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It would be cool if audio followed auto-makers lead . . .

RamblinE said:
There would be no way for the manufacturer to win.

What if a mechanically identical SX1980 was reintroduced into the Pioneer line up? It would be so absurdly expensive that most of the fans of vintage gear on this site wouldn't be able to afford and it would recoil in disgust taughting Pioneers newest "old" receiver as a tremendous rip off and unmarketable.

Now, if Pioneer built something that looked like an SX1980 but had more modest internals to keep costs down every single cheap vintage fan would feel vindicated about their skewed views and arguments on new gear.

And also, nobody is giving enough credit to the Mini Cooper, the Fiat 500 or the Porsche 911 in this thread. They are truly modern interpretations of retro classics and the new V6, IRS 30mpg Mustang falls in league with them. The Camaro and the Challenger are both designed by fools, built by, well, Americans, which is a good thing, and marketed to fools. Further more one is a dark dank cheap rot bag and the other is built by the least reliable car company on the planet (which Chrysler is) :D
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Ouch. Except, I mostly agree. I don't have any experience with the Camaro or Challenger, though. They're both probably the polar opposite of what I want in a car, anyway.
 
just dave said:
How much different on the inside is modern gear?Still basically the same trans,caps and circuit boards.Digital inputs and computer chips are new,but what else is different. It would probably be cheaper to by vintage and replace all the major internals than to buy new retro.
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In my opinion, small parts are not made as good as they used to be... especially transistors. That's something I learned over the years while shopping for stompbox effects pedals for my guitar rig. Nothing compared to the old British and US-made trannies from back in the '50's, '60's, and early '70's. Everything seems to be made on-the-cheap nowadays, and quality isn't a top priority anymore. They just don't make 'em like they used to back in those days. Also, manufacturers didn't seem to be cutting so many corners back then the way they do now. Everything's about the bottom-line. It's rare to find a company that truly takes pride in their products. And the ones that do are selling their gear for a hell of a lot more than I can afford.

Guitar-amplifier companies did a halfway-decent job of reintroducing classic designs. Around '89-'90, Fender put out a reissue of it's reknown tweed 4x10 Bassman combo. The amp wasn't 100% faithful to the original design, but it was pretty-close, and it looked and sounded like a brand-new '59 Bassman. Sadly, Fender has since gone the way of companies like H/K, shifting production of much of it's products to China and Mexico, and reliability has suffered big-time in the process.

Anyway, getting back to home-audio gear, I stick to the vintage stuff whenever possible. It's built better, sounds better IMO, and I can afford it.
 
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mhardy6647 said:
Yamaha's already effectively got that covered...

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/hifi-components/amps/a-s2000_black__u/?mode=model

16870_12073_1.jpg


yamaha_ca-1000.jpg
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50 lbs, so it must have a real tranny inside - would love to see a nudie!
 
Pioneer SX 1280 in 5.1 would weigh say, something like 400-500 pounds if the quality was the same and you'd be looking at like $30,000. And the surround circuitry would still be surface mount junk incompatible with a classic design. Meaning no remote, Stereo only, and analog. And you'd still be looking at something like $6500 new.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Pioneer SX 1280 in 5.1 would weigh say, something like 400-500 pounds if the quality was the same and you'd be looking at like $30,000. And the surround circuitry would still be surface mount junk incompatible with a classic design. Meaning no remote, Stereo only, and analog. And you'd still be looking at something like $6500 new.
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I have friends with fork lifts. :D Leave me to my dreams...
 
Dr Tinear said:
It's also worth noting that the retro-styled pony cars are not exact duplicates of the classic models from the 1960s and early 1970s. They're modern cars with all the safety, emissions, and comfort and convenience hardware required by law and/or demanded by consumers. If GM built an exact replica of the 1969 Camaro, they could not legally sell it in the United States because it would not meet safety and emissions regulations.

To the OP's point: Would you buy a Pioneer "SX-1250" or a Yamaha "CR-1000" that looked much like the original but was a modern design inside? For me, the styling wouldn't be enough to make the sale, and I would hazard a guess that most fans of vintage audio gear would agree with me.
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Those are good points, but I don't think that audio gear would suffer many of those "environmental" restrictions.

KentTeffeteller said:
Pioneer SX 1280 in 5.1 would weigh say, something like 400-500 pounds if the quality was the same and you'd be looking at like $30,000. And the surround circuitry would still be surface mount junk incompatible with a classic design. Meaning no remote, Stereo only, and analog. And you'd still be looking at something like $6500 new.
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But why would you do a 1280 in 5.1? The whole point is, you make it stereo. But I still get your point that a 1280 would be $30K today. That alone, would kill the idea.

On the other hand . . . they are selling those retro Camaros and Mustangs. :scratch2:
 
Dr Tinear said:
I wasn't aware that GM made K-cars. All the ones I saw back in the day had Dodge or Plymouth badges on them. :scratch2:

I also find it interesting that every car you mentioned was pre-1990 (except possibly for the British cars with electricals by Lucas, The Prince of Darkness). Perhaps you should test-drive an automobile built in the last decade. You might be surprised at how good most of them are, and how much their reliability has improved since the dark days of the 1970s.

Back to audio ... let's recall speakers with foam surrounds that self-destruct after 10 or 15 years. Or direct-coupled power amps without protection relays that go full DC and torch your woofers (I'm thinking Flame Linear here). Or the earliest solid-state amps with germanium transistors that melt down without warning. Maybe the good old days for audio equipment weren't that much better than the good old days for cars...
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Oops, maybe I should have said "X-cars". And I tried to stay with older cars - less chance of stepping on toes.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Pioneer SX 1280 in 5.1 would weigh say, something like 400-500 pounds if the quality was the same and you'd be looking at like $30,000. And the surround circuitry would still be surface mount junk incompatible with a classic design. Meaning no remote, Stereo only, and analog. And you'd still be looking at something like $6500 new.
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I'd be happy if my 2010 Pioneer SC-27 took a few styling cues from the 1280, but that's all I'd want to change. The Class-D SC-27 sounds head and shoulders better, and being Class-D it doesn't need to weigh so much. I miss the look of those big heat-sinks, though.

The Denon Anniversary 2-channel integrated amp sounds really good, but unfortunately it doesn't look like an anniversary amp should. Its just a black box. But SQ is top notch...the big names like Denon, Pioneer, and Marantz and Yamaha still make a host of 2-channel gear and most of what I've heard sounds very good. With the exception of Yamaha, though, the styling is not so great. Did somebody say Leben?
 
JohnVF said:
I'd be happy if my 2010 Pioneer SC-27 took a few styling cues from the 1280, but that's all I'd want to change. The Class-D SC-27 sounds head and shoulders better, and being Class-D it doesn't need to weigh so much. I miss the look of those big heat-sinks, though.

If someone did a 5.1 receiver like the 1280 I'm sure they could do it with class D amps and it wouldn't weigh quite as much as Kent suggested.I'm sure they could fit all the internals in a 1280 it's all the control functions that would be hard to do and still keep that original look.One thing I thought would be cool is to replace the analog tuning dial with an lcd version of it.Flick a switch and it would go to a HT. display and the tuning knob could be the function selector.I miss switches.Why don't they do em anymore?
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Artie said:
. . . as far reintroducing "vintage" units. The Big three auto manufacturers seem to have hit a winner with the Camaro, Mustang, Charger, and Challenger. Wouldn't it be nice if Sony, Yamaha, Pioneer, etc, reintroduced their TA-5650, CA-series, SX-series, etc.?

I wouldn't think it would be that hard if they still have the schematics and stuff.

Just a thought.

Artie
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So... Artie... if I may :-)
Am I the only jasper here who sees some irony of a post about making "retro hifi" from a person with a Crown D-150A in his avatar? I mean, I guess that Crown doesn't make the D-150A any more, but they do still make the D-75A :-)

http://www.crownaudio.com/amp_htm/d.htm

crownies.jpg
 
just dave said:
JohnVF said:
I'd be happy if my 2010 Pioneer SC-27 took a few styling cues from the 1280, but that's all I'd want to change. The Class-D SC-27 sounds head and shoulders better, and being Class-D it doesn't need to weigh so much. I miss the look of those big heat-sinks, though.

If someone did a 5.1 receiver like the 1280 I'm sure they could do it with class D amps and it wouldn't weigh quite as much as Kent suggested.I'm sure they could fit all the internals in a 1280 it's all the control functions that would be hard to do and still keep that original look.One thing I thought would be cool is to replace the analog tuning dial with an lcd version of it.Flick a switch and it would go to a HT. display and the tuning knob could be the function selector.I miss switches.Why don't they do em anymore?
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You'd still run into the problem mentioned earlier. People who want a Class-D 5.1 receiver wouldn't like the looks, and people who liked the looks would rather have a monster 2 channel receiver that looks good on paper but doesn't sound as good as a tube amp from a decade earlier.

zing!
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I'll take the best of today over the best of yesterday any time. (...but my amp is from '73...hmmm)
 
prisoners said:
I'll take the best of today over the best of yesterday any time. (...but my amp is from '73...hmmm)
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Well darlings I'm deluded enough to think I've got the best of both in one box.
My Icon Audio MB 845 II mono blocks use modern materials and parts, some unknown at the turn of the century, with an 80 year old design output tube, the 845. Sounds like heaven to me.
http://www.iconaudio.com/portfolio-item/mb-845-mk-ii/
 
Well how about a new retro computer maybe a new 386sx33 4 megs of ram 40 MB HD
w/math co processor
2 floppy drives 9600 baud modem and a 14 inch monitor VGA graphics
windows 3.1 and dos 2.0 and a dot matrix printer only 2500.00.................... naaaaah !
 
frankxbe said:
Well how about a new retro computer maybe a new 386sx33 4 megs of ram 40 MB HD
w/math co processor
2 floppy drives 9600 baud modem and a 14 inch monitor VGA graphics
windows 3.1 and dos 2.0 and a dot matrix printer only 2500.00.................... naaaaah !
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If you're fond of Mr Gates' blue screen of death, yeh, it could be fun.:thumbsdn:
 
Someone wanted the idea of a 1280 with 5.1. A retro classic needs to be authentic so no surface mount, no surround, no remote, no Class D, otherwise it's a disgrace to the original. LED dial lights would be the only acceptable addition to a purist's view. Otherwise no go.
 
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