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Do You Miss Knobs and Dials and Switches?

Braun still exists, but is not making hifi and audio equipment since the early 1990's. It's like most electronic companies here in Europe a company that made a lot of different products, whatever they could earn money on. Now the brand is owned by Gilette and they make household appliances, probally not sold in the US.

Philips, Siemens (owner of Telefunken), ... all went the same way, the company still exist, but they moved to markets that earn more. And most of the other brands were sold and merged into other brands. Hifi (at least for average persons) is not a market where big profits are made. Those that could survive went hi end, often with a needed dose of snake oil. And others moved on or went out of bussiness. It's hard to compete with Asian brands that can produce at a much lower cost.
 
Got a new HiFi rack .. Finally everything back in the setup and got a bunch of replacement tubes :)

I was stressing so much about a possible dac upgrade or SACD player on the digital front that I just decided to keep what I got, and upgrade my Analog stuff , buy a bunch more LPs .

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So far I have three of these small TPA3255 amplifiers.
This one is the cheapest. I paid less than 60 euros without the power supply on Aliexpress.
It does its job well - and it has a sturdy metal housing with two high-quality buttons.

However, it only has four rubber feet, so I'm going to give it some nicer aluminum ones.
(Don't be surprised, they are not yet fitted)

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I just thought of something. I forgot to mention in post 103 that when I was using that pre-amp I had all the line level inputs used at the same time...at least the audio jacks from the vcr inputs.
 
Waxx said:
Braun still exists, but is not making hifi and audio equipment since the early 1990's. It's like most electronic companies here in Europe a company that made a lot of different products, whatever they could earn money on. Now the brand is owned by Gilette and they make household appliances, probally not sold in the US.
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Thanks to licensing deals with outside companies, much is still available new today: clocks, wristwatches, calculators, kitchen appliances, even audio. Though as far as I can see, the "real" Proctor & Gamble / Braun mostly deals with personal grooming products. Awhile back, I purchased an alarm clock and ET66 calculator from Braun Clocks, and they look and feel pretty much identical to the German originals.
 
mhardy6647 said:
That's a cutie!
:)
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Just watched Netflix with it.
SMSL PS100 dac (30 Euro) to get hdmi arc from the TV.
Works great! The amp is powerful enough to easily drive my wharfedale Evo 4.2

The Loudness Button is nice for TV shows. Quality of the Buttons and the Knobs is really good.
 
SkyLab Audio covers nine functions with, plus fitting for this thread, related to Knobs and Dials and Switches. Plus a little bit more. Some functions have been more or less gone but have started to become popular again. Other functions will most likely never come back (to any great extent).

Summary of what the nine functions are in the spoiler, if you don't want to watch the video. You can also watch the video to watch some nice vintage Hifi in and of itself.:)

1. VU meters (yes Skylab says they are now starting to become popular again though)
2. Loundness function
3.P.A.D Passive Attenuation Device
4.Phono Preamp (integrated in the amplifier, not separate ditto)
5.MPX & FM muting
6.Record Stackers
7.Mono, Stereo, & Reverse Buttons
8.Filters (high-lowpass filters)
9.Dolby Nr & Tape Loops
 
I think visually I like this Technics best of all the amplifiers of the present day. Very tidy, the typical Technics VU meters and a thick, large volume knob.

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Cwopete5 said:
No remote. No digital readouts. No IC chips. Three tone controls. Loudness pushbutton. Hi/Lo Filters. All controls noiseless. They sure knew how to build them back in 1975.

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I mean it can be done today (Yamaha , luxman , accuphase, leben etc). But it will cost a pretty penny to get anywhere near that quality that used to be better midrange in the 70s..

Just to ship a heavy amp around half the world is not very desirable for manufacturers. Might as well fit 5-10
Times the same amount of class D amps in the same container.

Same goes for small and slim loudspeakers versus these big old things that looked like a small fridge.

Most modern dacs and headphone amps reviewed on ASR would fit into a shoe box and look like a sat receiver at best.
 
mhardy6647 said:
Are you sure about that?
If nothing else, I'll bet there are ICs in the FM tuner.
Yeah, it has several scattered through it (AM, FM, and Dolby NR), per the service manual.

View attachment 480839

These were monstrous, but more hat than cowboy (as some would say) compared to other Kenwood offerings of their era.O
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mhardy6647 said:
Are you sure about that?
If nothing else, I'll bet there are ICs in the FM tuner.
Yeah, it has several scattered through it (AM, FM, and Dolby NR), per the service manual.

View attachment 480839

These were monstrous, but more hat than cowboy (as some would say) compared to other Kenwood offerings of their era.
Click to expand...
Okay, so a few IC chips, but not as many as my other amp NAD C3050 is filled with them (and sounds really good too).
 
Curvature said:
I like buttons and switches. But I don't miss, at all, the complicated interfaces of most consumer electronics. Take this VCR remote that flips open like a phone.

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there's so much that could be said on the ergonomics of buttons&knobs. On a remote, customizable buttons are great, but also variation in size and having them positioned intelligently relative to human finger movements. I feel like it's an under-publicized (and studied?) field. Without looking at it (you're in the dark after all), it should be possible to pick up any remote and have your fingers fall directly on the buttons you use most, and they should provide meaningfully tactile feedback, and so on and so on. My smaller Harmony remote is my current favorite, and I'm very sad that Logitech dropped them, but there could be better yet.
 
John Devore gets it.

Here’s a video he just put out on knob feel. He’s a big vintage gear enthusiast, talks about a variety of old gear and their virtues, brought on by his recent purchase of an old Mark Levinson preamplifier with top-notch knob feel.

He also (rightly) decries the false dichotomy between “ loving gear or loving music.” As he says, it’s not a zero sum game; you can love more than one thing.

He begins his unboxing and description of the Mark Levinson preamplifier around 13 min in:

 
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