St1n
Member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2021
- Messages
- 15
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- 35
My journey so far...
I've been on the hi-fi merry-go-round for a little while now, and having an engineering background, decided to go the vintage route as an attempt to save on costs. I've found that after re-capping these units from the 70's, these units generally perform quite well (especially for the cost). Of course, some capacitors are still within spec, but then some are not.
I decided to acquire Pioneer's money-no-object solution; Exclusive C3 pre-amp & M4 Class A power amp (50WPC). After many hours of cleaning contact pins, pulling noisy transistors, and substituting capacitors with high quality, modern equivalents, I'm very impressed with how these perform. However, my curiosity got the best of me.
How would these compare to modern, high-end gear?
I came across Accuphase gear and was enamored by their classic aesthetic, and circuit engineering. Plus, I became fed up with my room being a furnace (Class A) every time I wanted to listen to music, so I wanted to hear a nice A/B implementation.
I acquired an E-480 with the DAC-60 upgrade card. To keep things somewhat succinct, I'll just say I'm also very impressed with the E-480. The build quality, aesthetic design, and sound performance (to my ears) are superb.
After getting things setup, and using the E-480 for a couple weeks, I decided to compare to the Pioneer Exclusive stack.
Get to the point...
Neither I nor my wife could honestly tell the difference between these two setups. I thought that maybe there was a slight difference in how the Class A amp presented its midrange in a more full-bodied approach, but that could also be expectation bias seeping in from reading these things from audiophiles... Class A sounds more "warm" and "liquid"... it had nothing to do with the literally warm air it was pushing out its grill and the inviting VU meters glowing... I swear.
I think this test has at least helped me come to terms that any differences between well-designed amps should be minimal at best, and likely inaudible in most situations. I'm sure if I had some inefficient speakers, and pushed both near clipping, it'd be a different story.
As a result, I think I'm going to keep the E-480 as a more efficient, an all-in-one solution. Since I'll likely be moving apartments frequently over the next year or so, I'm putting up the M4 for sale. While I love it for what it is, I can't justify carrying it around in hopes I'll use it more in the future.
TL;DR
Vintage gear can offer a real bargain in performance (especially if you're handy or have it serviced), but in my case, a modern integrated amp can perform just as well to my ears as ultra-high-end separates from the 70's which would've cost you the price of two cars when new.
It does seem the barrier to entry for great sound has indeed been lowered (tho, aesthetics and build quality are another topic).
Thanks for giving me the space to puke out my thoughts. Maybe I'm also trying to justify letting go of the beautiful M4...
I've been on the hi-fi merry-go-round for a little while now, and having an engineering background, decided to go the vintage route as an attempt to save on costs. I've found that after re-capping these units from the 70's, these units generally perform quite well (especially for the cost). Of course, some capacitors are still within spec, but then some are not.
I decided to acquire Pioneer's money-no-object solution; Exclusive C3 pre-amp & M4 Class A power amp (50WPC). After many hours of cleaning contact pins, pulling noisy transistors, and substituting capacitors with high quality, modern equivalents, I'm very impressed with how these perform. However, my curiosity got the best of me.
How would these compare to modern, high-end gear?
I came across Accuphase gear and was enamored by their classic aesthetic, and circuit engineering. Plus, I became fed up with my room being a furnace (Class A) every time I wanted to listen to music, so I wanted to hear a nice A/B implementation.
I acquired an E-480 with the DAC-60 upgrade card. To keep things somewhat succinct, I'll just say I'm also very impressed with the E-480. The build quality, aesthetic design, and sound performance (to my ears) are superb.
After getting things setup, and using the E-480 for a couple weeks, I decided to compare to the Pioneer Exclusive stack.
Get to the point...
Neither I nor my wife could honestly tell the difference between these two setups. I thought that maybe there was a slight difference in how the Class A amp presented its midrange in a more full-bodied approach, but that could also be expectation bias seeping in from reading these things from audiophiles... Class A sounds more "warm" and "liquid"... it had nothing to do with the literally warm air it was pushing out its grill and the inviting VU meters glowing... I swear.
I think this test has at least helped me come to terms that any differences between well-designed amps should be minimal at best, and likely inaudible in most situations. I'm sure if I had some inefficient speakers, and pushed both near clipping, it'd be a different story.
As a result, I think I'm going to keep the E-480 as a more efficient, an all-in-one solution. Since I'll likely be moving apartments frequently over the next year or so, I'm putting up the M4 for sale. While I love it for what it is, I can't justify carrying it around in hopes I'll use it more in the future.
TL;DR
Vintage gear can offer a real bargain in performance (especially if you're handy or have it serviced), but in my case, a modern integrated amp can perform just as well to my ears as ultra-high-end separates from the 70's which would've cost you the price of two cars when new.
It does seem the barrier to entry for great sound has indeed been lowered (tho, aesthetics and build quality are another topic).
Thanks for giving me the space to puke out my thoughts. Maybe I'm also trying to justify letting go of the beautiful M4...