What's vintage in your system?

[Panagiotis Melas]

....on what to name and report as vintage gear.

Sure, "vintage" means old (in age), but in this hobby it also means something that, when it works and is removed, it cannot be replaced by a similar more modern unit.

Therefore, if someone has, for example, a nice "oldy" pair of speakers, that work equally well (or better, perhaps) with their modern equivalent (in price, design, specs or whatever else you may think), can you name them "vintage"? Or a good power amplifier (and a preamplifier), with the same criteria, as above?

I would certainly consider vintage a good old stereo tape recorder, like the old Akai's, Tandberg's, Revoxes, etc., or a first generation CD Player or an old cassette recorder, but what about a Linn LP12 turntable, especially if it has been upgraded to a Sondec or Valhalla or whatever else was there? Equally, I would consider vintage one of the first surround amplifiers or receivers, with a dolby surround decoding engine in it only, or even a first generation Pro-Logic unit (decoder of amplifier/receiver), but what about a similar unit, 10 or 12 years old, which was perhaps company's flagship those days (in my mind comes the Denon AVR-5800 AV receiver, which was later upgraded by Denon with the KAVA1SE card. Its European equivalent was the AVC-A1SE AV amplifier, which I owned and I gave it to my son)?

With these thoughts in mind, I humbly present my own "vintage" gear:

- Vidikron Crystal One LCD video projector (VGA analysis only, now at my country house)
- Hafler XL-600 power amplifier (modified with Musical Concepts PA-3B Elite kit, still in full use, hardly to be considered a vintage gear)
- Hafler IRIS stereo preamplifier (this has its remote control circuit out of order and I feel free to put it into the "vitage" category)
- Luxman T-117L AM/FM tuner (still in use and one of the most musical FM tuners worlwide)
- ADA SSD-66THX Dolby Prologic Surround Processor/Preamplifier, certainly outpassed by today's modern units
- Sansui SE-77 stereo graphic equalizer - surely vintage
- Sansui RA-500 Reverberation Amplifier- as above
- JVC QL-FX5B direct drive turntable - still working fine
- Audio Alchemy DTI Pro32 jitter reduction unit with PS3 power supply unit, in full operating condition and I don't feel well to consider it vintage, for what it does.
- Various VHS/S-CHS VCRs, except two units from JVC, surely old, but still serving their scope: The D-VHS/D-Theater HM-DH30000U one and its European brother the D-VHS (not D-Theater) HM-DR10000EK one.
- My first reference DVD player, the Sony DVP-S7000, modified to a full region unit, still in use, although surpassed in terms of facilities and performance by other newer units. But the picture from its component output (not progressive), still remains a reference, compaired with equally processed signals (component, non-progressive) from other modern units, even from HD players.

I wish to everyone a Happy, Prosperous, Healthy and Peaceful New Year.
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