Sacred Cows of Vintage Audio

[sdmf]

That piece of crap Sparkomatic tape deck in my dad's ol' 64 Chevy stepside.:yuck:

 

[Don_s]

Herd of sacred of cows

I'll jump in... I've stated this many times before. Polk does nothing for me. I've owned 4's,5's, 7's, 10's RTA's and SDA's. While none of them were bad and the RTA and SDA's were pretty good, I still find them over rated.

One of us is very confused. If you do not like Polk speakers how come you owned an entire herd? :scratch2:

 

[Justen]

One of us is very confused. If you do not like Polk speakers how come you owned an entire herd? :scratch2:

Hi Don and welcome to AK! I'd say that generally I'm pretty confused, in this case though, just confusing!

I buy and sell quite a bit of equipment to fund my audio habit (don't tell anyone, it is a sin here!) - it allows me to test and enjoy quite a few things, but I tend to have a minimalist approach to what I keep personally- if you've hung out here long you realize there are members with dozens of receivers and speakers! I have two setups in my audio room, one stereo, one mono.

Polks always sell, and sell very well. And I've found a lot of them (just picked up some 5's) for some reason. I've got nothing against them really, they are all good speakers, but to me none of them ever stood out as great- although the SDA/RTA came really close. I wouldn't bash them, and if I didn't have some rather large JBL's and Altecs they might be keepers, but we all have our preferences. They just never floated my boat!

Hang around and abuse me some more! I can take it!

 

[UpsideThe Head]

When I see a POS stereo receiver at the goodwill like Zenith, Stereophonic or some other obvious to the naked eye junkbox I like to buy them and set them up to see what they sound like. One Zenith was so bad it was good. It sounded like listening to music through some whirling electronic flange storm. I know this isn't the point of the thread but sometimes junk aint all bad. Or maybe this hobby has claimed a victim as pertains to my mind.

 

[CUlater]

UpsideTheHead, love the Wacky Packages avatar - another of my collecting vices.

 

[UpsideThe Head]

UpsideTheHead, love the Wacky Packages avatar - another of my collecting vices.

Thanks, you got to love em.

 

[prrtraincow]

"
...
And here's the BIG ONE: LP records.
While they can sound very good, they sound nothing like a studio master tape. CDs can sound indistinguishable from the master tape. I'm not saying that all of them do, just that they can. LPs can't. The technology simply doesn't have that capability.
...
That's my opinion anyway. No disrespect meant and I'm not saying that all or even most CDs are perfect either. Also, I listen to LPs regularly, my hearing is quite good, and my speakers are excellent. No name calling please.

Even the old Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs half-speed master jobs? I've got a vinyl copy of The Beatles Abbey Road in that format and I swear, it blows away any CD copy of that album. The clarity, deep bass, and the simple ability to hear so many different elements clearly at the same time is just amazing.

 

[prrtraincow]

I'm simultaneously surprised (by some brands I see mentioned here) and amazed (by some that I DON'T see here!).
It's been decades since I was really into this. But do remember thinking the Bose 901 was a total piece of crap. As we used to say, "The music is everywhere, and the highs are nowhere!"

As for my surprise/amazements: I'm amazed that nobody flamed the early Dynaco SS stuff. Personally, I still love my PAT-4, ST-80 and ST-400. But it always seems to get hammered bad on these forums. Perhaps it's not a "sacred cow", really, in that it didn't cost a fortune, so it wasn't "overrated." In other words, I only paid $80 for my PAT-4 kit back in the 1970s, and it was certainly well worth more than that. It's not like Bose 901s that people paid a premium price for, and got, well...

The one product mentioned on here that shocked the crap out of me was the AR9 speakers. The AR9??? A sacred cow??? To this day, I bow down in awe when I hear them.

 

[doctorbongo]

I like how the first page of posts is a lesson in dancing around the TOPIC of sacred cows, but not really risking stepping in a steamin heap o' sacrilege.

 

[doctorbongo]

Amen (or whatever it is you say about sacred cows) to Justen's post about Polk. I have Monitor 7s, which are passable; and RTAs, which don't do anything for me. My experience with one selfrighteous dope on their website didn't make me any more fond of them, either. I'm going to sell both pair and put the moolah in my "hard-hitting amp fund".

 

[Zeke]

Sacred cows to be blown up:

1. More wattage = better sound.
2. Seperates inherently beat receivers. (The best of either are FAB.)
3. Vinyl (good pressing) sounds better than high quality CD.
4. Louder bass = better bass. (80Hz isn't bass.)
5. Sansui G33k & G22k don't sound like crap. (sterile, lifeless)
6. Tubes are superior to quality Solid State.

I've never been a fan of line array setups, near-field monitors or "three martini" sounds. (Does it sound like ass until you just finish that third?)

Finally, anything without a chord pattern (rap, gangsta' rap, and rap) is decidedly NOT music.

 

[grncoup]

There's one pretty "safe" answer, at least around this neighborhood: BOSE Speakers...

Oh, wait a minute, you said "Sacred". Cancel that.

back in the late '70's i was in the market for new speakers and thought i wanted bose 901's. i was in a restaurant that had a set and by the time i left, i hated the sound of those speakers. i bought dcm time windows instead and still have them. of course now someone is going to tell me how bad time windows are, but that's ok, i still like them.