevated the sound quality.  :)

Not sure what to make of this; the Rowland website shows the 925 production suspended. This amp is 8 years old and seems to not be continuing. I suggest that under those circumstances it is not a great candidate to assess current class D offerings. 

If the listening experience is from at least 3 or more years ago, then I submit that it does not represent what is happening currently in class D design. I have worked with perhaps 3 previous generations of  class D, and this one is unlike the others, holistically superior. The others were no threat to SET, A, or A/B. This one supersedes them. 

You know how the updated Terminator kept coming back better and better. That's class D. This time, it wins.  

roxy54, a courteous and well reasoned reply; thank you! I hope you do get to hear the new breed of class D. 

Briefly, I distinguish between the myriad of tweaks outside the signal path, and products/methods that touch the power and signal paths. I am unusual in the industry, as I recommend the proper way to use and assess cabling is with entire looms/sets from the manufacturer. So, my comments on cables are almost always in the context of that methodology. 

To that end, I have found the efficacy of aftermarket cables to be not debatable when used in sets. I also consider them a component as such, and continuously in personal listening and reviewing they confer as large changes as components - again, when used in sets. Changing a cable here and there ad hoc without a thorough understanding of the manufacturer's intended sound is largely fooling around, a waste of time in that it yields no direction to push the system toward a desired result. 
That use of cables is very much like using tweaks; no directivity and nothing more than hopefulness of a good result. 

If you have not yet worked with aftermarket cables, I encourage you to read my reviews of cables, wherein I explicate my methods. You would perhaps enjoy my latest review of the Iconoclast Cables published at Dagogo.com. For someone who is not yet ready to trust the system, to part with more significant numbers of dollars to test it out, the Iconoclast Cables are ideal, because they use the same geometry, AWG, etc, but with a different conductor for each level of performance. That is not very common in the HiFi cable industry.