The Allure of Vintage Audio Gear

I was exclusively into vintage gear until 3 years ago. My only tech retired and I decided to go modern. Except for my speakers. I love my JBL 4311s and built my new system around them. I'm still in the process but it's going well. The 4311s, like most JBL have volume control for mid and tweets that allows me to tweak the sound as I change components. 

Over the past 3 years I've listened to 6 other speakers and nothing comes close. I'm still looking at new ones, but replacing these with something I like more will probably cost upwards of $15k. I paid $600 for my JBLs. 

High quality gear is high quality gear, no matter when it was built. 

For me Vintage gear is where it's at. I like the build quality, the looks, and most importantly how it sounds. I like analog music, vintage will give you that, without all the add ons of today's gear. 

For me, when I see new gear, I have to turn the knobs, or switches. Unless it is very high end gear, all the knobs, and switches feel cheap. Most are not even real, all digital on the back end. The stuff that does feel good, is so far out of my price range. 

Right now, my main 2ch is all vintage, sans a streamer (need something from this century) & my TT. The TT is only new, as it's been tough to get the vintage piece I've been looking for. The sound is warm, analog, clean, open, with 200 old school watts, plenty of power to drive my vintage Forte II's. 

As far as reliability goes, almost nothing is reliable anymore. My HT system is all new, my expensive Marantz receiver bit the dust 2 mo ago, out of warranty, no one wants to work on it. Forced me to buy a brand new Marantz receiver. With my vintage gear, once I year, I take it all apart, blow out anything inside, clean all the pots & switches. Look for any swelling caps, button it all back up. I do believe my vintage gear will outlast all my new gear. Best of all the vintage stuff can all be fixed. 

Right now I’m listening to rebuilt stacked Quad 57’s with added Enigma Sopranino super tweeters, the latter not being vintage, powered by just serviced Futterman H3-AA amps. The panels are wired in series, the tweeters straight off the amps in parallel. WOW! Being a professional musician, I can attest that this is superior to my Focal Stella Utopias, except for bass slam? It’s a lush sound that wraps around me in gorgeous tonality. Not bad for mid 50’s speakers! Whenever I switch out to my modern systems, I feel withdrawal from losing the magic. 

If something has performed for 40+ years, and still is, it must be pretty good in an number of ways. I hate to see garages and backrooms of stores floor to ceiling full of this stuff knowing it's unused and will probably stay that way. 

In the guitar world, a 30-year-old guitar is now considered vintage.  If 30 years is considered vintage for audio gear, then most of my analog system is vintage, and I suspect it is comparable in sound quality to most modern gear, and probably more durable--SOTA Star Sapphire TT with ET-2 arm, Classé Audio electronics, Nakamichi cassette decks, Luxman tuner (that I rarely use anymore), and upgraded Apogee Duetta II speakers. 

I guess I'm the rare audiophile that is satisfied with his system long-term.  I have made many digital upgrades, however, as I realize that digital technology is improving more rapidly, with better sound quality available at decreasing prices, compared to 30 years ago.