Older Amplifiers Better?

[Clmrt]

Not to mention the repairable nature of older amps. So long as it doesn't have unicorn tears for outputs or long obsolete ICs, old amps can be restored.

Newer class D amps seem to be disposable. I know a many simply have entire modules replaced. Basically the case remains but the guts get swapped. Maybe even under warranty. Fine. If the cost to repair can be justified, and you only have to do it once, you still have to argue that your rebuilt vintage gear makes you feel better about your system than modern equivalents.

I have one case where I do like the vintage vibe mixed with my modern HT, and one case where I think it was a waste of resources to refurb an older piece. Next time I need amplification, I'll likely try something new, under $200. I've never spent more than $500 at once for anything audio related, and see no need to start now, not with so much good gear on the used market.

 

[Clmrt]

My experience i s to much gain everywhere ? often resorting to inline attenuators when for example power amps lack gain settings ? rarely passing half the volume knob in most older amps . I think lower gain and higher output from sources are a workable solution . But amps should have gain settings to fit in an HT or with a very hot DAC or preamp .

Was it not 100mV that was typical output levels in the 1970's ? Can not been easy for manufacturers when people had some old cassette decks and tuners and a VHS , and then added the new shiny CD player with 2.0v out ?

So I always experienced to sensitive power amps and preamps with unusable levels of gain ( you want to use the pot in it's most linear range for channel balance ), unless with a very quite phono cart ? Or integrated where this was true

I like those old -20db switches.

 

[Sokel]

My experience i s to much gain everywhere ? often resorting to inline attenuators when for example power amps lack gain settings ? rarely passing half the volume knob in most older amps . I think lower gain and higher output from sources are a workable solution . But amps should have gain settings to fit in an HT or with a very hot DAC or preamp .

Was it not 100mV that was typical output levels in the 1970's ? Can not been easy for manufacturers when people had some old cassette decks and tuners and a VHS , and then added the new shiny CD player with 2.0v out ?

So I always experienced to sensitive power amps and preamps with unusable levels of gain ( you want to use the pot in it's most linear range for channel balance ), unless with a very quite phono cart ? Or integrated where this was true

As long as level go,line levels with music out of a DAC is usually 50-100mV,tops 400-500mV at bad recorded stuff and that's peaks.
So...

(old stuff's output where either 400mV or close to 800mV)

 

[EJ3]

Possibly noise performance 70's 80's everything hissed 90's not so much .
In the old bad days gain structure was all over the place ?

Even new products can offer bad noise performance some of the cheaper active speakers of today hiss

I never had a hiss problem since I started in the mid 70's.
However, many amps did hiss with the more efficient speakers.
I had some of those speakers but I never owned any of the amps that hissed with my speakers.
You may find that some modern amps may hiss with older or newer very efficient speakers 88DB @ 1 watt @ 1 meter, 91 DB @ 1 watt @ 1 meter or better.
The least efficient speakers I own (and the ones I use the most are):
The Dahlquist M-905 measured at 87 dB SPL (1 watt@ 1 meter), which was lower than the rated 91 dB but still about average for speakers of its size. The difference may have been a result of different test conditions since we used a full-range pink-noise signal while Dahlquist’s rating was made at 1,000 Hz. From Classic HiFi Magazine

 

[Oddball]

I love my 15 year old AB class amps and not in any kind of rush upgrading. Old amps don't sound better than the new ones as usually noisier and might not be so ruler flat, but goes back to how much of it is audible.

My Rotels with 80 SINAD sound pretty good to me. Powering surrounds and atmos with them, so for non-critical listening could not tell them from Sorm 16 D class multichannel amp with much higher specs.

2 Brystons 4B SST are doing LCR and doing it so well that I did not even try comparable D class amp.

 

[Old_School_Brad]

My experience i s to much gain everywhere ? often resorting to inline attenuators when for example power amps lack gain settings ? rarely passing half the volume knob in most older amps . I think lower gain and higher output from sources are a workable solution . But amps should have gain settings to fit in an HT or with a very hot DAC or preamp .

Was it not 100mV that was typical output levels in the 1970's ? Can not been easy for manufacturers when people had some old cassette decks and tuners and a VHS , and then added the new shiny CD player with 2.0v out ?

So I always experienced to sensitive power amps and preamps with unusable levels of gain ( you want to use the pot in it's most linear range for channel balance ), unless with a very quite phono cart ? Or integrated where this was true

Sure, I’m all for making the most of today’s extremely quiet DACs and preamps. I was just venting a bit about how older amplifiers were designed for lower input voltages (often around 1-2V for full output), which made sense for the sources available at the time, like CD players and tape decks. In contrast, many modern amplifiers now require much higher input voltages -sometimes 6-10V to achieve full output. In that light the older amplifiers are actually in many instances more impressive than newer ones. -In my old school opinion.

 

[EJ3]

As long as level go,line levels with music out of a DAC is usually 50-100mV,tops 400-500mV at bad recorded stuff and that's peaks.
So...

(old stuff's output where either 400mV or close to 800mV)

Some vintage amps (such as my NAD 2100's) have gain controls.

In this case, 1 infinitely variable gain control per channel:

You can use either wide-hand inputs or filtered inputs 112Hz to 80kHz that strip off interference, prevent intermodulation distortion, and protect your speakers from unwanted subsonic signals.
The filtered inputs also have: input- level controls (read: gain controls) that match your preamp’s output, balance levels in bi-amped or surround systems and allow you to bypass your preamp and connect a line level source directly to the power amp.
Input sensitivity (for rated power into 8Ω) 0.85V.
That might be why you might employ a pre-amp, as I do.
CD players work great.
Also with my NAD 2200's which do not have gain controls (but I use my Apt/Holman Pre-amp for that).

 

[mhardy6647]

That is fantastic. Ever thought of setting up rack audio / power distribution panels so that you could easily swap between the various amps?

Yes.

 

[Mnyb]

Sure, I’m all for making the most of today’s extremely quiet DACs and preamps. I was just venting a bit about how older amplifiers were designed for lower input voltages (often around 1-2V for full output), which made sense for the sources available at the time, like CD players and tape decks. In contrast, many modern amplifiers now require much higher input voltages -sometimes 6-10V to achieve full output. In that light the older amplifiers are actually in many instances more impressive than newer ones. -In my old school opinion.

I think 2 volt was defacto for CD and respected by most ( 4v for balanced ) but the abundance of legacy sources made for some decision making settling what gain the amp should have ? For expensive product adjustable senstivity per input and then some main volume ? But for a cheap amp it was just make it sensitive enough so that it can blast any source to the rails

THX sticks to 29dB or something , so they tried to make it a defacto standard ?

Toady it should be less of a problem with most sources always being 2 volts on RCA out , but then we have room correction and EQ to which you make room by lowering the output

I must credit KEF with thier LS60 it's gain structure feels sensible for almost anything , so they got that one "just rigth"

My opinion is that it should be user adjustable as it's very hard to please everyone. I would never buy an power amp without adjustable gain nowadays .

 

[Gregm]

I remember fondly the Nakamichi Stasis (anyone remember those?) & the Pioneer A-400 from back when. The Pioneer is probably cheapo but the Stasis will probably run you between 500-1000 euro --- for which money, with a bit extra, you can buy a small Eigentakt based amp, new in the box, from the likes of Audiophonics...

 

[egellings]

If the can is labeled "fresh bait", they should still be alive

Lumbricus terrestris (sp?); earth's little plows.

 

[egellings]

Sound quality? – Not necessarily any difference.

Have newer designs improved sound quality? – Not really. Amplifiers from the 70s and 80s were already capable of producing transparent signals.

If you’re not looking to discuss reliability, design, thermal performance, or differences in specification ratings, those are my answers.

Agree; audio amplification has been a solved problem for some time now. Technologies may vary, but the results are the same; identical sound from all competent electronic component designs. Transducers can vary a lot.

 

[antcollinet]

If the cost to repair can be justified, and you only have to do it once, you still have to argue that your rebuilt vintage gear makes you feel better about your system than modern equivalents.

Well sort of. But a refurb of a vintage amp may cost more than all the modules in a class D (PSU+2x amp modules say). And most likely you are only going to need to replace one of those, (as long as the same modules are available, which is far from a given)

 

[EJ3]

Lumbricus terrestris (sp?); earth's little plows.

When you need worms (Lumbricus terrestris [sp?]) for catching fish:
What your doing (in the USA), (your voltage [plug type] {and danger level may vary}) is putting 120 volts into the ground and forcing the worms out of the ground.

Grab a piece of wire coat hanger and cut it to a length of about 15".
Stick in straight down into the ground so that an inch or two sticks out of the ground.
Now you need to connect 120volts to the piece of wire.
The easiest way is to use and extension cord (Do NOT plug the extension cord into an outlet yet).
On the extension there are two slots to plug into.
The smaller slot is the HOT side.
Push the small slot onto the wire in the ground.
NOW plug in the extension cord and in about a minute, worms will start coming up after the ground.
After you see enough worms, UNPLUG the extension cord, and gather them up.

If it's unclear or you want more info, PLEASE REASEARCH THIS! DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE UNSURE OF WHAT AND HOW TO DO THIS!

1

https://www.thebassbarn.com/posts/969466/bookmark

 

[mhardy6647]

well -- it is a bit of a strawman but this is usually about the time that I like to point out that RCA introduced the direct-heated 2A3 power triode for audio amplifier use in 1933 per Eric Barbour*. That was 92 years ago. As far as I can tell, the 2A3 has been in continuous production, somewhere, by somebody, ever since. It's a pretty future proof piece of hardware. They last a good, long time, too when treated properly.

In all seriousness, the weirdness of the above is hard to overstate. Many tubes have enjoyed long lifetimes because they are good for something -- vacuum tube musical instrument amplifiers, Soviet (or Russian) avionics... something. The 2A3 has a pretty limited bag of tricks. For "high powered" radio AF amplifiers, it was rather rapidly supplanted by much more practical alternatives like - ahem - the 6L6 (pentodes, push-pull, and feedback FTW, as they say).
The only "use" for 2A3 tubes seems to be low powered, barely practical "hifi" audio amplifiers -- a decidedly niche market**. Yet the 2A3 is a survivor.

____________________
* https://www.worldradiohistory.com/A...m-Tube-Valley/Vacuum-Tube-Valley-Issue-12.pdf
** I have one such amplifier. OK, technically, two. Actually three, in that "one" of my single-ended 2A3 amps in the form of monoblocks. Dollar for dollar, SE 2A3 amplifiers are hard to beat when it comes to actually listening to music through them.


two US made 2A3 from the 1940s that I bought, used, for $20 each about 24 years ago.


two Chinese-made "meshplate" (kinda, sorta) 2A3 that came with this amp when I bought it ca. 20 years ago

DSC_0858(2) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
two nice, nearly new Slovak-made 2A3 kindly passed along to me recently by a hifi fellow traveler.

All six of the above 2A3 power triodes are alive, well, and ready to boogie at a moment's notice. The JJs have been installed for a couple of months now, though -- not in a big hurry to swap in any of the others.

 

[killdozzer]

My opinion is that some old/vintage amps (not all) are JUST AS good, which is no small thing. But 'vintage' moved on. It's 2025, early 90' is vintage now. Depends what you had in mind. Check, for example, this rather obvious example from 1991:


It's an often frowned upon brand by audiophiles, but it's every bit as good as many today. It is connectivity that sets it apart, not performance. This one boasts 0.004% THD being measured from 2Hz to 200kHz (I'd love to see these numbers confirmed).

But there you go, it's a mid tier Sony you can find for 250€ in my parts if it's very well kept and it will play great.

This one doesn't even have the dreaded Sony's BassBoost!

One more thing - I think it's easier to have clean performing amp with less connections. It's often these extra channels that add some distortion to the chain.

 

[mhardy6647]

Oh, I should note that the amplifier shown above is capable of about 3 watts per channel at "reasonable" levels of distortion (<2% or so THD... 1930s definition of reasonable).
In the early to mid-1930s this was a reasonable definition of a luxury car.

 

[Timcognito]

In the early to mid-1930s this was a reasonable definition of a luxury car.

They were sunned by the pubic and few were made, a similar thing happened to the Tucker, in the 40s.

 

[pablolie]

I have a solid-state Luxman from their Alpine days, LV100-something or so. Probably 1991 vintage or so. Still sound very good, if not quite as revealing as a post-2014ish Ncore-based amp. Also packs far less wattage for those to whom that matters, nor did configurable sub outputs exist back then.

I side with those who say that the title is a gross overstatement. Many 1970/80s amps that were tops in their day (Sansui and such) need to be recap-ed and such, and who know how competently that's done and how close to their very respectable original specs they get. But given the price well-maintained, "legendary" vintage amps carry, it's probably much easier to get better performance at lower cost points these days, unless one is totally into the looks of the vintage gear (which I can totally accept, to each their own).

 

[mhardy6647]

They were s[h]unned by the pubic and few were made, a similar thing happened to the Tucker, in the 40s.

Well, the economy was rather rough when the Cord 810 came along.
Tucker had some other extenuating circumstances

I could've gone with a reasonable definition of an average car and pictured a 1933 Ford or Chevy. I went exotic because, in her* own sweet, inimitable way, the 2A3 was exotic and ultimately impractical, too.
No current production Cords (AFAIK) but I can buy a new pair of 2A3s today and have 'em in my hands in a couple-three days.
________________
* "She" because the 2A3 was the Queen of Triodes.