Design icons in the hi-fi and audio sector

[mhardy6647]

Although many of the Lux (Luxman) designs are attractive, some were, from my perspective, kind of jumbled.
That said, this era/line of fairly modest components was and remains my favorite.

EDIT: Come to think of it, this little receiver borrows a bit from the aforementioned marantz 10B, too.


(This is the only one I've actually owned, so I'll use it as the example -- the integrated amp "equivalent" is probably a tad more iconic, but I'm gonna play the cards I was dealt)

 

[mhardy6647]

Maybe too 1960s Amurrican Mad Men martinis and sexy secretaries in its design language -- but the "last gasp" Fisher vacuum tube stereo receivers, particularly the 800C, 500C, and entry-level 400 ooze a 1960s cool to these Amurrican eyes.

A lovely 500C from Holt Hill Audio in Lowell, MA

The Fisher 500C Tube Receiver - Just Lovely!

The Fisher 500c: The 50yo King of Pure Stereophonic Sound A far cry from the big-box fleets of modern, mega-feature, home theater amps, the Fisher 500 is still the pinnacle of pure stereophonic sound. The debut of Avery Fisher's combo amplifier-receiver in the early 1960s signaled the dawn of...

holthill.com

Very nice components too, that era of Fishers, and well laid out and put together; a joy to rehab and well worth the effort.

I do have a very nice and fully restored/rehabbed 500C here -- not as gorgeous as that one above, though.

 

[mhardy6647]

harman/kardon kind of ran the gamut over the decades -- some lovely, elegant components, and some regrettable ones.

I do love the mid-70s h/k products, though, albeit some more than others.
The inexpensive (and very popular) 330c and 430 receivers are lovely (and were, and remain, very good, affordable components from their era).



I do have an h/k 430 but it's kind of scroungy.


It's visible beneath an also attractive but otherwise unremarkable Technics RS-630T cassette deck.


The sine qua non, though, for me was the uncommon, entry level A401 integrated amplifier.
One was recently called out in another thread here at ASR by @Eric Natural

Do You Miss Knobs and Dials and Switches?

They should bring Tandberg back. They still exist but they just do video conferencing solutions these days.

www.audiosciencereview.com

The companion T403 tuner's lovely, too.

 

[somebodyelse]

The original Quad 33. When a remake/revival model is introduced decades later, it is usually a strong indication of the original being iconic.
View attachment 512506

The 2 and 22 got the remake treatment first, so perhaps they should be included by that reasoning. I prefer the 33/FM3/306 cantilevered stack though.

 

[JeffS7444]

The original Quad 33. When a remake/revival model is introduced decades later, it is usually a strong indication of the original being iconic.
View attachment 512506

The term "understated" gets used a lot, but QUAD really nailed it with this, and I'd argue, with the Quad 44/405 too.

 

[JeffS7444]

Although I'm particularly fond of that Beomaster 1900 (the little recesses indicating where one's fingers should go is an inspired touch), it's kind of a space hog, all but demanding top-shelf placement. And placement of the DIN i/o connectors on the underside of the unit can be maddening when one falls off every time you move the unit for cleaning. Braun Regie stereo receivers have a similar arrangement.

 

[bluefuzz]

McIntosh MC275

When I first saw pictures of McIntosh gear I honestly thought it was a spoof mocked up in Photoshop. I refuse to believe anyone could actually manufacture anything so despicably fugly. Nowadays I would just dismiss it as one the more egregious hallucinations of an AI-bot. However, there seem to be many people who claim they do actually exist but, having never actually seem one in person, I'm still not entirely convinced. Please tell me they're just some kind of edgy audiophile satire ...

 

[mhardy6647]

Although I'm particularly fond of that Beomaster 1900 (the little recesses indicating where one's fingers should go is an inspired touch), it's kind of a space hog, all but demanding top-shelf placement. And placement of the DIN i/o connectors on the underside of the unit can be maddening when one falls off every time you move the unit for cleaning. Braun Regie stereo receivers have a similar arrangement.

They mount on the wall, too!
First one I encountered was wall-mounted. I have no recollection of how the wires were managed, though.

 

[mhardy6647]

When I first saw pictures of McIntosh gear I honestly thought it was a spoof mocked up in Photoshop. I refuse to believe anyone could actually manufacture anything so despicably fugly. Nowadays I would just dismiss it as one the more egregious hallucinations of an AI-bot. However, there seem to be many people who claim they do actually exist but, having never actually seem one in person, I'm still not entirely convinced. Please tell me they're just some kind of edgy audiophile satire ...

They exist. There are a few Mac pieces here.

I won't quibble with their electronics, but Mac's hifi components' aesthetics, by and large, strike me as clumsy and inelegant -- although some of their tuners (viz. the MR-71 shown earlier) are elegantly attractive. More recent Mac components have gotten gauchely gaudy. Even the above-mentioned MC275 over the years has sprouted LED 'status indicator' lights glowing up through the small-signal tubes.

The old tuner-preamps aren't bad, but they're not inspiring aesthetically, either. They're pretty good products, though, overall.

There is an MR-67 here, in full disclosure -- it is a very good FM stereo tuner, as well.


Cosmetically, quite similar to the aforementioned MR-71.

Here's a rear view (hubba-hubba! -- you know, some of us like that sort of thing ) of the MR-67.



It's not obvious from the photo, but it is chock-full of vacuum tubes, but many are shielded (as befits a VHF radio and, if memory serves, the front end uses Nuvistors -- interesting little metal and ceramic vacuum tubes from very late in the tube development epoch that... well... don't glow. The were excellent for high frequency use, and at the time (late 1950s-early '60s) when they were developed, high frequency transistors were difficult/expensive to manufacture -- so vacuum tubes hung on for a few more years in radios and TVs in their 'front ends' until good, reliable, and cost-effective FETs became commonplace.

Nuvistor on the far left (of course).
source: https://hackaday.com/2021/07/21/retrotechtacular-nuvistor-vacuums-last-gasp/

 

[mhardy6647]

The term "understated" gets used a lot, but QUAD really nailed it with this, and I'd argue, with the Quad 44/405 too.

The Quad "ESL-57" was so iconic that John Dahlquist, bankrolled (? -- or at least aided and abetted) by Saul Marantz ripped off I mean paid homage to them in his complicated but popular (with some) DQ-10 loudspeaker.

source: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/h...X/70s/Stereo-Directory-1977-OCR-Page-0137.pdf

ESL-57 (sorry, mine are legless - I do have some aftermarket stands for them, but they were not employed in the photo below)


(in the living room of our MA house -- "House 3.2" -- with Harpo the cat poised to wreak havoc in the background)

Dahlquist DQ-10



DQ-10 without her Quad makeup on.

source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1006615968141390&set=pcb.1006616131474707

Note the (in)famous Motorola (now CTS) piezoelectric "lemon juicer" 'supertweeter' and the Henry Kloss/Advent masonite-ring woofer.

They were inefficient and kind of hard to drive -- they sound OK but dollar for dollar they could be bettered by easier to live with (if, perhaps, not quite as sexy-looking) loudspeakers.

 

[Nabussan]

This Sansui Tuner (TU217). Looks much better in real life.

Nice déjà vu. I posessed this model in 1979, also the amplifier.

 

[mhardy6647]

Nice déjà vu. I posessed this model in 1979, also the amplifier.

the corresponding amplifiers are also quite lovely. Similar to the 'big boys', but svelte and nigh-on minimalist by comparison.
Random internet photo for the unaware.

Sansui AU-217 amp

Just won one of these in rather good nick on Ebay. £33 all in with P&P. Gets a good write-up on other forums, so I'll do a bit of a review when it's all plugged in and up and running. Sounds like it's in excellent condition, so let's hope the sound matches the looks!

forums.whathifi.com

and the next model up, albeit slightly busier (AU-317)

Facebook

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[SlowJim]

Dieter rams wall mounted stereo system circa 1965

 

[mhardy6647]

Dieter rams wall mounted stereo system circa 1965

Design icons in the hi-fi and audio sector

A thread on design icons in the hi-fi and audio sector. A thread about devices that stand out due to their visual uniqueness or their long-term influence on the design of hi-fi products—icons, in other words. I came up with this idea because today we talked about the Technics RS 1500, among...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[JeffS7444]

If I simply had to have a high-powered tube amplifier, the Mac 275 would be at or near the top of my list as it's well-made, and not so badly priced as those things go. It looks kind of odd in it's recent iterations, because the original was never meant to be on display., but rather, the expectation was that it would be concealed within a piece of furniture.

 

[DSJR]

Technics SL10 turntable - Superb sound and ease of use

Armstrong 600 series from early 70s UK. Quirky internals but timless to me outside -

 

[JeffS7444]

Too bad I didn't appreciate how clever the funky NAD 5120 turntable really was when it was new: An inexpensive plastic thing, it didn't weigh much, most of the platter's mass made of a rubbery material, and the flat, flexible tonearm wands were made of printed circuit board material, and could be swapped out in seconds. Oh, and it was a suspended design too.

 

[JeffS7444]

And now for something more modern: Tivoli Audio table radio:

 

[mhardy6647]

If I simply had to have a high-powered tube amplifier, the Mac 275 would be at or near the top of my list as it's well-made, and not so badly priced as those things go. It looks kind of odd in it's recent iterations, because the original was never meant to be on display., but rather, the expectation was that it would be concealed within a piece of furniture.

I thoroughly agree, FWIW. Dollar for dollar, hard to beat for a stereo vacuum tube amplifier.
The MC-225 was (is) my favorite Mac stereo amp (also FWIW, which I realize ain't much).

 

[mhardy6647]

And now for something more modern: Tivoli Audio table radio:
View attachment 512742

Henry had a way with aesthetics for a long, long time.


The KLH 19 (near the center, above), from the mid-1960s, was the tuner-only, component version of KLH's Model 21 solid-state FM table radio.

KLH Model Twenty-One (21) FM Radio (1965)

Vintage KLH Model Twenty-One FM Receiving System, FM Broadcast Band Only, Oiled Walnut Wood Cabinet, Made In USA, Circa 1967 by Joe Haupt, on Flickr

before the 21, the vacuum tubed KLH 8 (ca. 1962) was the progenitor of them all. I wish I had one of those!

source: https://antiqueradio.org/KLHModelEight8FMRadio.htm

Later (mid-1970s, give or take), Henry's Advent Corp. did a very similar radio, the Advent 400. I have half of an Advent 400 (sans speaker), its chic white case yellowed with age and environmental insults.



Vermont Public (the VR NPR/PBS network, of which Mrs. H & I are big fans) has one in their collection at the radio station's HQ Colchester VT avec speaker.