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Let's be perfectly honest here..

pognoot

pognoot

Well-Known Member
Can a 35 year old fully recapped stereo receiver ever sound as good as something made today? I'd be interested if someone ever put 'em on the bench, so to speak, tested, and actually looked at the data. For example, take a fully restored TOTL Pioneer SX-1250 and compare the readings to the TOTL Pioneer SC-57. Compare signal to noise, THD, etc. All the meaningful measurements that describe the behavior of the preamp and amplifier sections.

Any thoughts from the experts?
 
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It depends on what you definition of better sound is. Vintage amps tend to be a bit "warmer" and not as digital sounding as modern gear. On a bench does not always tell the whole story. Music recorded in the 60's and 70's just sounds better to me on gear of that vintage. Whereas modern music of several genres sounds better to me on modern gear. I always say listen with your ears not a spec sheet or your pocketbook.
 
Yeah, I think your question is really two questions:

1) Can a restored vintage receiver SOUND as good as a modern one.

2) Will the specs of a restored vintage receiver meet or exceed those of a new one.

Two different things, neither a 'better' question than the other.
 
Ok I will bite on this one....

After owning and restoring several receivers....owning a few new ones...

Lets put these two together. VSX305 surround receiver and a SX450. Since I do own both. The 450 and a set of 901A's. The 305 with the same set of 901A's. The 450 hands down with 15 watt of power each channel sound alot better then the 305 at 60 watts per channel. The tone and sound quality of the 450 beats the hell out of the 305.

Send me the TOTL Elite series made now. I will be willing to put my 1980 up against it without recapping and the same speakers and still willing to bet it will make that Elite cry all the way home to mama.

As you can tell...I dont care for the new surround stuff. They may be good for movies and stuff like that but not for jamming.
 
That's cool, we all have opinions on sound quality. But what does the data suggest? That's what I am interested in knowing.
 
The levels of all the measurements of both amps are not really relevant to the sound quality of the amp. Both units will have very nice numbers but much better numbers than would make one amp sound worse than the other.

The data suggests that back in the day the units were built to have great numbers. Today the units are built to be cheap, disposable and adequate. Some new numbers may be a lot better when a chip used in place of a discrete circuit has better specs but that ain't sound quality. Today's unit may have specs that are inferior to the older unit on some tests. This is where the manufacturer has decided that better spec is money not well spent, does not improve sound quality and the consumer will not notice or care.

One item especially telling is the power output of gear. On Nov 4, 1974 the US FTC power disclosure law went into effect requiring all stereo gear to be tested in a consistent manner with fully descriptive power ratings. After driving the amp at 1/3 power for 30 minutes (the most inefficient point hence the most heat producing) the test required: Watts at Ohms, frequency response and whether both channels were driven. Old spec, 210 watts on the dial glass. New spec, 35 wpc @8Ω 20-20,000HZ, both channels driven for example. Big difference in numbers there.



This law only applies to two channel gear so new stuff...
 
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The data that are actually measured are very few. Power output, flat frequency response range (based on sine wave sweeps), distortion levels, maybe a few others.

Together they do not seem to explain why my old Sherwood 38 wpc receiver in good working order does not sound as good as a 45 W Pioneer from the same time period, with approximately the same cost, power and specs. For some reason, whether it's bigger caps in the power supply or whatever, one sounds better. But it's not all in the numbers, at least not the ones commonly printed in the brochures.
 
toxcrusadr said:
The data that are actually measured are very few. Power output, flat frequency response range (based on sine wave sweeps), distortion levels, maybe a few others.

Together they do not seem to explain why my old Sherwood 38 wpc receiver in good working order does not sound as good as a 45 W Pioneer from the same time period, with approximately the same cost, power and specs. For some reason, whether it's bigger caps in the power supply or whatever, one sounds better. But it's not all in the numbers, at least not the ones commonly printed in the brochures.
Click to expand...

What *may* explain it is dynamic headroom...I'm willing to bet that Sherwood puts out a LOT more than it's nameplate rating for short bursts. Big caps help with headroom a LOT assuming adequate supply voltage to start with as they keep the supply from sagging to the point of output clipping on transients.

Also circuit topology makes a big difference too. Not all class AB amps are the same....pure complementary circuits often sound better and certainly measure better than their quasi-complementary counterparts. There have been some excellent quasi-comp amps though...the Sony STR-6065 and the Pioneer SA-1000 both sound great with tons of headroom.

Modern surround receivers, for the most part, have very poor dynamic headroom. In most cases, they are rated two channels driven and significantly sag with all channels driven. My RX-V1065 is 105W/ch 2ch driven....Sound&Vision mag got about 65W/ch all channels driven, which is about all we can expect from a 400VA or so transformer. This is generally OK for multichannel amps though as it is very rare for all channels to be heavily driven with typical multichannel content. The surrounds usually loaf around with less than 20W output leaving enough current capacity to drive the L/C/R channels to at or very near rated power output.

There have been a few surround receivers with good dynamic headroom....most came out at the start of the DVD-Audio craze. 2-3dB headroom was common and a 5.1 receiver of this type was usually at or around 30lbs with fat caps and a large transformer. Technics' last units...the SA-DA series were such beasts with an advertised 2dB of headroom in stereo. They did this and a little bit more all with a 113dB S/N ratio. I still have my DA-10 for music even though for HT its hopelessly out of date.
 
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Caminokid said:
Send me the TOTL Elite series made now. I will be willing to put my 1980 up against it without recapping and the same speakers and still willing to bet it will make that Elite cry all the way home to mama.

As you can tell...I dont care for the new surround stuff. They may be good for movies and stuff like that but not for jamming.
Click to expand...

I can comment on last years TOTL SC-27 (unless the SC-09 was still TOTL ?) against an SX-1280. No contest here- the SC-27, in 'pure direct' 2-channel mode (seems like a fair comparison) sounded much better to me. The key being 'to me'. We all have different preferences. The SC-27 also sounds quite different depending on the speakers. Harbeth and Quad? Sterile, boring, and the Class-D amp really didn't like the Quads. No surprise for me there. Diatone or Sony SS-m7? Wow! VERY Nice.

The preamp section of the SC-27 is first rate, I am very impressed with this unit overall. I have and have had a BUNCH of '70s receivers but I use the SC-27 in my theater system, only running two channels. I also have a stand-alone HDMI switcher so if I really thought one of the vintage units bettered it for sound quality in stereo, I'd run one of them. Very simply, they don't. I was surprised by this as I've not been a fan of HT units at all before this. Makes me wonder what their new elite 2-channel gear sounds like.

As for data, both spec'd out nicely. Not sure what that would prove, as both are certainly 'good' on paper. Regardless of that, I've never noticed specs to be much of an indicator of anything except a basic competence level. At least the basic specs that are often quoted (WPC, THD...). The Class-D amp on the SC-27 is rated at 140wpc and that seems about right in listening to it. I've had some other HT units in the past that were not as powerful sounding as their specs suggested, but the Pioneer certainly is, and it remains composed in listening- a very nice unit.
 
Rockyhill said:
I thought ears did the best data analysis.
Click to expand...
Perhaps, so let's expand on this. As a test, I used an iPod and a set of Sennheiser HD600 headphones. I first plugged the headphones into the iPod and listened to a song. I then connected the iPod to the Aux input on the 1250 and listened to the same song. And then again on my newer gear. The HD600s are fairly revealing headphones. The sound quality was best when plugged directly into the iPod. It was almost as good going into my newer Yamaha receiver (practically indistinguishable). But, when plugged my HD600s into my SX-1250, there was much more hiss and the stereo separation wasn't nearly as well defined. Overall the sound of the SX-1250 was noticeably less dynamic with much higher floor noise.

So, you are correct; my ears picked this up, and I'm fairly certain the higher level of hiss would present itself in the data if measured.
 
pognoot said:
But what does the data suggest? That's what I am interested in knowing.
Click to expand...

Measured data by itself doesn´t necessarily correlate to sound quality. While it is true that some kinds of distortion translate into unbearable sound quality, some others do not.
Point in case? Single ended tube amps generally measure poorly, but sound rather nice.
As pointed out by previous posters, there´s a lot we still don´t know about measurements in audio.

P.S. - Just read the post above. Many, if not most of the otherwise great vintage audio receivers / amps had notoriously mediocre headphone outputs.
 
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pognoot said:
So, you are correct; my ears picked this up, and I'm fairly certain the higher level of hiss would present itself in the data if measured.
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And if not, would you then ignore what your ears told you?

Certainly condition could have played a part as well. But it always plays a part.
 
Please perform the same test with the ipod and SX-1250 driving a set of HPM-100's (or large speakers of your choice) with each instead of the headphones, and report back on the performance.

:tongue:
 
I think there is flaw in the headphone test .Your not being fair to the 30 year old Pioneer . Your testing the Pioneer with $600 HD600's headphone designed for modern gear . The HD suggests "digital" . I have found newer gear can some times sound harsh on vintage. The hiss your hearing might just be the missed match between old & new . You need to find a standard between the two or a good pair of 1970's headphones .
 
toxcrusadr said:
Please perform the same test with the ipod and SX-1250 driving a set of HPM-100's (or large speakers of your choice) with each instead of the headphones, and report back on the performance.

:tongue:
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Yes and please make sure it's a double blind test to remove any bias.
 
Back in 1982 a local dealer had some marantz people in with osliscopes and othe assorted test insturments for people to bring in their amps for testing. My 1976 Realistic STA-90 45 wpc reciever was rated at .5% THD. It measured .08% L/.03%R at full power. So yes, some certianly can compare with today's equipment on the bench. More importantly than the specs, is the really good sound it produced.
 
A refurbished SX 850 or higher will outperform any new Pioneer and more than meet specifications in all areas of performance. Tuner section on the new ones is barely serviceable.
 
calman46 said:
I think there is flaw in the headphone test .Your not being fair to the 30 year old Pioneer . Your testing the Pioneer with $600 HD600's headphone designed for modern gear . The HD suggests "digital" . I have found newer gear can some times sound harsh on vintage. The hiss your hearing might just be the missed match between old & new . You need to find a standard between the two or a good pair of 1970's headphones .
Click to expand...

There should be no difference in operation. A pair of modern headphones would be a perfect test of the quality of the headphone out on a vintage amp, because they'd be in good condition, and many new headphones are of excellent quality. They work the same as old ones. Well, actually they work better than old ones if my aging Pioneer electrets and Se-505 were anything to go by. But it will only indicate the quality of the headphone out (and maybe the preamp section's quality). You can't judge the quality of the entire unit based on the signal out of the headphone jack.
 
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