Old stereo equipment, still sounds great

[edhackett]

I have a Pioneer SX-737 in the cabinet here in the lab waiting to be put back in use. My current lab is RF shielded, so not much use currently. I bought my first one as part of my first real stereo system in 1975. They were $400, a bit over $1700 in today's dollars.

We were cleaning out a 40 year old lab in another building on Monday and I came across a near new Dynaco Mark III. Oh my! It's in perfect condition right down to the original tubes that test just fine. Ebay it for $300-$400, or pick up the matching pre-amp and mono tuner and put together a system? What to do? What to do?

Ed

 

[rjundi]

I am using a Denon receiver with 60W/channel. It sounds wonderful and better than most current stuff with way more power.

I purchased it in 1990 for college with a pair of Klipsh speakers that got damp and ruined.

 

[Quest]

I just picked up a Pioneer flagship DV-S9 DVD player @ the thrift store for a song. Excellent D/A convertor and video processor given it's age:

http://pioneer.jp/press-e/1997/1110-1.html

Weighs 33lbs (that's right! 15kG!!!), subchassis, backpanels, etc. are all copper plated for better EMI/RFI rejection (oh yeah, have I also mentioned better grounding?)...dang thing refused to read some of my CD-R recordings but no issues reading off of my standard factory CD recordings.

Gonna spend some time revising the audio and D/A section, while leaving the video part untouched...

*smiles*

Q.

 

[Blaze]

I still have my 1979 yr Speaker Lab 7's..... would not ever part with them!!

 

[HerrStig]

For dirty pots and swtiches, CAIG LABS has the stuff. Outfits like Tektronics and HP use the stuff. They have a good website. The carbon pot cleaner really works. For tubes, google "radio tube poland ohio".

 

[Win]

I think the solid state equipment from the late 60's through the 80's is some of the most dreadful sounding stuff ever made. Lots of bipolar transistor gain stages with only a tiny window of linearity, lots of negative feedback. Do not like.

I still have my Yamaha "natural sound" twins from the late 70's in my warehouse of junk. Looks great, held class A longer than a lot of amps of that day, but not anything I want to go back to.

 

[SteveSRT8]

But see, what you think sounds terrible may sound terrific to the next guy.

 

[Volvohead]

Originally Posted By: Win
I think the solid state equipment from the late 60's through the 80's is some of the most dreadful sounding stuff ever made. Lots of bipolar transistor gain stages with only a tiny window of linearity, lots of negative feedback. Do not like.

I still have my Yamaha "natural sound" twins from the late 70's in my warehouse of junk. Looks great, held class A longer than a lot of amps of that day, but not anything I want to go back to.


After the mid-70s I tend to agree with you.

But the earliest first generation SS gear is in many cases good sounding. The best manufacturers carefully voiced their gear, right down to the individual capacitors and resistors used, and the lab and mainstream listening benchmark was still tubed sound systems(which then resided in most homes). The early instruments were voiced to that standard.

Discrete construction, point to point wiring, germanium transistors and capacitor-coupled stages were prevalent in the early SS designs. While measurement snobs would think ill of such designs, they actually produced smooth-sounding, quite musical results when done right.

The Gen 1 Fisher SS equipment in particular (pre-1971) is actually quite good sounding, if a bit unreliable depending on model from that period. Avery Fisher still played a strong role up to that point, and construction build equaled their tubed chassis assembly (on a more compact, lighter scale). All of it was US made. Early Scott SS gear was less impressive. And the early Mac and Marantz SS instruments were good, if not quite as musical as those earliest SS Fishers.

The Japanese electronics invasion thereafter changed everything, and not always for the better.