music quality of speakers in the 70's vs now

Originally Posted by ARCOgraphite

This adjusted for inflation thing has some incorrect assumptions.

It seemed easier for me to buy a $300 Integrated in the 70's than to buy a $2000 integrated today.
Yes that Cambridge CX60 sounds way better than that Old Supserscope or Marantzor or Kenwood. Yamaha stuff is not even in the running.

Many Mid -sized affordable bookshelf speakers sold today are generally much better than most all from the early 70's.

My First "big speaker" a pair of Altec 891V would sound like it had a blanket over it compared to a little 250 dollar Wharfedale diamond. or Dali Spektor 2. China manufacturing has lowered the buy-in more than anything.

I Did get a Used pair of KLH Model 6 in the early 80;s and they were head and shoulders over the California noise makers.
Ran it with a Harvey Rosenberg NYAL Moscode 300 (excellent) and a Modulus 2 preamp (fair)

Most Everything was relatively less expensive in the 70's. Food, gasoline, Houses were ~ 2x annual salary not 3 or 4X.
Rent was too high. then in the late 80s Interest rates were killers.

Estate sale buys are a load of fun and more rewarding for layinig down $$ for Made in China.
Especially if you have a master tech in the back room to freshen things up cheaply where needed.
LOL. I had that experience auditioning speakers one time. A pair of Polks vs a pair of Focal 918s. My exact words were "the Polks sound like they still in the box." Granted it wasn't exactly fair. The Polks were around $1500 a pair vs $4000 for the Focals.
 
Originally Posted by ARCOgraphite
Mom and Pop Stereo Shop?

Never heard them called that.


Probably just a regional generic thing (term).
To me and maybe the others, they are the independent stores that offer some nicer equipment and have clientele or regular hanger-outers that need not "be sold".
The mass market stores had little supply (or even interest) in golden ear stuff. It wasn't their customer very often. Some of them in sales talked so far off the rails of basic knowledge, their customers were embarrassed to be seen in the store anymore. It was a fun way to win them over to our stores. Once you get a customer laughing or they / you, the ice is broke and it's all downhill. Some high-end stores are stuffy and pretentious. "Boutique" sounds needlessly expensive, over priced.


Originally Posted by Dwight_Frye
I am also a veteran of the hi fi stores back in the late 1970's. i worked for University Stereo, Pacific Stereo and Shelly's Audio in Sou. Cal. There is no substitute for raw power in amplifiers and size of the drivers in the speakers, period. That is if you wish to come anywhere close to recreating live sound. And I am not necessarily talking about concert level volumes.

I suspect that a lot of those who are under 40 years old and are satisfied with the mainstream, "stereo in a box" systems available today have not had much experience listening to live bands or going to concerts like most of us who are now in their 60's did. If their main experience with music is listening with ear buds through an iPad, they simply don't know what they have been missing.

A system with a minimum of 100 watts clean power per channel paired with quality speakers with at least 10" woofers and a CD player or turntable with a good cartridge is light years ahead of a sound bar system & subwoofer, designed for surround sound with movies and with maybe 25 watts per channel with high distortion and an MP3 source.
Bump it up to 250 watts per channel and 4 speakers with 12" woofers and you'll really have something.


Convenience and simplicity has made it so easy to set up a sound system that ties to the home theater and can be either / or the big power and big drivers set up or the smaller more subtle equipment that fits into the room better or easier. I've yet to experiment with higher power. I'm using a 150w powered sub, 50 x 5ch Marantz and pretty efficient Polks and Klipsch with individual level control. Soon I'll have the Polks in front bi-amped for some listening tests and determine if it's worth it or not.
Not really searching for more equipment needs and wire runs but if critical listening music or even the movie sound pays dividends bi-amped, it'll stay. I am by far, not an audiophile. Especially considering the years around nice equipment. I kept myself at a safe distance !
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Originally Posted by hatt
ARCOgraphite said:
My exact words were "the Polks sound like they still in the box." Granted it wasn't exactly fair. The Polks were around $1500 a pair vs $4000 for the Focals.


What? I like the sound of speakers still in the box!

In reality, I have Polk Rti A9's and they are at best, acceptably OK. The driver quality is fairly low end (for the price) and the poly midranges just don't sound as crisp as they should. As far as low bass goes, they lack it. Period. As far as punch goes, they are kind of muddy and drums don't come across as sharp as they should. Not horrible, but not 1970's paper driver clean and sharp.

I purchased 'em because they were affordable, promised to have good bass response and Polk quality. What I got were Chinese produced speakers with very nice looking cabinets.

Better than the TV? Yes! Better than my college-days homemade Radio Shack MTM speakers with silk domes? Not really.




[Linked Image from cdn.soundandvision.com]
 
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Originally Posted by Cujet
Originally Posted by hatt
ARCOgraphite said:
My exact words were "the Polks sound like they still in the box." Granted it wasn't exactly fair. The Polks were around $1500 a pair vs $4000 for the Focals.


What? I like the sound of speakers still in the box!

In reality, I have Polk Rti A9's and they are at best, acceptably OK. The driver quality is fairly low end (for the price) and the poly midranges just don't sound as crisp as they should. As far as low bass goes, they lack it. Period. As far as punch goes, they are kind of muddy and drums don't come across as sharp as they should. Not horrible, but not 1970's paper driver clean and sharp.

I purchased 'em because they were affordable, promised to have good bass response and Polk quality. What I got were Chinese produced speakers with very nice looking cabinets.

Better than the TV? Yes! Better than my college-days homemade Radio Shack MTM speakers with silk domes? Not really.




[Linked Image from cdn.soundandvision.com]



Radio Shack had some killer speakers back in the day!! Remember the Mach One? 1978-79?
[Linked Image]
 
The snootiness in the boutique high-end audio really seemed to infect the marketplace in the mid to late 80s into the mid 90s. One could easily spend $50,000 and still be unsatisfied with his new purchase. For me it's been more about the music than the equipment. I bought my first mid-Fi receiver and speakers (Technics SA 200 and Marantz HD440) new in 1979 for $125 at Sound Advice. It replaced the KLH Model 20 and seemed like a huge step up at the time. I still have the KLH 20 and it sounds better than I remember. Especially with quality CD input. Since then I bought a pair of New Large Advents (had the woofer surrounds reformed), a pair of untouched or modified KLH model 6s, a Technics SA700 receiver (75 watts RMS) and an early 90s Rotel CD player. All for less than $900 and thet includes recasing the receiver in dark stained maple. In a small room with the speakers in each corner and some carpet on the floor the sound is intoxicating. Especially with loud heavy rock-late 60s/early 70s. Leave the $50,000 and up crowd to their metaphysical world of audio perfection. They care little for the music and FAR more about the equipment. This crap used to impress people. Kinda like the guy I remember getting the first BIG SCREEN projection TV. The picture was huge-but the picture quality was horrible. Almost to the point of being UNWATCHABLE. But he paid $3500 for it sometime in the late 1970s if I recall. A living room status symbol, along with his wet bar with top shelf liquor, '77 Caddy Coupe Deville, Ocean Reef Club membership, and girlfriend on the side. Typical late Silent/early Baby Boomer childlike behavior. And from the perspective of a kid (me) In junior high school at the time it seemed like childish behavior even to me. 40 year or so ago. Man, times have changed.
 
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Originally Posted by Powerglide
Kinda like the guy I remember getting the first BIG SCREEN projection TV. The picture was huge-but the picture quality was horrible. Almost to the point of being UNWATCHABLE. But he paid $3500 for it sometime in the late 1970s if I recall. A living room status symbol


Haha I remember those pieces of crap! It was the mid 70s,I was about 7 years old. The kid's parents across the street got one of those. It was a HUGE Magnavox rear projection tv. You had to fold the front of the cabinet open and it had three projection lenses,each a different color. WORST picture you'd ever see!! Then when you'd turn it off, you could touch the screen, and then touch your friend and shock them with the static electricity haha!!
 
Originally Posted by Cujet
Originally Posted by hatt
My exact words were "the Polks sound like they still in the box." Granted it wasn't exactly fair. The Polks were around $1500 a pair vs $4000 for the Focals.


What? I like the sound of speakers still in the box!

In reality, I have Polk Rti A9's and they are at best, acceptably OK. The driver quality is fairly low end (for the price) and the poly midranges just don't sound as crisp as they should. As far as low bass goes, they lack it. Period. As far as punch goes, they are kind of muddy and drums don't come across as sharp as they should. Not horrible, but not 1970's paper driver clean and sharp.

I purchased 'em because they were affordable, promised to have good bass response and Polk quality. What I got were Chinese produced speakers with very nice looking cabinets.

Better than the TV? Yes! Better than my college-days homemade Radio Shack MTM speakers with silk domes? Not really.


We had a lot of Realistic stuff around the house when I was growing up. I remember the old Realistic receiver with Realistic bookshelf speakers would jam! I still have a Supertweeter around here somewhere. My dad would put them on top of his Fender twin guitar amps.

Even had a Tandy TRS80. My folks loved the shack.
 
The funnest part about Radio Shack was all the raw speakers/drivers,and various pieces of electronics that you could build stuff with.
 
Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
The funnest part about Radio Shack was all the raw speakers/drivers,and various pieces of electronics that you could build stuff with.


I miss them... needed some thermal fuses to fix a coffee maker. Gotta order online now.

4 cup coffee maker is not nearly enough to make a morning a pleasurable experience.
 
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I've been interested in HiFi since the early '70s when as a teenager I found a Stromberg-Carlson tube amp chassis in the trash and resurrected it with a can of black spray paint and $8 of tubes from Olsen Electronics. Since then I've had vinyl source components from Thorens and Dual, amps from Pioneer, Cambridge Audio, Dynaco, Yamaha, Quad and Denon, speakers from KLH, Mission, Infinity, Canton and Klipsch. But my hearing has suffered far worse than technology can compensate for.
I can only summarise over 50 years that I think amplifier electronics has advanced the most, while source technology is a mixed analog/digital bag. Today I find that the cheapest current 7.1 Sony home theatre amp is audibly better than any other amp I've owned in the past.
I still use my 40 year old (German) Canton speakers but acknowledge that my 10 year old Klipsch are better. I'll suggest that vinyl is still the best and clearly there are several better digital formats than MP3.
As for '70s components being better? Not likely, but with one exception from past experience - the Quad electrostatic speakers I heard demoed in 1977.
 
I lived in Japan 79 to 81 courtesy of the USAF... Yokota Base Exchange
had a fully stocked stereo listening room complete with American and
Japanese brands but nobody cared much about the stereo department...
The guy who set it up rotated back to the states so for 2 weeks I had
the place to myself... I'd set up and then pit one system next to the
other fed by the same signal from a Nakamichi Dragon... The winner was
Sansui G8000 and a pair of Bose 601... In my opinion all the Japaneses
speakers fell short. In 1990 I almost fooked up... I thought I'd
upgrade to newer Sony ES... boy was I disappointed... Even thought the
Sony boosted the same 120 watts as my old 55 pound Sansui it was like
comparing skinny watts with fat watts... The 1980 Sansui sound was far
richer than the Sony ES... In 1994 I upgraded to 7 Audio Source Monoblock
Amplifiers... The Sansui powered my 4 Bose 201s shop speakers for 10 years until
one channel died... I have it stored in the original box and ponder
selling it... According to Ebay "G8000 are easily worth $1,500 and bests new
stereos costing $5000."

P5 Ushihama Heights Tokyo...
[Linked Image]
 
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Originally Posted by BusyLittleShop
I lived in Japan 79 to 81 courtesy of the USAF... Yokota Base Exchange
had a fully stocked stereo listening room complete with American and
Japanese brands but nobody cared much about the stereo department...
The guy who set it up rotated back to the states so for 2 weeks I had
the place to myself... I'd set up and then pit one system next to the
other fed by the same signal from a Nakamichi Dragon... The winner was
Sansui G8000 and a pair of Bose 601... In my opinion all the Japaneses
speakers fell short. In 1990 I almost fooked up... I thought I'd
upgrade to newer Sony ES... boy was I disappointed... Even thought the
Sony boosted the same 120 watts as my old 55 pound Sansui it was like
comparing skinny watts with fat watts... The 1980 Sansui sound was far
richer than the Sony ES... In 1994 I upgraded to 7 Audio Source Monoblock
Amplifiers... The Sansui powered my 4 Bose 201s shop speakers for 10 years until
one channel died... I have it stored in the original box and ponder
selling it... According to Ebay "G8000 are easily worth $1,500 and bests new
stereos costing $5000."

P5 Ushihama Heights Tokyo...
[Linked Image]




I love that receiver!!
 
Yes, it's difficult to compare vintage wattage to modern wattage. I think they are calculated differently. I would love to get a g8000 but too poor for that. Restoring yours shouldn't be more than a $400 job if you are handy with electronics.
 
Originally Posted by Alfred_B
Yes, it's difficult to compare vintage wattage to modern wattage. I think they are calculated differently. I would love to get a g8000 but too poor for that. Restoring yours shouldn't be more than a $400 job if you are handy with electronics.


Absolutely! It's funny when a 25wpc receiver from the 60s-70s blows a modern "200wpc" Best Buy receiver out of the water!
 
Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
Originally Posted by Alfred_B
Yes, it's difficult to compare vintage wattage to modern wattage. I think they are calculated differently. I would love to get a g8000 but too poor for that. Restoring yours shouldn't be more than a $400 job if you are handy with electronics.


Absolutely! It's funny when a 25wpc receiver from the 60s-70s blows a modern "200wpc" Best Buy receiver out of the water!


You have to compare like-to-like, the Best Buy class D specials don't have the headroom that a dedicated A+B does. It's not an age thing, there are plenty of incredibly strong standalone offerings out there and even in the integrated categories, there have been some excellent products. I had for quite a while, an HK 2CH unit that was an honest 120WPC @ 8ohms that could push the old CV cabinets I was running at the time to very high volumes with fantastic clarity and control. It was a MUCH stronger amp and much heavier than my old 1970's HK and similar vintage 50WPC Rotel. They are out there, but you aren't going to find it for a couple hundred bucks stating it can power 7 channels lol.
 
Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
I want one of these:
[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]



My parents had a Pioneer just like that! Top of the line. They replaced a Bogen tube amplifier with that awesome Pioneer...

Would love it...
 
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