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Klingon-Hifi made in USSR during the cold war

I know there is an opinion that the Soviet audio is not very reliable. This is true, but you need to know one thing. Buying an old Soviet audio equipment you're 90% receive its faulty. Guilty defective electrolytic capacitors. After replacing them all OK. It's not as scary as it may seem. How could it not seem strange until about 1980 issues such as these capacitors was not. In addition, they continue to work until now. It seems to me that the Soviet Union still then I realized that you can earn not only on the sale of the radio engineering, but also on its repair. Learn our reality? Also now being fed manufacturers of devices and vehicles for the citizens all countries)))
 
For example Прибой 50 УМ-204 was (is) infact quite good tube power amplifier. Those were sold many even here in Finland, because they were so cheap. Just needed some tuning and after that, the sound was a real pleasure. Google tells more.
 
guiller said:
How about amplifiers sold in kit (to be assembled by the user) form?
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I don't remember any worth mentioning. There were some but they were low-power amps intended mostly for kids to get into electronics.

But it was so long ago....my memory is not that it used to be :tears::tears::tears:
 
gladiator335 said:
I don't remember any worth mentioning. There were some but they were low-power amps intended mostly for kids to get into electronics.

But it was so long ago....my memory is not that it used to be :tears::tears::tears:
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You are right. Mainly selling constructors for the Assembly were intended for children and youths.
 
bazz_77 said:
For example Прибой 50 УМ-204 was (is) infact quite good tube power amplifier. Those were sold many even here in Finland, because they were so cheap. Just needed some tuning and after that, the sound was a real pleasure. Google tells more.
Click to expand...

Interesting! Thanks for the tip.

PS: pictures look good! It has a double mono configuration and massive transformers. It would be nice to get a hand on one of these beauties.

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/000/rez2/priboy50_75um204s.html

priboy50um204_01.jpg

priboy50um204_03.jpg

priboy50um204_05.jpg
 
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gladiator335 said:
I don't remember any worth mentioning. There were some but they were low-power amps intended mostly for kids to get into electronics.

But it was so long ago....my memory is not that it used to be :tears::tears::tears:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the answer.
 
guiller said:
Amazing link! Many thanks! Do you have pictures of separate tube preamplifiers and power amplifiers? Let's say, something equivalent to the Dynaco ST-70 or similar. How about amplifiers sold in kit (to be assembled by the user) form?
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Small edition released preamplifiers Paradise.

 
This is an ancient thread but whatever. I just wanted to say that Russia didn't use mil-spec components in their sound equipment. Everything was just overbuilt because no one had high precision machinery so everything was made like it was chopped with an axe. Most workers were lazy and did a half-assed job.
Component grades:
1. Highest- military
2. Medium- industrial machinery
3. Lowest- low quality factory left-overs used to make consumer grade stuff

Whenever a component in the factory was faulty or not up to the lowest standards, it was sold as a spare part. So if something breaks and you buy a replacement component, it was likely that you got a faulty one.

Most cool looking designs were ripped of from foreign audio equipment.

I live next to Russia, and our country used to belong in the Soviet Union, so I know :D
 
Ussr

Not exactly true...
There were a lot of places (companies, plants) which had precision equipment (I used to work for one of those).
And as I mentioned before: almost all the components were manufactured to mil-spec.
However those which didn't pass quality test (tolerances or whatever) were used to build consumer electronics.
Most of the stuff looked half-ass built because nobody really cared about design and visual appearance...

I lived there for 40 years....so I know :D
 
You're right. Everything was BUILT mil-spec. But the components that made it into the final product were far out of tolerance and precision, not so mil-spec after all.
One thing I do like is the model numbers. Using TTs as an example
3xx 3rd class - piezo cartridge, plastics, cheap metal, simple electronics, noisy and unreliable mechanism, a lot of them were mono
2xx 2nd class - piezo OR MM cartridge, improved electronics and mechanism, Mix of better plastic, metal and wood, more features
1xx 1st class, hi-fi - much better electronics and more reliable, more complex mechanics, always MM cartridges, always stereo
0xx professional and expensive - Best quality, best reliability, new designs, cool looking (just look at that Korvet TT. LOOK AT IT!), much better sound

That "classes" system was revised some time when they raised their standards, so for an example the 1xx was now 2xx

You can tell what is good and what is crap just by looking at the model number.
Component quality was a HUGE problem. The Estonia 010 stereo set was engineered to be one of the best Soviet amps ever, and should have been comparable to some of the most expensive hi-fi gear in the world, but it ended up sounding mediocre at best. And that was due to off-spec components. Engineers at RRR and Estonia admitted that they were very disappointed with the end result.

Here is a story about how they got their designs:
Someone brought an Optonica hi-fi set from Japan. That guy asked the minister that why don't we make something like this, it's awesome. So the minister got all of RET's guys together and told them to build something like that. They just ripped of the design and engineered new guts for it. That's the story of how the Estonia 010 was born :D

And some of their speakers were crap too. Just look at the S90 speakers. Awesome drivers, complicated crossover networks, thick wood, plenty of acoustic damping. They have good bass response, yet, when it comes to mids and highs and detail and clean sound, they perform worse than some boombox "hi-fi" system speakers.
 
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The above pictures of those doble mono tubed amplifiers look absolutely gorgeous to me, so I guess that there were very good items and perhaps not so good ones and even very badly built ones. Totally reasonable situation to expect from any country in this world, at least IMHO. Deep in my heart I always look at the best that people can offer, and I won´t make an exception in this case, leaving politics aside, as it should, according to AK rules!
 
I'm not saying that it was bad stuff, I'm just saying that it's not as good as, say, Japanese stuff and not as good as the people here think it is. For an example a lot of people really like "Brig" branded amplifiers. They are alright, but when compared to Pioneer for an example, It's about as good as some of their lower end amplifiers.

But yes i admit that it looks bad-ass, and when you clean one of those pieces of kit and you re-cap it and replace all out of spec components with brand new ones, then they sound pretty decent, but that investment is going to be bigger than what the damn thing costs. That is why they are cheap, Y-101 amps are about €20 here. They are OK if you just want a big banging stereo but if you want to enjoy your music, then don't get them.

They did make good sounding TTs and tuners, but that is about it.

And I am not counting politics, but the truth is that in case of the USSR, politics influenced everything that was produced, including audio equipment.
 
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djduck said:
Here is a story about how they got their designs:
Someone brought an Optonica hi-fi set from Japan. That guy asked the minister that why don't we make something like this, it's awesome. So the minister got all of RET's guys together and told them to build something like that. They just ripped of the design and engineered new guts for it. That's the story of how the Estonia 010 was born :D

And some of their speakers were crap too. Just look at the S90 speakers. Awesome drivers, complicated crossover networks, thick wood, plenty of acoustic damping. They have good bass response, yet, when it comes to mids and highs and detail and clean sound, they perform worse than some boombox "hi-fi" system speakers.
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Someone earlier said that it was a Yamaha design that was ripped off.

And that same guy claimed the S-90 was brilliant.
 
Just to put things in perspective, I would only feel curiosity in front of the standard gear, and perhaps would buy one just to investigate it further. But if I ever get the chance of being in front of one of those high-end beasts, I'd love to be able to take it home! Perhaps the market of those would be very small and limited to Russia, and specifically to Moscow and Saint Petersbourg, given that the most influential people that presumably got those items lived there?
 
The price is often printed on Soviet consumer goods. We can see that the people's electrostate speaker has 250 roubles printed on it. Approximately a montly wage.
 
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