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We Can Make Classic Cars Outperform Today's "SuperCars": Why Not Vintage Audio?

If you spent $2M on a modern "Supercar", you’d arrive at the end of a quarter mile 2 football fields behind the quickest highly-modified "street legal" cars from the muscle car era. You could show up at an Autocross event in your late model "track ready" sports sedan, and be embarrassed by a lady pushing a 1986 Monte Carlo between the cones.

There’s a lot of resources and talent in the automotive aftermarket. Many of the brightest minds earned weekly paychecks in their "past lives" at major auto manufacturers. There are various disciplines involved including complete engine and drive train replacements, serious add-on/mods to existing components, bigger/better brakes, track-ready suspensions, etc. They can even slide a complete new high-performance rolling chassis underneath popular models.

So, why not vintage audio? Well, we do dip our toes into this a bit. There are popular speaker crossover replacements for the DYI crowd. But, these fall sonically short of their contemporary "high end" counterparts. The automotive equivalent of replacing a 2 BBL carb on a cast iron manifold with a 4 BBL carb on a cast iron manifold -- while keeping the original single exhaust system intact. We can do simple mods to improve the sonics -- like upgrading an original power cord that you wouldn’t want to use on a 2-splice toaster, much less a high-current amplifier. The really smart guys need to come to the rescue for true audiophile grade solutions.

Understandably there has to be a "high give a s--- factor" related to this. The speed parts industry is fueled by a wildly enthusiastic crowd while vintage audio owners are, like: "whatever". So, the chances of a superb $5k amp/preamp module that drops into a Marantz 1060 chassis and slays any modern gear near it’s price point may not be coming to a town near you anytime soon.

I think this can be incremental if we put our minds and wallets to it. You "car guys" know there are 3 basic types of collector cars. "Showroom stock" represents as close as possible the vehicle as it rolled off the assembly line. "Personalized" generally follows a stock appearance with performance and cosmetic improvements. Generally speaking, the car can be reverted to showroom stock at some point the future. All the original parts are carefully cataloged and placed in safe storage. "Modified" has the appearance of a race car, and performs like one. Often modifications to metal are performed, and in some cases there’s no going back. We can follow similar guidelines as well. We understand the motivation to keep things "stock". We can also understand the audiophiles that love their vintage gear would be open to the concept of a significantly better listening experience while maintaining a stock appearance and functionality. Chopping up an Auburn is a really bad idea. But, upgrading the input terminals on an integrated amplifier may be highly palatable for those cherished collectables.

I also get it that the ROI would be questionable. An amp that has a current market value of $2k with $5k worth of mods might still be worth $2k -- or less.

What say you?

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Showing 2 responses by jallan

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jallan
256 posts
 

Today’s super cars smoke the super cars of yesteryear. One has to look at overall performance, such as laps on a track, to compare. Even going in a straight line, today’s cars are faster. As for what can be accomplished by modding, the times at any NHRA National are faster in all categories than two decades ago.

 

New semiconductor designs, new capacitor designs, new precision resistors, new wire designs, better understanding of micro phonics and vibration control, etc. etc.

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jallan
256 posts
 

I have two relevant examples of modding old gear to make it better.

 

1) My beloved Marantz Model 7. It dulled the leading edge too much, I thought as a 19 year old. What to do? Saul Marantz very kindly sent me suggestions, notes on a copy of the circuit diagram, which I scrupulously followed. I put in a full-wave rectifier bridge in the power supply. I replaced the electrolytic capacitors in the phono section with solid tantalums (this was 1976…best capacitors I could get then). Replaced the paper coupling capacitors with Mylars (Cornell Dubliers, as that what was in the Audio Research SP3A). Replaced all resistors with metal film types. Finally, used GE 5751s in the phono section. Did it sound better? Hell yes…far more focus, tighter bass, huge sound stage. Nonetheless, 5 years later I replaced it with an SP6B, much better. My current Cary SLP05 with ultimate upgrade is vastly superior to both; it has better components and design.

2) I had my GAS Ampzilla, which I built in 1975, rebuilt changing out virtually all transistors (replaced 15 amp Motorola output transistors with 20 amp Toshibas), and replaced most of the capacitors with modern low-leakage types. It’s now pretty decent, much better than before. But in Mr. Bongiorno’s own words to me, new transistor designs available now, along with new capacitor types, allowed him to do things he could not dream of before. As good as my rebuilt Ampzilla is, my SST Son of Ampzilla II is substantially better…more refined…in all regards.

 

 I totally get the car analogy, especially wrt weight. But the electronic controls of modern engines are pretty amazing, as is the improvements in chassis stiffness and suspension control and tires. A modern Corvette will kill a late sixties Corvette. Although I am not an electric car guy, they have phenomenal acceleration, even faster than Andy Granatelli’s gas turbine powered Corvette!

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