$300 amp versus $3000 amp ???

[Woochifer]

Yea, Feanor, that is exactly what I am wondering...

Is "desireability" based on performance or romantic attachment to the past. Let's compare the best of the late-70's with a more modern workhorse. Is there something to modern design? Are older components really old?

I wonder about all the "older-yet" equipment people seem to desire. Call it early to mid 70's. Marantz. Sansui. To me, that is nostalgia, a bit too old for performance. (???) Maybe that notion is way off base. (???) To me, its Japanese from the 1978-1981.

We are busy right now, I'll get around to it in time.

jocko

A lot of it indeed is nostalgia, but the receivers from that era were built to a very different set of standards. For one thing, their published specs had to adhere to the much more stringent FTC requirements. The loophole that multichannel receivers have taken advantage of is that the FTC requirement only applies to mono and stereo units. That's why you see crazy specs like "700 watts" on receivers that under all channels driven conditions output less than 300 watts total.

Also consider that the price points have held steady, but the value of money has changed dramatically over the last three decades. The Marantz 2275 stereo receiver that my parents still use was a midlevel model that cost $600 back in 1976. Nowadays, $600 will buy an almost-midlevel 7.1 receiver, but that $600 from 1976 equals more than $2,000 in today's dollars. Think of how much two-channel amplification you can buy for $2,000 today! That gave those receiver manufacturers much more latitude in constructing those units as ruggedly as they did. The inflation of the late-70s and early-80s led to a lot of obvious cost cutting by the various manufacturers, as they integrated more of the discrete circuitry together and used lighter weight materials throughout. High end manufacturers have been able to hold up their end as far as build quality is concerned, but they also let the price points follow the cost of materials and labor, whereas the mass market companies generally hold the price points while continuing to integrate new features into their revised models.

As far as desirability goes, a lot of these 70s components have developed cult-like followings simply because the newer equipment does not replicate the signature sound that a lot of vintage equipment offered up. That's why vintage JBL speakers in good condition can fetch prices comparable to when they were new -- because no speakers made today sound like they do, and a lot of the music from that era is optimal for those types of speakers.

Also, with the all-analog design of these receivers that routed the signal through a variety of switches and controls, the sound of these receivers had more obvious differences. This is partly because the "zero states" on these receivers (i.e. with everything set to "0" or flat) were not the same. It's how Yamaha developed its reputation for sounding "bright" and how Marantz got a reputation for its "warm" sound. IMO, these characteristics have not carried over to their AV receivers quite as drastically, but these perceptions have stuck around in the market.

Another factor that cannot be ignored is that these 70s receivers came with much better AM/FM tuners than you typically find in newer digital receivers. Aside from the much cooler look with the VU meters, the sound quality and the sensitivity is superior on the older receivers. The newer tuners have push button memory and don't drift, but they treat FM listening as an afterthought, whereas the vintage tuners benefited from a lot of attention to detail. A friend of mine removed the tuning circuits from a vintage Sansui receiver (the thing had crapped out and was causing interference), including the dial and the antenna leads. Those circuits took up a lot of space must have weighed at least 5-7 lbs. The tuners on newer receivers are about the size of a matchbook and consist of a few integrated circuits and some shielding.

Adcom amps date back to the 80s, and if you look at the value of equipment, a lot of gear from that decade is not especially sought after. The 80s represented the first generation of audio components that used digital circuitry, and it seems that with all things digital, the value is in a persistent downward trend.

Adcom has a good reputation as a "value" manufacturer, but they have also been widely criticized by a lot of audiophiles in more recent years. I detect some fair degree of backlash from how well regarded the Adcoms were when the company was relatively new. But, if that type of sound fits well with your preferences, then reputation does not matter much, except in how much of a bargain you're getting for the sound quality. Who knows, maybe the nostalgia bug will hit with gear from the 80s at some point as well, but for now, the value of those first "digital generation" audio components has not held up very well (I mean, is there any resale value whatsoever in a first generation CD player?).

[nightflier]

I'm going to agree with Wooch and take it a bit further. I am currently sitting on an Adcom GFA-7500 that I bought used on eBay, and after a month, the two rear channels stopped working. Of course the seller won't acknowledge anything. Over the years, I've purchased several Adcom components, including many amps (a 535-II, a 545-II, a GFA-6000, and a pair of mono blocks - forgot the model number). The 7500 is the second amp that has needed repairs (the other was the 545-II), not to mention that several of the other components (a cd player, a preamp, and speaker selector) also needed repairs. I would be more cautious about buying used Adcom equipment. I happen to have a EE friend who's an excellent tech who has been able to repair all mine, but I'm not too impressed with their quality (he disagres with me on this and says they are just as good as the others). Who knows, maybe I just got unlucky.

That said, I have had better luck with other brands such as B&K. I happen to like their sound more, but I have also never had one that needed repairs. I have also had very good luck with PS Audio stuff and am currently enjoying an awesome pair of monoblocks in my main system. The older PS Audio stuff is about the same price, and considering that they are not supported by the company, it is a blessing that they were built so well.

I also have to say that the Adcoms, while never lacking in pure power sound a bit mushy (compressed) to my ears. It sort of feels like the instruments run together more, that there is less soundstage, and that the highs are not as airy. It's not very noticeable, but when compared to a much higher-priced amp, they really don't compare. I haven't heard an Adcom with upgrades, so that may be different, but I will say that a $300 amp just does not sound like a $2000 one (used prices). If you consider that higher-priced components devalue faster, that means that we are comparing an amp that cost $500 new to one that cost $5000. I have compared Adcoms to many amps, and while they offer excellent power for the buck, there are better used amps out there at the same price-point.

I think what it really comes down to is the risks of buying second hand and online. Since they typically weigh a ton, there are way too many people who don't pack these well. Likewise there are a lot of people who aren't honest about the quality of what they are selling. So caveat emptor, as the saying goes.

[JoeE SP9]

It's kind of unreasonable to expect a $300 amp to sound as good as a $2000 amp or a $500 amp to sound as good as a $5000 one. Unlike you I've always had very good luck with the Adcom gear I've purchased or recommended. The only thing I've had to repair for anyone has been a broken RCA jack. I tried a B&K amp once but it sounded veiled to me. PS Audio stuff isn't available as much as I would like ditto for Aragon. Fortunately for me here in the Delaware Valley there are enough outlets so buying online or through the mail is usually unnecessary.

[nightflier]

Ironically, I called my repair guy after my last post and I asked him a few more questions about Adcom. He said that typically their amps don't have technical problems as much as physical problems (broken binding posts being the most comon). That said, he had four Adcom amps in the shop right now and he said that this is unusually high.

My amp, however, is going to need some more extensive work. Apparently the capacitors on the rear two channels were blown clean off and were just sitting loose on the circuit board. This is a bad sign and he hasn't quoted me a price for fixing it, but I did get the sense he was not very happy with the work that might be involved.

I also asked him about what he uses at home (I like to ask this of people I buy from or require service of). He uses an old NAD amp & preamp combo that he salvaged from the shop and upgraded with high quality parts. He says it'll blow anything under $5K away, which I sort of considered a challenge. So we're going to do some comparisons this weekend with my Plinius/Spectron combo. I know that's an odd pairing, but I've had a dickens of a time getting the Plinius to perform and for some reason it has great synergy with the Spectron digital amp. So that is my reference system right now (I'm still looking for a good pair of speakers, but that's for another thread).

For his HT setup he does use an Adcom amp, also salvaged from the shop. He said that for raw power, bass, and all the sounds you want from action movies, there just isn't anything that compares to Adcom. I think there are a few contenders (Outlaw, Odyssey, and B&K), but he makes a very good point in that they are far rarer than Adcom. Which is true. I did a quick search on eBay and there is one Odyssey amp, no Outlaws, a few B&K's and pages of Adcom amps. So I suppose that's another factor.

From his perspective a more comon amp will also be easier to get schematics for as well as genuine or compatible subsitute parts. With the others you pretty much have to send it back to the manufacturer and hope that they will still service it - something most owners don't always consider until or if something goes wrong. Kudos to Bryston for their 20 year transferable warrantee - I think this has a lot to do with their high resale value. Adcom, on the other hand does not have this kind of warrantee and I think this is why their amps are so much devalued in the second hand market.

[CookieFactory]

five parts glitz and glamour and a healthy dose of placebo.

[Feanor]

five parts glitz and glamour and a healthy dose of placebo.

Your custom title, "Not an audiophile", says it all.

[CookieFactory]

Your custom title, "Not an audiophile", says it all.

Why thank you. Just about the best compliment one could receive in this "hobby"

[Geoffcin]

Head to head my recently acquired Adcom GFA-555II against my Bel Canto eVo2i. Do all modern amps in good working order sound the same? Not a chance, friends.

I recently bought the Adcom on eBay with the intention of using it in bridged mode to power a DIY passive subwoofer I intend to built one of these days. This old unit does 200 wt/ch into 8 ohms; also, it does 850 watts into 4 ohms in bridged mode -- should be enough. The unit's last MSRP was $800; I paid $305 plus shipping, etc..

On the other hand I bought the Bel Canto new. It's last MSRP was $3200; it was $3000 when I bought it, but there were incentives going around and I actually paid only $2600.

Hello!! The Adcom is great all things considered. It has a smooth, slightly earthy character, and the bass is solid and very extended. I'm listening the Rene Jacob's version of Haydn's 'The Seasons' as I compose: really enjoyable. It reminds me a little of the NAD C270 I paid twice as much for a couple of years ago, except that the Adcom totally trounces the NAD for bass.

The Bel Canto is something quite different. Lighter, more neutral; the bass is as good as the Adcom's but not better. I suspect it would be easy for many people to prefer the Adcom's earthy warmth, but is the Adcom better? Undoubtedly not: where the Bel Canto cleans up is in the area of detail and transparency. Warmth might be tempting, but you can't argue with resolution. This is what you get for all that extra money.

I would like to go back to separates but I won't be settling for the Adcom, pleasant as it is.

Driving a pair of vintage EPI speakers the $35 T-amp that I bought on a lark gives my MF A3cr a run for it's money. (as long as you don't crank things up to far) The only thing the T amp is lacking is solid bass. Some of the DIY guys have fixed this failing by adding larger, high quality caps. Even for the amount that doing that would set you back you could have a killer amp for less than $150.

[Feanor]

Driving a pair of vintage EPI speakers the $35 T-amp that I bought on a lark gives my MF A3cr a run for it's money. (as long as you don't crank things up to far) The only thing the T amp is lacking is solid bass. Some of the DIY guys have fixed this failing by adding larger, high quality caps. Even for the amount that doing that would set you back you could have a killer amp for less than $150.

I'm curious to know how much more that the Bel Canto Tripath-based eVo's were than a T-Amp plus a much larger power supply.

[spacedeckman]

Yes, I too owned an Adcom stack back in the late 80s/early 90s. CD player, GTP600 tuner/pre, and a 545II. The CD player was a dog, sounded merely okay, no better than my Kenwood DP860 (don't ask me how I remember that model number). The preamp broke twice (microprocessor), and the amp, while well built, had some sonic anomolies that my wife noticed immediately, but I, having moved up from a 20 watt h/k receiver, ignored...for a while. Annoyingly bright in upper midrange/lower treble, not as much control as there should have been on the bottom end, and as someone else mentioned, a bit compressed sounding.

Replaced it with an h/k stack, 7725 CD player (incredible in it's day), tuner/pre, and 2200 amplifier. The stack was much better sounding than the Adcom. The amp was better sounding, but not built as well as the Adcom to be sure, the CD players were in different galaxies. The h/k stack wasn't that much more money, a couple of hundred bucks if I recall, and all that was in the CD player, which weighed about 20 lbs.

Looked at a Bryston 4B back then, but it was rolled off and boomy, had a 3B about 5-6 years ago for a very short time, it was bright and boomy. Have a pair of 7BSSTs in the system right now...wow. They got something right this time, but we aren't talking new, we are talking older stuff.

The stuff I remember. The Rotel amps were pretty good in the day. PS Audio (as mentioned) were another consideration of mine. Even the original Sonance 260 was a nice sounding amp, far better than it's lowly multizone heritage would suggest. B&Ks were never very gutsy, and not too keen on funky speaker loads, but sounded nice, albeit a bit soft to my ears as I recall. Polite may be a good word. The Parasound 2200, or even the 750 and 1000 were very nice, and a bargain.

Can't do the Adcom thing. Tried them a couple of times after my 545IIs, and they just didn't work for me. Not much seemed to change...they had the "Adcom Sound", which I wasn't a fan of. Kind of like the "Carver Sound" (bright, excellent dynamics, can't sustain bass), which was different from the "Crown Sound" (bright like the Carver, but could sustain bass any time, any place.)

Just my 2 cents.

Space

[jtgofish]

Some excellent everyday posts here.
What becomes obvious is that many of these good old workhorse type amps are rapidly approaching redundancy.Not because they are terrible products but because newer technology such as PWM/digital type amps and chip type amps are now offering better sound at a relatively low price-which is likely to get even lower.
They are sort of like the old V8 engines with carbareters.Solid and reliable but by todays standards very inneficient and offering quite poor performance.
Recent experiences with kit chip amps has really brought this home to me.They have remarkable clarity,speed,dynamics and imaging compared to virtually any transistor amp I have used.These things cost around $300 to put together.The 3876T chip amps seem to be especially good.They may not have the power or driving capability of the digital amps but from what I have heard have more of the tube amp midrange clarity and vibrancy.
The transistor amps sound very compressed and murky by comparison.

[nightflier]

because newer technology such as PWM/digital type amps and chip type amps are now offering better sound at a relatively low price-which is likely to get even lower.

Well I don't know about that. I have had experience with four digital amps so far: The Yamaha X-1, the HK DPR-1001 & 2005, and the Spectron 1. The Yamaha was priced in the stratosphere when new (for what it was), and it's now selling refurbed on eBay for around $500. I bought one to check it out, but got burned when it stopped working after only a week, and before I could put it through its paces. I sent it back and got a refund (with a lot of haggling, they finally agreed to keep it). The HK's were my HT receivers before I moved to seperates. Tons of features on the receiver end, but the power to drive anything other than small efficient speakers just wasn't there. Even the 2005 lacks the healthy bass that a seperate amp will give you. The Spectron was forget-the-price 1K watt crown jewel for the past six months until the left XLR input fizzed out (and when I say fizzed, I mean it sounded like a shaked can of soda and then nothing). It had great synergy with my preamp, but now it's in the shop and I'm using an analog NAD amp until it returns (those NAD amps just keep going and going...). And don't even get me started on finding someone who was willing to work on the Spectron...

'Point is that digital amps should be a lot less expensive considering the pervasiveness of the technology, they should be more reliable, they should be simple to fix, and they should have oodles of power. My experience has not convinced me of the supposed virtues of digital amps.

[jtgofish]

Thats interesting.Friends with Bel Canto and ICE amps have had no problems[so far].It would be interesting to hear from the pro audio side how reliable the digital type amps are proving.
I have heard that the HK receivers were rubbish but the Panasonic ones seem to be highly regarded[XR50,XR70 etc]
I agree that these devices should be cheaper.This will probably happen though-as it has with large TVs .They will probably end up $400 throw aways when they die.That's the way many things are going unfortunately.
Pro audio has already headed down this path with the Behringer gear.

[Geoffcin]

'Point is that digital amps should be a lot less expensive considering the pervasiveness of the technology, they should be more reliable, they should be simple to fix, and they should have oodles of power. My experience has not convinced me of the supposed virtues of digital amps.

But so far so good. I'm notoriously hard on gear too. There's hardly a fuse or breaker that I've not popped yet, up to and including the main one at the fuse box. My PS Audio amp has seen it's fuses pop, and has popped a few of my maggie's fuses in return. Never has any permanent damage been done to either. Like the commertial says;

"Takes a licking and keeps on ticking"

[nightflier]

Geoff,

Yes, PS Audio takes a lickin. I have two monoblocks that are monsters to move around, but they are also rock solid. The only gripe I have with them is the lack of support for the really old stuff (back when they were a different company). They'll try to help you, but a lot of the parts are no longer available. For example, their DACs and CD players from a decade ago are fine if they are still working, but they also cannot be repaired. The HCA-2 is amazing for the price.

[Geoffcin]

Geoff,

Yes, PS Audio takes a lickin. I have two monoblocks that are monsters to move around, but they are also rock solid. The only gripe I have with them is the lack of support for the really old stuff (back when they were a different company). They'll try to help you, but a lot of the parts are no longer available. For example, their DACs and CD players from a decade ago are fine if they are still working, but they also cannot be repaired. The HCA-2 is amazing for the price.

Before the HCA-2 I had a PS Audio 200-c. That beast could dump a KW of power like nobodies business. I blew a 8 amp rail fuse on it once driving my old Magnepan III's, also drove it into thermal shutdown once. I still miss turning it on and watching the arc from the internal Guillotine switch! (sp?) It's now doing duty driving a pair of Axiom M80s.

[nightflier]

Hinky. Mine were driving M80's as well when I was auditioning them in my tv room. I really loved those speakers, but could not afford them at the time. Now they are driving a pair of Nightingales, another easy load for them, I think. I've never driven the amps to melt-down status, mostly because I'm more worried about blowing the speakers. I was auditioning Respighi's Pines of Rome yesterday and these amps can crank out some tight pounding bass. Tonight I think I'll put on some Philip Glass....

[hermanv]

Replacing stock passive parts in an older solid state design has some issues and might cause problems.

1. The industry has learned quite a lot about how to apply feedback, less global, more local is probably a fair sumation. So it might not sound all that good.
2. Some of those older parts might have contributed to the amplifier stability, even the designer might not be aware of this. Here I am especially concerned with replacing coupling electrolytics with nice mordern film capacitors.
3. Switchmode power supplies forced the component manufactures to really re-evaluate how electrolytics were made, even cheap ones have far lower ESR today than they did then, can the old design withstand a 10 fold increase in inrush current, will it weld the on/off switch contacts closed? Fry the rectifiers? Is the amp stable for a different voltage ramp up rate?

It's a lot of work, its not cheap and might cause problems that can't be fixed unless you have some special skills and test equipment.

The only time I did it, I used the chassis and front panel (I hate that part of making my own anyway) the cost was still far less than having one made and if I did it there wouldn't be a square corner to be found.