"Trevor Wilson" <trevor@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:687dftF2ri8k5U1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> **Neither. A a lot of people are paying ridiculous prices for these old
> clunkers. Sell them both and buy a modern amp.
>
>
> **Nothing of consequence. Both will require replacement of most (all)
> electrolytica caps. Any OP amps used will be extremely primitive and
> topology will not be anything great.
>
I would respectfully disagree with this opinion. People buy choose to
keep
electronic equipment for various reasons. Personally I choose vintage
for:
1. Price - the system in my livingroom new would have cost perhaps
$3,500.
I paid about 15% of that.
2. Repairability - "vintage" stuff mainly uses discrete components, so
often my repairs (self repaired, zero labor) run in the $30 range. I'd
rather be able to replace a $0.20 resistor than a multilayer SMT $240
"preamp board".
3. Sound - with the exception of home theatre and mutli-channel,
multi-speaker sound effects, the reproduction of sound in the 20-20KHz
range
with flat response and low distortion has not changed since the mid to
late
70's. There are plenty of solid state transistor-based amplifiers built
in
the late 70's and early 80's which great sound, by ANYONE's measure. Amp
designs, feedback levels, etc. etc. have been understood and properly
implemented since that time, although I'll grant you there were some
unstable, crappy-sounding equipment put out at the dawn of the solid state
age but... that was the learning curve period for the industry.
4. Build quality - many amplifiers by such names as Kenwood, Sansui,
Harmon
Kardon, Marantz, Luxman, Pioneer and others were very very well built
using
quality overspec'ed components. Whereas nowadays manufacturers will slap
a
10,000uF cap in the power supply for an instantaneous power delivery of
200W
and put "200W amp" on the box, the older stuff is/was consistently
UNDERrated for power delivery. I worked on an HK receiver a few weeks ago
rated at 40wpc with 70w continuous rated output devices. Power
transformers
were bigger and better. Tuners were more sensitive and more selective.
It's a testament to the build quality that so many of these units are
still
being enjoyed today.
5. Where is the money spent - personally I am not into home theatre. I
don't care if I have a remote control. I don't care if my tuner doesn't
have 200 preset stations. I don't care if my amp has 60 different
"effects"
as I'll likely never want to listen to my music bastardized to sound like
it's being played in a cathedral. So... why would I want to pay for these
useless (to me) features? I'd rather that money spent to build the amp
went
into a good design, proper layout of components, quality components and
proper assembly techniques.
6. The Nostalgia Factor - okay, I'm old. Old enough to remember building
an HH Scott tube amp and tuner from kits with my Dad. Old enough to
fondly
remember my old Kenwood receiver and Dual turntable from college. I'd say
there was a value to that which may contribute to the prices you see for
vintage stuff on eBay. But... it's a peripheral cost, not a major factor.
You won't see an SX-730 in the stratosphere of pricing because it wasn't
the
best of it's time. But an SX-1250 or a DB-9090, the TRUE 200W RMS beasts
of
the day, will often sell for a few hundred more than they cost new becuase
they are quality units.
Perhaps I'm missing something, I'd certainly be open to any discussion as
to
how "modern" designs/topologies/components have improved sound quality vs.
"vintage", but for now you can have your modern stuff...
Just my 2 cents.
Dave
Dave
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