Skylabs HiFi Gear We All Wanted But Could Never Afford
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I do as well , been to Skylabs once , about 2 hours away from me , nice store with some nice vintage equipment inventory for sale , Kevin was there and I talked with him for a few minutes , ironically I was going through Des Moines to pick up an SX-1050 from a guy in Missouri and made a pit stop a Skylabs while I was over that way.
I like him, too.
He doesn't have that pushy "Mr. Know-It-All" voice that many audiophile YouTubers have.
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Gigantic
A big, big love
I have zero interest in vintage hifi, but I watch his channel for his droll, dry & measured Iowa delivery. After living in Philly for 20 years, I occasionally miss the midwest and his voice is a comfort that feels like where I grew up. It beats going back there and being reminded of a million reasons why I left.
Blue Shadow
Waiting for Vintage Gear from this century
Start of Rant:
My interest is in the gear I know, starting with vintage and moving on but I’m not clued up on all the modern options so I keep TTs and CD players in the rig. Like to learn about the ‘gear we all wanted but couldn’t afford,’ past to present but since it is low production it is hard to find people to post about it and here on ak the places to post are seldom traveled or lost. We have high end separates stuck down in System Building section not the Audiokarma Audio Forums section. In that major section we have one sticky thread in General Audio asking about Classic High-End Gear. This gives us 650 responses about the many products made over the vintage years, no train of discussion on most of the units. There are a couple threads in the High End Separates from Years Past forum, you know the one buried in the System Building sub group, that do go into discussions about some different pieces and companies’ products. But with high end so thin for many reasons it is hard to get answers about sound quality and any number of other things, reliability, serviceability, etc. Be nice if the high end crap could be discussed in public, the Audiokarma Audio Forums section without the naysayers thread crapping the discussion.
OK rant over.
About this video, first everyone makes mistakes and one glaring one is the mention of the Infinity IRS woofer columns, calling them subs. The system is a 3-way, a stack of woofers in one cabinet and a stack of maids and tweets in another cabinet, there is no subwoofer. The woofer boxes are powered so maybe that caught him. That aside seems well done and for those of you wanting to save time and just see the list here it is in order of appearance as he went chronologically:
McIntosh MC275
Klipsch Klipschorn
Quad ESL-57
Phase Linear 700 showing a few versions
Linen LP12
Technics SP-10 Mk II
Pioneer SX-1980
Nakamichi Dragon Cassette Deck
Infinity IRS
Mark Levinson ML333
Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus and finally
TechDAS Air Force One turntable.
Nice list, not all ones I have wanted. I may get to some on my list but here are my comments on this list:
MC275 sure, but would need to verify it sounds good compared to the borrowed Marantz 8B here now and a number of tube units Thain has brought over.
Klipsch is not my cup of tea. Yes, I wanted them early on, then I heard them and my ears hurt.
ESL57 One speaker that has left a permanent impression. A single speaker, the other out for repair, DB Systems preamp and power amp, amazing sound, but one blown speaker and limited volume capability made it a no go for me back then. Well the cost would have stopped me, too.
700/700B-I bought a Crown DC-300a instead. Sure the PL probably sounded a bit better but the Crown never broke while I owned it and wasn’t stolen because it was too heavy for those kids to carry it away.
LP12-turned off by the salesman mentioning as one buys it or just after you pick it up off the front counter to take home that there is another new upgrade you just gotta have, repeated seemingly quarterly to keep your money flowing into your TT and not other parts of the rig. I had a TD-125B with SME 3009/S2 Improved and Empire 4000D/III that gave me the best first impression of an album I have ever heard. WYWH, 901s set up properly, Citation preamp, Crown power amp and Gordon drops by just after it was released and says, “This is intense” and we cranked it. Amazing
SP-10, didn’t know about it until it was vintage. Had an SL-1800II, not the same thing for sure. I have a spare tonearm to bolt onto one if one were to arrive here.
SX-1980, I just don’t care for the taller than expected look of the unit, the smaller ones sound better and I’m more a separates guy, from my first stereo.
Dragon-Had a Luxman K-12, great looking, nice ergonomics and simple. Cassettes were for the car, had reel to reel at home so just didn’t need one for playback in the main rig.
IRS-Where would I put them, even today in a suburban home, but yes, I’d find a way
333-These are the amps I want to discuss from many different companies. But not many have experience. I’d like to know the sound characteristics of them. Only ones well known are the Brysons. Sure drop a couple of them exactly were I would put them, I’m not moving them and I’ll hook em up.
Nautilus-too unusual
AF One turntable. Yes, I know high end turntables sound different, Jim told me after he got a nice Clear Audio to upgrade from a Thorens 125/Magnepan arm. Says the 125 sounds like a great turntable the CA sounds like a great source, a step above. Sure put that one on the other side of the room from the MLs to balance the load and further from the speakers.
Anyone willing to post your comments about these chunks of gear? We already know about skylabs and the videos.
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Yeah, it would be nice to avoid the knee-jerk, "thread crapping." I've noticed that modern discussion sites seem more filled with gaslighting tactics than ever before.
Is it a sign of the times? I really don't know. One carefully crafted gaslight can redirect or even wipe out an entire thread. It can be quite powerful.
Blue Shadow
Waiting for Vintage Gear from this century
Fortunately, the mods will remove posts that are reported as being detrimental to the thread, but we have to ask and they need to agree. But with high end discussions there are too many, hence the quarantined position of the vintage high end forum.
It's like the "what's the best shock absorber, oil, or spark plug" threads on car forums.
The venom that some out is crazy, at times!
I've found it's sometimes better not to say, "I love this, or I used to own that and wish I still had it." The responses sometimes go beyond simple opinions. To the point where you need to defend every piece of minutiae you post. A very personal kind of thing. After a while, I'm like, "Why am I doing this?"
For one's sanity, it is sometimes not worth it.
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