Well, I've had some troubles with vintage. I've been playing in that area for actually quite a few years now, although for the past 5 years I've been on hiatus from audio altogether. My sorties into vintage ended when I bought a "fully restored" Accuphase E-202 and paid what at the time was a premium for it (it isn't any more--they've gone up in price quite a bit), and it lasted a matter of months before developing the turn-on relay problem, which is apparently a known known with that unit. Some techs says it can't be fixed because it requires a part that's NLA, some techs that specialize in the E-202, like Amplifier Surgery, have worked out workarounds. But that's $695 and shipping x2, and I already have a lot sunk into the old thing. Now I don't know how I'm going to get it out of the house.
Sounded sweet when it worked, though. I thought I had finally found "my" amp.
That's the trouble with vintage...something can always go wrong, and then, after you get it put it right, something can always go wrong.
But then, my first attempt to buy a used car, for $500 in 1977, was an absolute disaster—I mean comically so, in an exaggerated, everything-that-could-possibly-go-wrong-went-wrong kinda way—and yet my then-friend Mark Fowle bought a used car for $375 in 1973 and put nothing into it except gas and oil for the next six years and it was as reliable as rain the whole time. So it can go either way. Some people are charmed when it comes to vintage, some are cursed.
Would you call the A3.5 "vintage"? What was it, 2005-6 or so? I seem to remember it was only a current product for a relatively short time.
