This joint needs some more vintage hifi

mhardy6647

I don't much care for the sound of most of the Superscope-era Marantz receivers.

These? These I like.

DSC_6691_ by mhardy6647, on Flickr

oldrocker

Terribly sweet, and yes I was the one who "punched" out his other "pringles looking guy picture" eye for having such nice gear...

oldrocker

Very nice "vintage" gentleman...TY for sharing

soundfreak1

The yammy had a nice look amd sound back then. A clean understated look.

mhardy6647

Actually the CR-1000 is a little too disco for me with all the slide controls -- oh-so-fashionable ca. 1974 they were. Other than that, it's a very nice piece of hardware with a remarkably good tuner section for a receiver.

Aesthetically, I am probably most partial to the CA-1010 and CA-2010 integrated amplifiers as the sine qua non of the massmarket Yamaha hardware (some of their statement separates are more elegant and/or more impressive, but still out of my price range... at least in terms of what I am willing to spend for vintage solid state stuff).

DSC_6689_z by mhardy6647, on Flickr

sucks2beme

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Aesthetically, I am probably most partial to the CA-1010 and CA-2010 integrated amplifiers as the sine qua non of the massmarket Yamaha hardware (some of their statement separates are more elegant and/or more impressive, but still out of my price range... at least in terms of what I am willing to spend for vintage solid state stuff).

/quote]

The price range is always the issue. 10 years ago you could play with these and not worry about it. Anymore, the $$$ becomes a factor.
I like to buy stuff non-working. I've seen broken stuff going for
hundreds of dollars. The 1150 was $100 BROKEN (the balance slider
was GONE). The only reason I jumped was the guy who sold it to me
said it was the only thing wrong, It was a guy I know, so lower risk.
The KR-7600 was more of a crap shoot.

mhardy6647

The price range is a factor that has to be balanced against... shall we say... desire to acquire.

E.g. I'd have no issue at all in paying current market price for a Marantz 8B in good working and cosmetic condition from a reliable, local seller. Absolutely no problem at all...

Marantz8B by mhardy6647, on Flickr

That one's not mine, but I did the re-hab on it and I've gotta tell you it's the best sounding commercially-made vacuum tube amplifier I've had in my home (and I am not, a priori a big fan of the push-pull EL34 "sound")... even with the cheap-jack "cannon fodder" Sovtek output tubes installed in it while I was workin' on it, it sounded great.

Mikey081057

I love the vintage Yamaha receivers too.... and I am a big fan of their old amps as well... they are way under appreciated...The only thing I don't like about much of the vintage stuff is the connectors....RCA and Speaker connections don't seem to age well. And yes the 8B is a classic perhaps even a museum piece.

mhardy6647

Mikey081057 wrote: »

I love the vintage Yamaha receivers too.... and I am a big fan of their old amps as well... they are way under appreciated...

Don't complain ; - )

...And yes the 8B is a classic perhaps even a museum piece.

Well... except that they deserved to be used not just gatherin' dust.
The other classic commercial amp I'd like to get to know better is the h/k Citation II (FWIW).

sucks2beme

The citation 16a is one that I can't seem to get my hands on.

As far as the Kenwood goes, some more work tonight found that the
preamp jumpers were causing issues. After some cleanup, the bass
has improved on the Kenwood. Who'd think that could cause that
much of an issue? I still need to pull it down all the way. Some of the pots are
coupled to the back via long shafts. I've got to pull the back off to get to
them. Such is life with old stuff.

dudeinaroom

Those old HK units are built like a tank. The build quality screams McIntosh. I had my hands in a citation pre-amp last week, and they sound very nice. We ended up replacing the unshielded input leads and changed the volume control to an alps. With a little chassis and knob modification it looks like no one even touched it from the outside.

Mikey081057

Jeez that is very sweet ... that my get my vote for Vintage P O R N of the year...

gmjungbluth

My ESS AMT 1s. Neat speakers

mhardy6647

The h/k preamp and the ESS speakers are very nice...

TNHNDYMAN

The ESS AMT 1A's are what I grew up listening to on my dad's system. Not for everyone, but it certainly pushed me towards a quality speaker with nice bass and detailed highs. He still has them, and I'm acquiring parts as I can to rehab them in the future. The HEIL tweeters are really nice and you see the same principles being applied to a lot of new offerings.

dudeinaroom

mhardy6647 wrote: »

The h/k preamp and the ESS speakers are very nice...

I wouldn't mind giving those ESS speakers a listen. That H/k was nice mhardy, save ofr the couple of blemishes on the back under the tubes near the input jacks, it was in pristine condition. We fired it up before freshening it up and it sounded congested. After it just sung right, very nice sounding vintage pre. I wouldn't mind having a citation I like that to rotate through the mix.

dudeinaroom

Here is/was a basket-case of a Scott 290 amp. I had to rewire much of it, as a chunk of the wires were burnt from the heat of the dual rectifiers. Most of the wiring in that thing ran between those 2 hot tubes, now there are 2 in that location, and only because that is were they need to connect to. All other wires were ran around the outside of the tubes. We also greatly increased the wattage dissipation of the dropping resisters to help cool things down under the chassis. I wish I would have gotten pics of the lk-150 I did about a week or so ago as it was very very clean, and also another nice sounding unit. I should note that the 290 in the pics above had a "tacoed" chassis, as well as the far right control on the face was smashed back in about 3/8 of an inch. A little bit of wood and a hammer can make things straighten out pretty decently.

mhardy6647

Finally had some bandwidth to test the trifecta of MX5050 MkIII-2 decks. They all three work pretty darned well and sound quite good, as is.

The two on carts are pretty grungy, but it's a Velveteen Rabbit rather than a Curt Cobain kind of grunge... they were clearly much loved ;- )



DSC_0056 by mhardy6647, on Flickr

Nice thing about these decks -- they're half-track decks, but they come with a quarter-track head stack, too. A switch under the head cover selects the 2 vs. 4 track playback heads. Easy as that.

boston1450

Just got my Yamaha CR-1000 & love it. Cant wait to use it this weekend

boston1450

Glen B

I recently got this minty Technics SU-A6 preamp, with MC phono.

boston1450

mhardy6647

I took advantage of a rainy morning today to -- finally -- "restore" the other knob inserts on my dump-find EICO ST-40 integrated amplifier (pp 7591A, as was its big brother the ST-70). Years ago, I had found some brown textured paper at a Michael's craft store that was a pretty darned good match for the missing inserts.

I feel much better now.

DSC_0198 by mhardy6647, on Flickr
DSC_0200 by mhardy6647, on Flickr

ST-70 on the left, ST-40 on the right

oh and I spent an hour or so listening to it via a pair of Dynaco A-35XL speakers.

boston1450

Looks very nice Mark. We use to have a shed at our local transfer station & a year ago they locked it up. I use ta enjoy going to get rid of trash/recycles. Use ta get some goodies too

jcaut

I recently acquired and restored a couple of significant-to-me, Realistic receivers.


I would have been about 11 years old in 1981, and my dream receiver was the STA-2080. But I didn't get one, couldn't afford one, etc.. It took a few years but by 1984-'85 I had saved up enough to buy the "new for '84" STA-860. I ended up selling my original a few years ago, but almost instantly regretted it. Found one recently for $59 that I couldn't pass up. A few weeks later I acquired a working-but-overheating STA-2080. I worked it over and here it is along with the 860. I tend to like to keep the original look when it comes to dial lighting on these old receivers, but many of them- including this STA-2080- desperately needed cooler-running lamps, as the heat was taking a toll on the plastics. I tried and tried, but I just couldn't get the warm-white LED's to look right. I finally threw that approach out the window and went for a cooler look with blue tinted meter lighting. I think it looks nice. (The 860 lighting is all LED, too, but maintains the original look.)

cnh

Those old Realistics are nice! I have a couple myself. An STA-2200 (first RS unit with Mosfet power transistor construction).

And, one of my favorite looking pieces below, the STA-95, but the 2080 is more powerful, bigger, and has POWER METERS! And those new lights are "sure" pretty!

Will put all my RS stuff together in a room eventually. Probably the STA-95 (or 2200) some Nova 8s, LAB 395 TT, SCT 33 cassette deck, and a CD 2300. Pretty much a nostalgia system but I was a lot older than 11 in '81! Reminds me of everything I never had in college/and graduate school!




cnh

George Grand

Very nice Jason.

pumpkinman

This was given to me recently as an "I don't want it anymore" Well it now has a happy home.
Proton D1200 power amp from1988.
Sorry it 's not a better pic.

P-man

Tbone289

She's a beauty!

mhardy6647

^^ That R/S receiver (RS-2080) is, I believe, the model with the MOSFET outputs; I can't ever remember hearing one... but they're said to sound quite good.