What are some of your other favorit

[Guest]

We all have a common bond here with the Classic Speakers but how about other manufacturers? Electronics manufactures, speaker manufacturers and cool audio related gear?

I have always been a fan of the old Dynaco gear including the A25 speakers. I am also partial to tube pre amps with solid state amps. Bryston has served me well as well as a old Audio Research SP3 pre amp. I also have a great respect for the VanAlstine gear.

How about others? Any products that you can't give enough praise for?

[Guest Nigel]

HI;

Some Onkyo receivers, especially TX4500 and TX8500 from '76 - '77, Technics turntables, Adcom 545 and 545 II power amplifiers.

Nigel

[Steve F]

What a great subject—sort of like the "First Exposure" topic from a few weeks ago. Although I became interested in hi-fi as a result of my father, my interest really snapped into focus when my friends and I began to put together our own systems. Actually, it was kind of a relief to be able to discuss turntables and electronics amongst ourselves without the rancorous, competitive edge of our Advent vs. AR speaker arguments.

Putting aside my short-lived Lafayette LA-125B amplifier (22 watts per channel, for as long as it worked), my first "real" piece of serious stereo gear was a Dynaco SCA-80 integrated amplifier kit. Didn’t all of us build one of these? I remember one of the local stereo stores was having a "McIntosh Amplifier Clinic," where you’d bring in your amp, and visiting Mac technicians would run a 20-20kHz THD sweep of your amp, both channels driven at rated power. The idea was to show how few competing amps could really meet their power spec all the way down to 20Hz, thereby demonstrating the superiority of McIntosh (and justifying their high price).

So my friend and I each brought our SCA-80 kits to Sound Ideas in West Hartford CT to have them tested. Well, Mac equipment was (and is) pretty darn good, but somehow, my Dyna went from 20-20kHz, never exceeding 0.4% THD at its rated 40 watts RMS per side. My friend’s amp was ok (about 0.8%) to about 5kHz, and rose from there to just over 1% at 20kHz. Truth be told, very few people would actually notice a 0.4 to 0.8% THD differential, especially playing a complex signal like music, but man, was he mad! We always went back and forth with his Large Advents vs. my 2ax’s, so when my amp "beat" his amp, it was major ‘high school/teenager-style’ bragging rights. Even the Mac technician said, "Boy, you don’t see many like this one." However, my father, with his usual unerring, pragmatic accuracy, said to me, "It’s probably just an unusual collection of plus-tolerance parts." Up until then, I thought (or wished!) it had been my assembly skill.

Integrated amplifiers were the electronic component of choice back then. We weren’t interested in listening to the radio on our home stereos—that’s what cars were for—we wanted to play records. So none of us that I can remember bought receivers. The early 70’s were a great time for integrated amplifiers. Kenwood and Pioneer in particular had many terrific models. Real standout performers. I upgraded from the Dyna to a Kenwood KA-7002 in the summer after my senior year of high school. Very classy piece—60 watts per side (compared to the Dyna’s 40), much nicer cosmetics, turnover frequencies for the bass and treble controls, an 18dB/octave subsonic filter, and A, B, and C speaker terminals. I remember my older cousin lending me his 3a’s for a while so I could A-B them with my 2ax’s. Then later that summer, my sister mail-ordered AR-7’s to our house, so I had all three connected to the Kenwood at once, and I could switch between them to my heart’s content. Stereo heaven, until my sister wanted her speakers at her apartment, and my cousin took his 3’s back.

My 3a-cousin had a turntable that I always thought was extremely nice. It was a Miracord 50H Mark II, a top-of-the-line, German-built automatic, a competitor to the Dual 1219 in 1972. He didn’t stack albums, but even as a single-play, the Miracord had perhaps the smoothest overall operation of any unit I’ve ever encountered. Beautiful chrome-plated "start" and "size" pushbuttons that actuated with the precision of fine Teutonic machinery, an incredibly well-damped cueing mechanism that you practically needed a calendar to time, and its crowning glory: an actual disc brake that brought the platter to a smooth, controlled stop after the tonearm picked up at the end of the record. It was such a pleasure just watching this machine go through its perfectly timed, perfectly executed paces. (Eventually, I bought a Dual because of its superior gimbaled-suspension, lower-mass tonearm. So much for romanticism!)

Other favorite components of mine were the Pioneer SA-9100 integrated amp, introduced in 1976 (it had a rear-panel "B speaker" level control, so you could do A-B’s at home with perfect efficiency compensation), the matching TX-9100 tuner (the industry’s first Phase-Locked Loop tuner), and the competitive Kenwoods, the KA-8100 amp and KT-8300 tuner. Remember how beautifully weighted and smooth those analog tuning knobs were in those days? One spin, and you could go from one end of the dial to the other. People who’ve only known digital tuners have really missed out, don’t you agree?

More recently, I’ve had some Adcom and Parasound amps and preamps that are certainly well-built, good performing pieces, but they just don’t have quite the same panache as the older components.

I think the component I wished I had most, but I never had, was the AR integrated amp. It had an iffy reputation for reliability from local dealers in those days which gave me pause, so I never got one. But it was—and still is—the epitome of understated class: beautiful champagne gold front panel, elegant, simple, just-what’s-necessary controls, incredible, almost Superman performance behind its Clark Kent exterior.

I could go on about noteworthy equipment for quite a while, but these were some of my first impressions.

Steve F.

[ToastedAlmond]

I always thought the original Dynaco Quadaptor was a pretty spiffy little piece. Get some "ambient reinforcement" AND some pretty good bass response (the introduction of out of phase rear channel info COULD smooth out some standing wave problems). In fact, one of the first things I noticed when I started using the DynaQuad system way back when, was much improved low end performance.

I agree with Steve on the AR Integrated Amp, and I WAS fortunate enough to get one. A prize possession. An original AR Receiver would be nice also. Also an Advent 300. And a H-K Citation 11/12. A cool little item I've had for a long time, is a small E-V 1244 Integrated Amp. MAN I got a lot of mileage out of that amp. It's about 12-15wpc, and not much bigger than a good book. Because I travel a lot, I put together my world famous "Stereo in a Box/Wave Radio Killer" for road trips. Basically the E-V amp, with portable CD player and a pair of Rat Shack Minimus 7's in a small cardboard box with string. For extended stays, or demanding environments, I add a very small Parasound passive woofer module (BPI -60?). Two 5 1/4" drivers in a little bombproof enclosure. You would be AMAZED at the amount of sound that comes from that little rig.

I had a KLH 52 Receiver that sounded good and I liked it a lot, but it blew up and I can't find parts.

George

[Guest russwollman]

I was quite in awe of AR back in the 70s. Their straightforward, factual, honest advertising which included speaker response graphs (very scientific) really wowed me. At last, I thought, here was something to believe in. I had a pair of 2ax's that fascinated me, only I was afraid to pry the grilles off to see what made them tick.

Today I get a kick out of seeing the stuff I had-an elegant Garrard SL-95B Automatic Transcription Turntable with the afrormosia wood insert in the tonearm (there'll always be an England), the very teutonic Dual 1229 that looks like Mercedes designed it...but I've yet to come across a Sony TA-1130 integrated amp that blew away the folks who ran the McIntosh clinic: 50w/ch @ <.1%THD 20-20, both channels driven. It was a rock solid powerhouse.

When I was a kid everyone seemed to have golden Fishers and Garrards and fancy speakers, but my father, who did not hear well and had no time for music, bought a bunch of cheap stuff with names I'd never heard of and could never be proud of: a Teeco tuner, a Calrad amp, speakers that looked like ARs but bore no name and had only one cheap driver in a huge cabinet, and a wimpy changer that I demolished in no time. He hid all that stuff in a closet with louver doors. The idea of the gear in plain site was anathema to my mother. It still is. I bought her an NAD L40 and a pair of black Linn Tukans, and she wanted me to put it where no one could see it.

[Guest]

>Electronics manufactures, speaker manufacturers and cool audio related gear?<

Several times upon a time I was treated to listening at length to some perfectly placed Symdex Sigma speakers. They were in just the right room, with just the right electronics. Their imaging was absolutely awe inspiring. You could stand almost directly between them (they were several feet forward into the room) and swear the sound-stage was in front of you. The speakers "disappeared."

Of course, the guy was using the bottom-end of AR 3as to handle what the Sigmas couldn't. It was magical.

Bret

[Guest]

A friend of mine just didn't bid-up (who knows if he'd have won) a Threshold A400 amplifier that sold for $535.00 on ebay, at least partly because his wife thought it was ugly.

Bret