Modern vs. Vintage, GENERATION WARS! or is it all hype?

Raptor550

New Member
Okey, Im new so bear with me, but from what I can tell, specification standards are kind of fuzzy in my mind between modern and vintage tech. Currently I have a kenwood KA7100, and I am buying a 1980 pioneer SA710 & its big brother the SA810 off E-bay (couldn't find any info on the florescent meter 810 so I bought it on a hunch. Heres hoping its 80wRMS!

Anyways, my question as a budget-minded carnosaure is how does the respected behringer A500 compare with a similarly priced $180 vintage integrated amp like a pioneer SA8800, or my Kenwood for instance? I am primarily looking at the Objective state of technology, however, I am very curious about listening impressions, from those who have had experience with these or similar examples. If all is the same or comparable I will default to vintage because I like real brushed metal and heavy knobs ;)

I use a Denon CD player, bought an M-audio soundcard, use 12AWG cables, Quality Dayton audio RCA cables. and Have a Respected set of DIY loudspeakers using Dayton and Seas drivers: Natalie Portman/ModulaMTM design. So my system should not have any profound bottlenecks keeping this information from being useful.
 
Did I post in the wrong forum? I would think one of you 71 hits would have some thing to say.

Your original post is a little confuzing.....and I no NONE of the new products that you mention, but I like a lot of the new pro stuff that I have encountered.....BUT

It CANNOT HOLD A CANDLE TO MY VINTAGE GEAR.
 
May I ask what type of vintage gear do you have? what was the pro stuff you encountered? Why was the vintage gear better?
 
May I ask what type of vintage gear do you have? what was the pro stuff you encountered? Why was the vintage gear better?

Well, at my school, we have Mackie amps (about 7 years old), a couple of Yamaha M2002's and -4's, a QSC, and some assorted stuff that I cannot remember for the amps (which I am assuming that you are looking for).

In terms of PURE live-ness, and reality, I also have a Peavey CS-400 (old pro amp), a Onkyo TX-4500, Pioneer SX-780, Sansui QRX-3500, and a Sony TA-1055. I absolutely love the build quality, controls, and ESPECIALLY the sound...it is warm, and sounds realistic to me (via Acoustic Research AR4x's and JBL 4311's). I love the old vintage gear, the looks of it, the feel of it, the features, and the lack of cost.....

Hope that helps at least a little bit....
 
Depends on what vintage? 50's, 60's, 70's, early 80's, late 80's? There is build quality in all of those time frames. People prefer the look of the older silver equipment. Does that mean it sounds better? The real question is how much quality are you getting for your dollar from something older versus a new component with the same build quality. And personally I would not use Ebay as a place of purchase. But that depends on your location, and ability to get out and look around. Much of the vintage market is inflated because of Epay.
 
I had a middle of the road HT receiver before getting into vintage (though I had a silver-faced pioneer in college in the early '90s, as well as a decent modern Alesis power amp that I used in a home studio. I bought a vintage integrated amp (by SAE TWO) that really put the HT receiver to shame for two-channel listening, even though they were both rated at 70wpc. After that, there was no going back. I think, in general, in regard to quality of sound for price, vintage is amazing. Also, it's just a different sound. Thicker and warmer may be words to describe it. I like all vintage...Solid State, tubes...even vintage speakers can deliver in ways that modern stuff seems to lack (moving a lot of air, for one). My AR2ax speakers sound more realistic than my old (but new) NHT speakers by a fairly large margin. A lot of it is subjective and depends on what you listen to, but until you spend a lot of money, modern stuff will all be sort of dumbed down by the price-points that have to be met for the brands to be carried by the big box stores.

my 2cents,
john
 
Arrow, I know of a few vintage shops in WA but none in Ohio so I ebay. You really cannot be sure what you are getting on ebay unless is a refurb shop. Most of the vintage I look at is late 70's early 80's because it seems like the late 70's people were makeing breakthroughs in tech, but by mid 80's allot of people started cheapening components using more plastic etc.

This thread I am hoping would be less about generalizations and more about specific makes models and years. my market is in the $150 dollar range so I am curious what are the best buys in that price over all decades.

John, I have had a similar scenario, The only price comparison I have modern to vintage is a sony 6.1 reciever I bought for $200 on sale, I got a Kenwood KA-3100 and it was noticeably more powerful and it was low in its line. It also sounded quite a bit cleaner despite it being 30+ years old. It was only two channel however so that has made me want to buy multiple vintage gear to get surround sound with a nice soundcard to distribute the channels. 3-4 clean vintage Amps @ $100-$150 each should be about as nice as a new $1000 surround sound amp is my logic.

Has anyone here heard the Behringer A500?
 
There are a lot of great late-70s receivers that are just down from the top of the line. A lot of people pay top dollar for the top (I'm guilty) when most of the performance is available for much less money by going a step down. Say, perhaps, a Sansui 8080 instead of 9090db. Or Pioneer SX950 or 1050 instead of the much-sought after 1250. I have a Sansui 771 that puts up a pretty good fight against my 9090db, and cost me two-digits ($25) instead of three. It also depends on what sound you are looking for. Pioneer sounds different from Sansui which sounds different from Kenwood, etc, and what speakers you have can affect the choice. There's A LOT of good stuff out there.

-j
 
I can also only compare my new HT 5.1 gear (which is great for movies, and pretty expensive too) with my vintage stereo gear. There is no comparison.

Music is so much more involving and real, much more texture on my stereo gear.
 
Vintage gear is really a value proposition. It represents an excellent value. Unless you are comparing like equipment side by side I don't put much into the comparisons. Comparing a $200 AVR to a vintage receiver that costs $800 in 1978 is not a fair comparison. That $200 AVR will not sound as good in stereo driving large power hungry speakers. Just like you cannot listen to a 5.1 setup on the receiver. Use a $1,500 AVR in the same comparison and the results are likely to be quite different. Enjoy your vintage gear and enjoy your new gear but don't bother making sweeping generalizations between the two. :no:

I think the Pioneer in your original question should sound fine.
 
This is interesting, allot of good stuff to read.:scratch2:

John - could you tell me about the sound differences between kenwood, sansui, and pioneer? I have never hear sansui, and kenwood/pioneer a/b tests have been mixed results because the condition of the two amps were quite different.

Duffinator - You are right about vintage gear being a value proposition. I compared my 5.1 receiver in stereo mode to the kenwood integrated using the same speakers. One question I have been asking is, how to get the same performance out of a nice $1500 multichannel receiver for maybe $350, or "how close can I get?".

Stoffie - Channel per channel, good clean sound is good clean sound right? so multichannel receivers are only as good and they are clean + ease of having six channels in one rig.

Has analog stereo sound tech improved that much in 35 years? what sorts of things have changed?
 
Duffinator - You are right about vintage gear being a value proposition. I compared my 5.1 receiver in stereo mode to the kenwood integrated using the same speakers. One question I have been asking is, how to get the same performance out of a nice $1500 multichannel receiver for maybe $350, or "how close can I get?".
craigslist is your friend. I recently saw a Denon AVR 3805 for $300. That should do it. That's what I use and paid a lot more for it new. There are lots of deals out there now on top flight AVR's that were SOTA just three years ago as they do not switch HDMI or upconvert to 1080P. Same with DVD universal players that make nice CD/SACD/DVD-A players that don't do HDMI.
 
This is how I would compare the sound of the different vintage brands.

From crisp to warm.
Pioneer
Yamaha, Sansui, Nikko these are more neutral.
Kenwood
Marantz

I also have a Sony and Onkyo AVR and in two-channel both sound a wee bit warm.

The speakers and source you use will also greatly affect the overall sound.
 
I look at new tech like I look at new motorcycles. They all are performance machines but every one of them looks the same and have ZERO character. Old vintage anything does one or two things VERY VERY well and does it better then anything else out there. For example a Honda 600 F4i is a fairly reasonable modern motorcycle. A Harley Davidson WL45 is an old codger of a WWII army bike. The Honda beats it at everything... until you try to climb a dirt hill or kill some Nazis. So I say to you would you rather have a "perfomance" bike or something that slays Nazis?
 
I look at new tech like I look at new motorcycles. They all are performance machines but every one of them looks the same and have ZERO character. Old vintage anything does one or two things VERY VERY well and does it better then anything else out there. For example a Honda 600 F4i is a fairly reasonable modern motorcycle. A Harley Davidson WL45 is an old codger of a WWII army bike. The Honda beats it at everything... until you try to climb a dirt hill or kill some Nazis. So I say to you would you rather have a "perfomance" bike or something that slays Nazis?

WHAT?
 
I look at new tech like I look at new motorcycles. They all are performance machines but every one of them looks the same and have ZERO character. Old vintage anything does one or two things VERY VERY well and does it better then anything else out there. For example a Honda 600 F4i is a fairly reasonable modern motorcycle. A Harley Davidson WL45 is an old codger of a WWII army bike. The Honda beats it at everything... until you try to climb a dirt hill or kill some Nazis. So I say to you would you rather have a "perfomance" bike or something that slays Nazis?

laffin..maybe he just needs a good amp to slay his neighbors...
 
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