Anyone into vintage stereo?

[brashears9567]

Watch facebook market old systems get listed every once in awhile. Just remember some electronic parts degrade with age and will need to replaced.

Definitely true, plus that forty-plus year old grease turns into clay. Not difficult to remove and regrease but you have to get inside to do it. Had to do this on my Teac. Old grease will slow things down or stop them completely. Take care with those brittle plastic pieces, too. It's easy to make a bad situation worse when you're inside old equipment.


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[oldag]

Hey, if I ever decide I like some vintage horns that only need 2 watts to drive them, you better believe I'll be auditioning amps festooned with 300B tubes!

On the serious side, though, I've been shocked to see old tubes going back into production decades after the classic makers discontinued them.

What's next? Flashbulbs? Come to think of it, I can't think of any way to put out as much light as a #2 bulb without lugging around equipment that's literally 1000 times the weight and bulk. I wonder if there's a business opportunity there.

I think that last paragraph was a joke...but I'm not sure.

The speakers I am running have a 4" horn tweeter, 10" horn midrange and 15" cone woofer. Takes a hand truck to move them.

 

[oldag]

I must admit I vastly prefer CD's to vinyl. No wow, flutter or pops.

Still have a high end turntable and several hundred albums. Gathers dust.

 

[Eastexasrick]

The speakers I am running have a 4" horn tweeter, 10" horn midrange and 15" cone woofer. Takes a hand truck to move them.

Or a skid steer if you are moving both

 

[striker55]

I still love vintage audio. One day if I ever have the disposable money, I'll invest in a system similar to what I had forty years ago. a Kenwood rack system. AM/FM tuner, amplifier, Equalizer, dual cassette player, turntable and huge honking, ground pounding speakers!

How about a reel to reel player, that was a hot setup back then.

 

[benenglish]

How about a reel to reel player, that was a hot setup back then.

I've got two, along with shelves of albums. And they're not dubs; they're the albums put out by the record company on tape.

It's still the hot setup.

If I knew in 1970 what I know now, I would have never bought an LP or any other form of playback media except reel-to-reel tapes. They last, they're easy to dub for back-up copies, and they still (arguably) sound better than anything else.

I might, by this time, be acquiring double bitrate or higher DSD downloads. I emphasize "might." IME, that's the only thing that comes closer to tape than LPs. Red book CDs were absolute trash for their first 20 years and only became listenable about the time that downloads became a smarter choice.

BTW, if anybody wants to argue over digital formats, count me out. That's another holy war of which I steer clear, despite the inflammatory statements in the previous paragraph.

Still have a high end turntable and several hundred albums.

I have a mediocre turntable and ~25K albums in the house. I've got ~5K more in storage. I always figured that turntables are easy to upgrade but if you fail to buy an album when you want it, you may never find it again.

Gathers dust.

I'm ashamed to admit that I can say the same. Given my age and changing priorities, I'm seriously considering selling every album, tape, and laserdisc I've got as well as most of the hardware.

Anybody know where to get the best price for LPs?

 

[benenglish]

The speakers I am running have a 4" horn tweeter, 10" horn midrange and 15" cone woofer.

Serious question - Did they come out of a movie theater? There are "home" speakers with specs like that but there are also plenty of speakers living a second life in someone's home after serving decades in theaters.

 

[Axxe55]

How about a reel to reel player, that was a hot setup back then.

I never got into reel to reel, it was a bit too advanced for me.

 

[Tnhawk]

How about a reel to reel player, that was a hot setup back then.

I had Akai and Teac open reel decks. I would spend hours at Kadena Airbase copying music to a Nakamichi cassette deck. The stereo and camera equipment consumed much of my military pay every month.

 

[Brains]

Not vintage home audio, and I don't have any of it any more, but the best sounding car audio setup I ever had was "vintage" gear. Nakamichi cassette in-dash, Nakamichi 4x35 amp, Carver 2x120 amp, and all Infinity Kappa drivers.

 

[FNORD]

I had Akai and Teac open reel decks. I would spend hours at Kadena Airbase copying music to a Nakamichi cassette deck. The stereo and camera equipment consumed much of my military pay every month.

Was it a Nakaflop or a Flipamichi?

 

[striker55]

I had Akai and Teac open reel decks. I would spend hours at Kadena Airbase copying music to a Nakamichi cassette deck. The stereo and camera equipment consumed much of my military pay every month.

My friend was stationed on Crete with the Air Force when he came home he had a sweet reel to reel with hours of music on the tape's.

 

[GasGuzzler]

My turntable I have I bought new in the early '90's. I don't currently have an amp so it just sits. I do have an operational RCA console from the late '60's to play records on. My buddy got into this stuff a few years ago and rebuilt a '76 Marantz 6300 (converted the lighting to LED and did some other stuff).

 

[oldag]

Serious question - Did they come out of a movie theater? There are "home" speakers with specs like that but there are also plenty of speakers living a second life in someone's home after serving decades in theaters.

Nope. Home audio made by a small outfit based out of DFW (out of business for decades now).

 

[oldag]

Not vintage home audio, and I don't have any of it any more, but the best sounding car audio setup I ever had was "vintage" gear. Nakamichi cassette in-dash, Nakamichi 4x35 amp, Carver 2x120 amp, and all Infinity Kappa drivers.

Remember the Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck?

 

[SGT Dave]

I have a late 80s Technics SL-DL1 linear drive turntable going through a Marantz receiver and some enormous thrift store Polk speakers. Everything sounds awesome. I use the Marantz because it has a built-in RF demodulator for my Pioneer CLD-79 laserdisc player, which is also hooked up to 120 lb CRT projector.

 

[Brains]

Remember the Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck?

I do, that robotic flip was the coolest thing back in the day.

 

[GasGuzzler]

My uncle has oprea house speakers built into the cabinets in his sound room. Not sure if the wall of speakers in the organ room are still there since the pipe organ was sold a couple years ago.

If your items have LCD/digital displays, are they really vintage. The cool stuff I see has needles.

 

[Axxe55]

If you really want to go vintage, old jukeboxes are pretty pricy. There was a place on Interstate 45 going to Houston, on the other side of Conroe that restored, upgraded old jukeboxes to sell. They were not cheap, but would make a very cool addition to a man cave or garage.

 

[MagnoliaTom]

Today I’m going to look at a Pioneer PL 530 turntable. It’s a direct drive, automatic turntable with “wood” base and aluminum control panel and knobs. Would be a great match to the receiver. But damn those things are pricey now!