Buying Beautiful Vintage Silver Receivers!
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- Yep: they're gorgeous to look at, seductive, some with excellent build quality and even those that still have good performance. And in the past 15 years the prices on these things have gone up-up-up. The chances of finding a Pioneer SX 950 at a garage sale for $25.00 back in 2004 are long gone!
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#hifi #audiophile #homeaudio #vintageaudio #vintagehifi #homeaudio #stereo #hifirush #hifiaudio
If vintage equipment is all about the looks then modern equipment really needs to up its game in that department.
See anything Japanese in modern integrated amps. Accuphase, Luxman, even Yamaha. Pay attention.
To a very small niche market? No, I don't think so. I can just hear the environmentalists going nuts on the veneer used.
@slantstreetrecords3274 it's its obvious that there is a big market for vintage gear ,,,if audio manufacturers made gear today that has that vintage look, it would sell.
@@markyeo2238 You know, I think you are right. Marantz did a bit of that.
There is no reason a property restored unit can’t be up to spec. All one needs is a scope and a distortion meter to prove it. A well restored machine can last decades from now. The allure is the all discrete circuitry, the build quality and the aesthetics. Those things can’t all be found in any modern amp.
But it is, for many, about the SOUND, first and foremost.
Oh, if you have the skill or can afford someone who has the skill to do component level work, maybe. That still does not address the many of the RCA plugs, the worn copper controls and such. Yes, discrete components are often used in really high quality products so that is a plus. But combine what has to be done with today's high prices and it just does not make sense. $3000 for a Marantz 2335 that doesn't even sound that good is an example.
@@audibleeleganceinc Not sure who is paying $3k for a 35w receiver but ok.
@@alexw890 A Marantz 2325 is a 125W receiver. Regardless, there are great products from Rogue Audio or NAD that are simply better and cheaper. Who even uses FM anymore?
@@audibleeleganceinc You got that right!
While I agree with some of your points and it's always nice to hear what someone's opinion who has been dealing with audio equipment for years, the vintage equipment is out selling almost anything that is out there today, There is a difference in quality. Stuff made today just is not made to perform or last as vintage equipment. I would rather put money into something have it reconditioned/ rebuilt correctly and have it last with the exception of having the pots cleaned every few years then to buy something current and have to trash it after 4 or 5 years spending the money that it costs as it is not by any means cheap either
Well, if you are buying the common and ordinary receivers and such, I can see your point. We stay away from that stuff like the plague. But as even a dealer of the new, and you can look at our lines, we very rarely have service pieces and if we do, it is dominated by speaker repairs.
Regardless, thank you for taking the time to comment and please do subscribe and tell others about this channel. We have done over 150 topics and I am sure there is something there for everyone to enjoy.
I’ve got a 1971 Pioneer SX1000TW that still works great. I listen to it every day through some vintage speakers. Nice relaxed warm sound. None of the new stuff even comes close for the price.
Well, I am glad you are happy and that it works to your level of satisfaction. Not knowing the price, I can not say much more. Happy listening.
Just started reviewing videos on your channel, and you are saying things that have had me scratching my head for a while. I am of a similar age and my first system had a Technics receiver. Yes, it had wood (wooooo), and I have fond memories, but I can’t imagine paying stupid money for a 45 year old equivalent piece today. There’s a whole bunch of snake oil out there about vintage stuff. I feel somewhat the same about LPs, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day. Keep up the good work!!
Well, Sir, if I have you thinking about things then I have achieved my goal. Sometimes there are other paths to the same point and I am always open to those discussions. Oh, Technics receiver, yes. SA-5550 to be exact. I bought a used one and while I still adore the appearance, I can definitely hear why I moved on while not understanding why. Thus, while a design may satisfy the eye, the sound floods the room.
Thank you for taking the time to comment and share. We have many more videos planned but right now I am focused on my wife as she has just crossed the milestone of being in the Cleveland Clinic 100 days, mostly the in the Cardiac ICU, hoping for a second heart transplant after 3 1/2 difficult years with the first. So, we are reissuing some for the new audience.
I have come to the same conclusion. I do have an NAD 3020A that I had totally refurbished by a great technician, but it wasn't cheap. Funny that you never see this piece featured on all these channels that are touting a 35 watt 50-year-old Marantz that will set you back $2,600 with, as you say, FM that I just don't listen to anymore and AM that I NEVER listened to. I think you are spot-on; people are trying to relive a part of their lives when they thought life was simpler, but the music is really secondary.
Thank you for your contribution to my channel. It is most sincerely appreciated. Yes, things have gotten out of hand in the used market which, as I have come to realize, is why antique stores do well as people try to recapture your youth. Once that generation has passed, the value tanks.
Please do subscribe to the channel and please tell other about my work. With 165 different ones, there is something for everyone.
I respectfully disagree. I have never changed one capacitor on any of my vintage stereos that I bought cheap, and they sound awesome. Imagine if they were fully restored! You make it sound like quality vintage gear is cheap. The price is, not the products. The improvements in the audio industry are minor. As a matter of fact, cheaper built, plasticy, fatiguing, edgey sounding, maybe a bit more detailed in some models, but ridiculously overpriced.
Well, we can certainly disagree and the improvements are not minor. But, if your traveling the Best Buy circuit, I can see your point. Some of the vintage stuff was quite good in their day, some still better than some of the crap being pawned out there today. But it is a select few. Many of the products of that era were no better than the lousy stuff today.
In any event, thank you for taking the time to comment and contribute to the channel. There are those who will agree with you but I do stand by my position with all the experience I have and the passing through of vintage equipment which we evaluate now and then.
Finally, someone telling it like it is with this vintage stuff!
Pretty much. I cannot believe that people would pay such absurd prices for them as well, especially not serviced.
Excellent advice. I've gone through three receivers having them tuned up, cleaned up and as you relayed, they just wear out. Without an unlimited budget, it's hard to keep them up and running as in when they were new. Your outlook on how to save money is appreciated.
Thank you for taking the time to contribute your experiences to the channel and your experience is something I too have gone through. Thus, I question it and certainly with today's market prices. Sometimes I think "vintage" equipment has become valued like bitcoin. It has very little intrinsic value yet gets bids to the absurd.
You own a shop that’s selling new equipment, ($4,000 power cables!) not vintage, so of course you’re going to trash vintage and extol the virtues of the new. I run a Marantz 1060 amplifier which I bought new in 1975 with the optional walnut case. It’s been serviced a number of times over the years and continues to power any speaker I connect with. The problem with newer equipment IMO is that it has no visual soul or sonic warmth until you get into the very high end stuff. Reminds me of a sterile, disposable Apple watch compared to a well designed mechanical timepiece. Is the Apple more accurate…yes, but I enjoy the beauty and adequate accuracy over the bland homogenized slab which only work if I have electricity to charge them.
We do sell used as well so your assumption is wrong. We call it The Orphanage on our web page. All sorts of things show up there from time to time. We do consignment as well.
Yup. Vintage can be great, but after equal money spent in hot rodding, which may well be spent equally on new high performance amplification. My Marantz 2250B sounds great occasionally, but also occasionally craps out on me. I love it, but it's time to make it a shelf spectacle.
Take a look at the NAD C3050 if you want to add streaming and forget the FM tuner. Thank you for contributing to the channel and I am glad you got to enjoy the 2250 for a bit. But when you see prices for it in "working" condition (not serviced) compared the NAD, you begin to see why I sincerely question the pursuit of such old equipment. And for those who want to see VU meters, well, you get those too.
There are plenty of other options out there wherever you are and at reasonable prices.
I own several vintage Luxman amps and receivers from the seventies, sounds very good even compared to modern stuff. But you have to spent money to get them right, New powercord, New speakerterminals, renew most of the caps etcetera. Than you will have an awesome sounding and performing unit. Do you get the same soundquality for the money you are spending compared to a modern unit? Depends, but you have something special which will hold its value rather good and is a pleasure to look and interact with. It is like a classic car compared to a New car it has so much more character.
Excellent response, particularly if you are talking about Luxman before Alpine Car Stereo took over the distribution. Before then, Luxman was the Japanese equivalent of American McIntosh. After that, they went off into mass market including the infamous suck-face series of products. As for appearances, I do agree that some of the aesthetics were wonderful and distinctive. Your comment reminded me of a chart showing 50 models of SUVs from different manufacturers and from the side view, they all pretty much looked the same. No distinctive personality.
Thank you for contributing to the channel with a really fine comment that stands on its own. Please do subscribe and tell others about this channel and the other 160+ videos. More are coming every week.
@user-lz4pw8nq1u I have a hard time understanding "nice to look at". I'm of the impression that audio gear is for one's ears.
@@zizendorf the looks are a part of the experience to me, nice woodcase, vu meters, nice metal knobs. Some equipement are pieces of art.
@@zizendorf Amen. A lot of money is now wasted on making something like a piece of art. It adds about 20% to the cost of some products. It's silly.
@@audibleeleganceinc the good thing is that there is so much great equipment to choose from to cater to everybody's need and focus. To my it is all about enjoying the music and experience of putting a record on, see the vu meters moving around, a good whiskey, sit back and tap my foot.
Keep on rubbing your hand across that nice real wood cabinet because you won't get that on a new unit
Are you buying it to look at it or listen to it. And today, do you also want to be shredding up trees for veneers that are becoming more rare?
@@audibleeleganceinc Don’t think walnut trees are endangered…that’s a lame response.
@@davidsparling3505 We sold Thiel speaker that used all sorts of exotic woods and so that's my reference. All sorts of woods were also used on cabinetry, not merely walnut. Walnut just happened to be the popular one in the late 60s and early 70s.
@@audibleeleganceinc So noted…maybe those high end mfgrs should try beautiful, plentiful hardwoods such as walnut, cherry, etc.
Ok it's much better equipment out there for 5000 & up to get sound of vintage stereo sound I'll take vintage any day over new .Recap keep fingers cross enjoy😊
Then you need to take a look at Rogue Audio. It's great equipment and does not cost $5,000.00. As I mentioned to another, old does not equal good just as new is the same. What has happened is that old stuff has become high priced simply because its old and that's nonsense. Heck, locally I saw someone selling a vacuum tube Bogen (that's PA stuff) for $200. Really? It was junk then and its not better now.
Good information. Reminds me of the adage "A piece of Hifi can be well made and still not sound good".
Oh, that is absolutely true. The cost of a product is based upon the cost of making it and moving it. That does not say anything about how well it does its job. I often refer to putting a 18K gold steering wheel on a Hyundai. Yes, it will make it as expensive as a Ferrari but it won't perform any better than what it is. There are lots of expensive new gear out there that does not meet the mission: To play music musically. So, I understand why some prefer the older equipment but merely because it is old, or uses discrete componentry, does not make it good. I have an upcoming video on a brand that is severely overpriced in the used market that is an exact good example of high price and low performance.
@@audibleeleganceinc Yes I've really noticed an obsession with these vintage 70's and 80's amps and recievers among the under 40 folks. I've told the ones I know that these things generally don't really sound that great and need maintanence. The prices are usually nuts now.
I've seen beautifully built equipment, designed with the best of intentions that simple did not do what it was supposed to do and certainly not for the money asked. Every industry experiences this and sometimes you find a cheap little gem that is absolutely delightful.
I agree fully with your comments even though I have about 50 vintage items from Quad II amps to Garrard 301s. They are collectors items or display items only. And if you change the capacitors etc on a vintage set with new parts they are no longer vintage.
Wow, I have owned the old Quad too. It was a lovely company, actually. A lot of those pieces also used carbon resistors and those too are out of spec. I once "upgraded" a piece of equipment, fairly new at that time, with the "audiophile recommended" resistors. Ended up sounding like crap. So, same values are no guarantee that you will get back to that "classic" sound at all. Then, there are all those copper trace controls with all their years of wear and contamination. If you picked it up cheap, well, there can be fun in that. But today, the market is dominated by flippers who all look at the street values and drive it up as if they were bitcoins and that's what has happened. It wasteful speculation in my honest opinion.
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Just to close this thought. I would gladly buy something new and sell my old gear if it did something amazing and blew me away. Like a gasoline car to a hybrid or electric. Now that's an improvement. So until that happens, I'll keep my vintage and spend my money on records 😅 cheers.
Buying music is a very good thing. It is the reason to own the equipment. Not knowing where you are, here in the States Rogue Audio is a wonderful musical line of products to consider. I just don't get people buying receivers when they were an all in one compromise that included an AM/FM tuner which hardly anybody uses any more.
@jamiecantar8727 Have you ever heard of a company called Rogue Audio? They build their products right here in the US. $1500 will get you a very nice hybrid - integrated amp with an excellent phono cartridge. Have you even ever listened to such a product?
Im open in comparing, but i know the only time I would invest in something new, is if it did something so incredible that forced me to sell my collection of vintage Sansui, yamaha, mcintosh, NAD, luxman, dynaco, quad etc. I think the ceiling has been reached, there's nowhere else to go. It's all lateral moves with gimmicks riding on the backs of vintage engineering.
@@jamiecantar8727 It's "all lateral"? It's "all", is just a great example of exaggeration and generalization. Little truth in use of that word.
That's right. It's 2024 and gear has not improved much, actually maybe reverted a bit. I'm talking blind tests for sound using gear of equal dollar value side by side. I've done the tests myself. But hey, if your happier with brand new gear I'm happy for you, it's all good 👍
Another thought: why are people unhappy with their vintage gear? What's missing? Or is it the internet? Hype? These videos? Add your thoughts?
Well, let's look at what has come along. Remote control is a huge one. Then, let's add streaming to the equation. Of course, then we can add the normal course of any product called end of life. Sometimes they don't have the space for it anymore or that they killed it by stuffing it in an enclosed cabinet with no ventilation. Of course, we can not leave out home theater driving the replacement of standard stereo receivers with AM/FM that they don't even use. I could go on but these are the primary reasons. My videos are not causing people to walk away from vintage equipment, their needs are.
@audibleeleganceinc No no, all that you described can be added as seperates, as a matter of fact I recommend that. No, I'm saying why not buy another vintage piece, or try another vintage piece? I think it's laziness or a perception thing. They equate age with death, and They think because it's new, it must be better, and they can't be bothered taking it to get fixed, not because new gear is better. I think some people have a mindset that they need the latest gadget with all the cool features. Indeed, there is a certain status among Americans who are the first in their circle of friends to get the latest technology. Not that they sound better.
@@jamiecantar8727 Oh, I think what you say is also true and indeed some of the new products are not that good at all. But, every generation has their series of crap. I am going to discuss Marantz shortly.
Some people just luv to rub the wood panels😮
Oh, that's funny. It must be the smell of Pledge.
@@audibleeleganceinc Oh, I thought is was all that talk about first dates and a young lady's perfume. I was right there with you!
Who cares about 'spec'?
Well, they are the only measureable standards to go by when restoring a product. Otherwise, it turns into a crap shoot like adding random parts to a car.
I spent way too much during a vintage mania buying spree. One onkyo tx4500 receiver & adequate speakers is ALL ya need, Over 60wpc is a waste of money.- - buy GE. GOOD ENOUGH.