70s equipment sounds better?

PolkMaster1

Can anyone explain to me how the 70s equipment sounds better than say the 80s equipment? Are we talking about the aspects of all components vs. 80s equipment or certian components, such as amplfiers and turntables? I do not recall how 70s amps sound.

I am under the impression (and my studies show) that the height of tape decks came in the mid-80s. Component design in the early to mid-80s were the best, hands down over the 70s.

sheathensemble

I like late 70's pioneer receivers... I have a couple earlier 70's pioneer receivers and I much prefer the later stuff. My main amp is from the 80's though... and I like it a lot. And my favorite pioneer receiver was made in 1980 as well. I think it depends more on the specific piece of gear's performance rather than the decade it's made in. 70's gear looks bad **** though!:question:

heiney9

Pretty broad statement that I don't 100% agree with. You have any specifics or more details?

FTGV

If your talking in terms of stereo recievers there are several very good 70's vintage examples ,but sound quality from some stables "may" have suffered in the 80's with the increased use of horrid sounding IC's instead of discrete circuits and the race to include more on the features list.

PolkMaster1

heiney9 wrote: »

Pretty broad statement that I don't 100% agree with. You have any specifics or more details?

Look at audio equipment from JVC, Akai, Aiwa, Teac, Onkyo, Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer, Nakamichi in the 80s and compare it to the 70s or even the 90s. No comparison. In the 80s, everyone had a unique style all their own.

Also compare tape decks from the 70s vs. the 80s. Tape decks reached their apex in the mid-80s. Compare them to the 70s or 90s. Build quailty was at its best in the 80s. 80s wins hands down.

PolkMaster1

heiney9 wrote: »

Pretty broad statement that I don't 100% agree with. You have any specifics or more details?

However, I must add that I like the analog stereo tuners of the 70s over the digital 80s tuners.

nooshinjohn

In that era, it was my general rule of thumb that if it was made in Japan the quality was much better than Taiwan, which was then beginning to emerge. By the end of the 1970's American-made was very expensive or already outsourced.

By the end of the 80's, American-made was exceedingly expensive, Japan was very good, but also getting expensive, Taiwan was good and Malasia was crap...

I think the drop in quality from one era to the next is the quest for doing something as cheaply as you can, and if you are a huge company, like Pioneer or Kenwood, they become a victim of their success. Some, like Pioneer can recover and return to respect, but others, like Kenwood, have walked away from the home market almost entirely...

Bottom line is that there is some great gear being made today that I would put up against the best of yesteryear, but like then, you get what you pay for.

F1nut

Look at audio equipment from JVC, Akai, Aiwa, Teac, Onkyo, Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer, Nakamichi

All consumer grade stuff that never was all that.

Syndil

In broader terms, we have been on a downhill decline since the beginning of the industrial age. "They just don't make them like they used to" applies to pretty much everything. In the audio market in particular, in the 80's the trend started to move away from big speakers and hi-fi gear to portables and convenient, cheap all-in-one rack systems. So as demand declined, so did the offerings, and of course all the while the manufacturing companies were trying to squeeze more and more profits out of their gear, which often mean lesser-quality manufacturing. I think this is most evident in the quality of turntable manufacturing. A quality 80's turntable is nearly an oxymoron. There were a few greats that were largely holdovers from the 70's, and the high-end niche market has always existed, but overall turntables went to crap in the 80's.

I am not sure what you mean by "component design." The early 80's continued pretty much with 70's design, with the brushed stainless faceplates and wooden sides, but by the mid-80's it was all cheap black slabs of plastic with square buttons.

heiney9

PolkMaster1 wrote: »

Look at audio equipment from JVC, Akai, Aiwa, Teac, Onkyo, Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer, Nakamichi in the 80s and compare it to the 70s or even the 90s. No comparison. In the 80s, everyone had a unique style all their own.

Also compare tape decks from the 70s vs. the 80s. Tape decks reached their apex in the mid-80s. Compare them to the 70s or 90s. Build quailty was at its best in the 80s. 80s wins hands down.

Again you are lumping everything together. In general I think Fred makes a good point on the lesser I/C circuits and a race to add features may have hurt the ultimate sound of some of the models in some brand lines in the 80's. I'd have to disagree with the Nakamichi gear sounding poor. It was excellent, better than just about anything from the 70's, but then it cost a pretty penny too. IMO of course. I have very little love for much of the 70's gear. There are a few gems but overall I think the 70's stuff sounds mediocre at best as did most of the 80's and 90's stuff, especially receivers.

One thing the 70's gear does have, like you say, great analog tuners but then FM radio was at it's peak so that's not surprising at all.

H9

xoaphexox

Most 'consumer' (as opposed to 'enthusiast') gear that I have seen from the 80's is of considerably poorer quality than that of the mide to late 70's. Plastic became prevalent over metal, wood, and glass.

It's a product of capitalism. You have to keep the engine running. To do this, they employ what is called 'planned obsolescence'. Modern day (going back to the 80's) gear is designed to fail as close to the time the warranty expires as possible. It's what keeps you going back to the store for another...

With the exception of replacing individual discrete components that have finite lifespan (capacitors), most gear from the 70's prior is still running with minimal upkeep.

I believe once IC's and miniaturization, SMDs came in to the picture - repair-ability and sound quality suffered.

I say this because ICs allowed manufacturers to meet certain price points, at the cost of quality. The margin of quality that the units suffered is not typically audible to casual listeners or people who just don't really care that much. To enthusiasts like ourselves the differences are audible - and we discard a lot of that gear as "BPC" - Black Plastic Crap. Big box store shelf gear.

I realize you cannot paint everything with the same brush, so my comments are generalizations based on personal experience repairing and restoring gear from the likes of Yamaha, Sansui, Marantz, Pioneer, Kennwood, etc - the 'main players' of the time, as far as general consumer audio goes - not the exotic or esoteric (read: expensive) stuff like Accuphase and McIntosh.

There are also mergers and acquisitions to take in to account. Superscope/Marantz, Sansui sell-off, etc - whenever senior engineers retire or are bought out and accountants get a hold of a company the end result is never pleasing to the ear.

My $0.02

cnh

I'm pretty familiar with a lot of '70s gear because I've been collecting it for a while now. First. You have to remove Tape Decks from the equation unless you're talking about R-T-R because that's what was most significant in the '70s and even there its not clean cut.

What I've found is that when people make this sweeping generalization (and don't get me wrong, I love some of my '70s gear [KLH 17s, Polk Monitors, EPIs, Dynaco A25s etc. and Sansui AU-517, HK 730, Yamaha CR-800, Technics SL TT, etc.] is that this early gear is "easy" to listen to because it seems to sound warmer than much that followed it. But this is probably because the highs are often a little rolled off and the bass a little exaggerated (in a good way). The vocals are smooth but not as "articulate" as more upscale modern gear.

When you compare these pieces to more modern equipment they will seem very "soft" and laid back. The best analogy, here, I can think of are the complaints some have about LSi bookshelves as well as the compliments.

Ultimately, vintage equipment presents very little in the way of fatigue, is quite enjoyable and an "excellent" choice for background listening. When I'm moved to really listen "critically" in H9's sense. I fire up my tube amp, the SDAs and the Jolida CDP!

OK, I suppose one could say that "tubes" are also "old school"! The point is that old school may be more pleasing in some ways but TOTL new equipment probably resolves better, images better, and sounds cleaner if you "really" listen closely or compare!

cnh

heiney9

cnh wrote: »

OK, I suppose one could say that "tubes" are also "old school"!

cnh

True, the glass bottles are, but the tube circuits of today are different and the associated components are different. So while tubes can be thought of as "old school", today modern gear that utilizes them are completely different, while still retaining some of the past.

The term retro-gear comes to mind.

H9

PolkMaster1

OK, it looks like I am blending style with quality of components. Let me see if I can seperate the two and if there is agreement, or agreement to disagree.

Talking of the style of audio equipment, I do like the early to mid-80s equipment better than say the early to mid-70s equipment. Tape Decks got the biggest boost in both style and quality within a 15 year span. Some of the achievements within a 15 year time span are: Dual Capstan, Direct Drive, Quartz Locking, Dolby B, Dolby C (1979), dbx (not sure when it exactly came out), Dolby HX Pro, Real Time Counters, Solenoid Tape Transport Controls, Bias Adjustments, Chrome Tapes, Metal Tape (1979), 3 Head Designs just to name a few. Most of these items did not exist on 70s tape decks, but did in the 80s. I did follow the evolution of tape decks very closely. I would include Nakamichi tape decks looked better with their 80s tape decks over the 70s.

Quality of tape decks - all manufacturers I mentioned above did come out with high quality, high-end tape decks from the early to mid-80s. List prices were from $500 to $900, with the exception of Teac in the early 80s - their Z series were high-priced-high-end. I never owned one myself, but the list prices were from $1000 to $2000, pending on which model you wanted. The Z7000 was aimed against the Nakamichi Dragon. I wonder how the Z5000, 6000, and 7000 faired against the Dragon. You probably could say the same for receivers - list prices from manufacturers for their top models went for $500 to $1000, so you could count on getting something that was a damn good quality component. The "cheap black plastic with square buttons" started in the late 80s (88 or 89) and going downhill in the early 90s (when America went into a recession). Any of the offerings by that time I would not consider on the audiophile level compared to just a few years before. Everything seemed to be entry model by the mid-90s, with the exception of the Sony ES line.

However, when I talk to a few others about audio - generally those who are older than me, say that the 70s equipment was of the golden age. I always assumed they talk about receivers, amps, and turntables. From what I read, especially turntables from the 70s, they seem to be built better than most 80s turntables. However, my turntables have always been direct drive, which I got in the 80s. (Direct Drive was invented in the 1920s, but Technics perfected it in 1972.) So I must have done something right since my table is still kicking **** and is over 25 pounds. Right? Again, I have not heard many stereos from the 70s, but I do know their designs, which makes me in love with the late 70s and early to mid 80s audio equipment. Perhaps because Amps used BJTs back then, and now MOSFETs are pretty much used in most amps and receivers?

heiney9

The Dragon retailed for $2500 when introduced and I think the final retail was around $2800 when it was last produced. The NAK 1000ZXL Gold Ed. was even more, so your list prices are a little off if you are including Nak decks, but probably about right for other manufacturer's. We could debate forever, but IMO, the Dragon was the best sounding most advanced deck ever made. Some will dispute that, and that's fine. Many other decks like Tandberg and Teac had some very formidable units that came close during that era.

H9

dkg999

The '80's was the beginning of the we want a bunch of stuff, we want it now, and we want it cheap US consumer trend. So not only consumer electronics marketers, but consumer product marketers as a whole started following and designing for that trend. There were still the niche audio manufacturers building high quality gear for their market segments. Like F1 said, most of what you reference wasn't "all that" anyway, so I'm not sure what you're attempting to prove?

malvrich

My $.02 is that, like someone posted earlier, many mnaufacturers went to all in one "rack" systems (some even One huge component that was indented to look like Four). Also around then (mid-late '80s) you had the dawn of the 100 watt/channel sweet spot.
no more complete line of amps/receivers. 2 maybe 3 but everything had to have (or advertise) 100 watts. of course the power rating regulations were loosened as well which allowed anybody to find a way to measure that vaunted 100 watts from their amps, which were probably producing an honest 35-50 watts/channel both channels/8 ohms/20-20k.
O and Turntables in the 80s were just for "old farts" who hadnt yet bought a CD Player, which was expected to relegate vinyl to 8 track status. Nobody in the mainstream market was going to "waste money" building high quality turntables.

PolkMaster1

heiney9 wrote: »

The Dragon retailed for $2500 when introduced and I think the final retail was around $2800 when it was last produced. The NAK 1000ZXL Gold Ed. was even more, so your list prices are a little off if you are including Nak decks, but probably about right for other manufacturer's. We could debate forever, but IMO, the Dragon was the best sounding most advanced deck ever made. Some will dispute that, and that's fine. Many other decks like Tandberg and Teac had some very formidable units that came close during that era.

H9

H9 - Yes, I remember the 1000ZXL tape deck - which retailed for over $3000, possibly near $4000 in 1980 (this is before I got into high end audio). I seen pictures but I never saw it in person. I also remember the Dragon listing for 4 figures, which I did see in person quite a few times. I thought I saw somewhere it went for $1800 in its infancy years - 1983/84, maybe I saw it in a store where they sold it - cant remember, but I welcome your input. (Just to clarify, I did not mean to imply in my previous post that the Dragon was in the $900 league, although Naks did have decks in every price range.) However, it was a well loved tape deck by those who had the privledge to own them.

Xoaphexox brings up a good point about service records for the 80s equipment. I do not know much about how often the units of this era was serviced. One would (hopefully) expect that if you paid $300 or more for a unit in that era, that you are paying for it to last. I still have some of the equipment I purchased in the 80s that has yet to need service. The equipment I purchased in the 80s lasted for quite a while before I sold it and moved on. I do agree that audio equipment built on an SMD foundation cannot compare to using the "old school basics" such as resistors and capacitors.

I would say though that ICs do have their place in audio in the strictest sense - such as motor control (CD Player, Tape Deck, Turntable Drive comes to mind) and in the display area. Anywhere else in the audio chain, I am in full agreement that it would diminish audio quality. If anyone has thoughts about this statement, I would love to hear them.

I do agree with the manufactures offering all-in-one system in the 80s, but I remember staying clear from those lines of components and completely ignoring such systems.

Perhaps this is more dialog than I anticipated when starting this post. :-)

Syndil

OP sees to be concentrating on cassette decks. To me, tape decks were never anything I would consider hi-fi, and I used to run a Pioneer CT-F750. Cassettes were a compromise for convenience, because vinyl and reel-to-reel were not portable. They were not a hi-fi medium; they were the lossy MP3 of the day. Cassette technology did get a lot of attention in the 80's because of the convenience. It was the decade of the Walkman, after all.

heiney9

Syndil wrote: »

They were not a hi-fi medium; they were the lossy MP3 of the day. Cassette technology did get a lot of attention in the 80's because of the convenience. It was the decade of the Walkman, after all.

You couldn't be more wrong. The cassette wasn't perfect and RtR was superior, homemade cassettes on the high end decks of the day sounded excellent, hard to tell them apart from the album if done properly. Pre-recorded cassettes were pretty bad, but I could make recordings on my NAK Dragon that would sound indistinguishable from the original LP and in some cases CD.

H9

decal

You must not have heard very many modern products if you think equipment from the 70's sounds better.

PolkMaster1

heiney9 wrote: »

You couldn't be more wrong. The cassette wasn't perfect and RtR was superior, homemade cassettes on the high end decks of the day sounded excellent, hard to tell them apart from the album if done properly. Pre-recorded cassettes were pretty bad, but I could make recordings on my NAK Dragon that would sound indistinguishable from the original LP and in some cases CD.

H9

H9 is absolutely correct. My homemade cassettes were nearly identical reproductions of the original using high quality cassette decks. I never owned a r+r but they are superior to cassette decks. Only the top flight tape decks could rival R+Rs.

H9 - do you still have your Dragon? If so, do you still make use of it?

PolkMaster1

decal wrote: »

You must not have heard very many modern products if you think equipment from the 70's sounds better.

I never said that the 70s equipment sounded better - or worse (except for tape decks, and if that statement is not totally correct, I welcome those like H9 has to share their experiences). I am inquiring to people on this forum who are more knowledgable than I am of the equipment of that era to share their experiences between the 70s and 80s equipment.

mhardy6647

Lots of good sounding audio equipment made in the 1930s through today - the best of the '70s stuff was good, but there was stuff as good or better before, and after.

Syndil

heiney9 wrote: »

Pre-recorded cassettes were pretty bad, but I could make recordings on my NAK Dragon that would sound indistinguishable from the original LP and in some cases CD.

I would take that challenge. I bet I could pick out your cassettes from vinyl or CD far more accurately than you could pick out my Monoprice cables from whatever you are using in a blind comparison.

F1nut

Syndil wrote: »

I would take that challenge. I bet I could pick out your cassettes from vinyl or CD far more accurately than you could pick out my Monoprice cables from whatever you are using in a blind comparison.

Why don't you actually compare some better cables for yourself and sign up for the cable demo program?

nooshinjohn

Syndil wrote: »

I would take that challenge. I bet I could pick out your cassettes from vinyl or CD far more accurately than you could pick out my Monoprice cables from whatever you are using in a blind comparison.

It is a challenge you would lose... The Dragon was as good as any R2R I have ever heard, and better than most. If you knew how to take advantage of it's abilities, It could sometimes make a tape sound better than the original. That deck is very near the top list of the best home use source gear ever made. I wish I had mine back, if only to have it in the rig to look at.

Syndil

F1nut wrote: »

Why don't you actually compare some better cables for yourself and sign up for the cable demo program?

I'll bite. What cable demo program?

F1nut

Top of the page, http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?22-2-Channel-Audio

heiney9

Syndil wrote: »

I would take that challenge. I bet I could pick out your cassettes from vinyl or CD far more accurately than you could pick out my Monoprice cables from whatever you are using in a blind comparison.

Very doubtful. Have you ever owned a top of the line cassette deck? Made high quality recordings on top of the line blank cassettes? I did extensively and the Dragon made stunning recordings. In fact every Nak deck I owned was a superb performer. I am not saying every deck you encounter will do this, I am saying it is/was possible more times than not.

I find it humerous you can't hear differences in cables, but then state you can hear differences between a cassette and an LP. That is one of the more comical things I've read. The cables changes are for more noticeable than cassettes vs. LP.

H9

Syndil

Again, I would take that challenge, and I am confident I would win. I find your statement that cable changes are more noticeable than cassettes vs. LP to be equally comical. My Pioneer CT-F750 was not a NAK, but it was no slouch either. I could pick a tape out by the S/N ratio alone. And if Dolby NR was engaged to raise the ratio, I would pick it out from the horribly compressed dynamic range. You're obviously sure you're right, and so am I. So anything else we say here is just words in the ether.