I love this hobby. Picking up vintage gear in the next few days

Evrythngmatters

I will be picking up the following pieces of gear soon. Now this is the awesome part. This guy bought all this gear new and did not even use it but maybe 3 hours total. It's like this stuff was in a time capsule. All of it looks new. I know it's hard to believe but this stuff is in 9.5/10 condition wise (no, this is not a sell nor will it turn into a sell) and he still has the manuals as well. No boxes though.

Nakamichi ST-7 tuner
Nakamichi CA-5 preamp
NAD 5200 cd player
B&O 1700 turntable with upgraded cartridge
Advent Powered Loudspeakers (with the wood upgrade)

I found plenty of info. on everything but was curious how the powered speakers sound. Anyone here ever have an ear on them? From what I have read about the tuner and preamp they are suppose to be solid pieces as well. I know next to nothing about turntables but it looks cool though. Just thought I would pass on my excitement about some vintage gear.

soundfreak1

Have listened to many advents in the day (used to sell them new in 1978-81) the best thay had. Imho was using 2 pair of LG advents (the walnuts as we called them) stacked tweetwr to tweeter. Nice sound however to procure those today vintage-- you could easly get a better sound for the same or less money. But I have learned speakers are like "ice cream" all good in some way just a matter of what flavor you like!!

Evrythngmatters

I picked up all the audio goodies today and I am very impressed with the condition of everything.
I have wanted to do a A/B demo for a while with newer cd players vs older ones. Well,
I got the chance to today. First up was the NAD 5200 vs Marantz SA11-S1. I spent a good
hour listening to various discs queued up at the same time. The conclusion I came to is that
the NAD was a little more open and conveyed space better. The weight and impact of the sound was also
better with the NAD. On a quite few tracks I also noticed that the Marantz seemed to present the soundstage
a little further back than the NAD. While this was not that big of a deal it also took away from the overall
presentation of the music.

Next up was the Cambridge Audio Azur 740C cd player. Same discs,everything queued up at the same time,
same everything. This A/B was very close; Closer than I thought it was going to be. From the first
disc the Cambridge was off to a great start. The sound from this player is very different from the Marantz
and NAD. The first thing I noticed was an increase in detail but at the expense of it not sounding as smooth
and natural. The Cambridge presented the music very well but the lower frequencies seemed lacking a
little. This player in my mind is all about mids and highs. Really nice sound and I will compare it
to solid state amps. Now the NAD I would compare to a combo of solid state and tubes mixed together.
The Nad fell behind the Cambridge in terms of overall detail but came out ahead because of its more
natural presentation. I also noticed that the NAD had a little drier bass sound as well. I am not a
pro reviewer as you can tell but something about the NAD kept me coming back for more.

The conclusion I have come to is that even with a 25 year gap and great advances in technology one can
still achieve a very nice sound from a vintage cd player. While both the Marantz and Cambridge had their strenghts
and weaknesses just like the NAD I would choose the NAD as the keeper. Like the three bears story, this
one is just right. Just my opinion though. Next up will be the Nakamichi preamp in a few weeks.

Evrythngmatters

soundfreak1 wrote: »

Have listened to many advents in the day (used to sell them new in 1978-81) the best thay had. Imho was using 2 pair of LG advents (the walnuts as we called them) stacked tweetwr to tweeter. Nice sound however to procure those today vintage-- you could easly get a better sound for the same or less money. But I have learned speakers are like "ice cream" all good in some way just a matter of what flavor you like!!

I picked up the Advents today and for a speaker about the same size as a pair of monitor 10's these things were pretty heavy. The wood is very nice as well. The guy who owned these was right when he said it was like everything was in a time capsule. I did listen to them hooked up to the Nakamichi preamp but it was only to make sure everything was working correctly. I will over the next few weeks be doing some critical listening with these. Will report back then in this thread on what I hear.

cnh

Those speakers will probably pair up nicely with the Nakamichi pre. I have the same pre in one system and it's dead neutral which can be good or bad depending on the speakers. If the speakers are "bright" and 'forward' the Nakamichi will REVEAL that and make things a bit unnerving!

But if you have a speaker that is more musical, warmer, less forward then that neutrality will not produce 'harshness'. I agree about the Cambridge CDP. I've always found Cambridge CDPs to be very 'detailed' but uninspiring 'musically'. I'm not a fan of detail for details sake. I'd take a tube CD over a super-detailed SS CDP any day of the week!

Enjoy!

cnh