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The Vintage High End Separates Thread

Friends would a Pilot model 690 be proper here, or how about a LEAK Stereo,20?

Pilots up,running, the Leak finally made it here six months ago,nice,shape, but needs loved.

Dirk
 
Got a 2505 and a 112 or 113, I don't think much of either. The neighbors using em next door, retired eltronics professor at the local College, OIT.

Are the 2505 and the 112/3 high end?
 
The Leak is a nice amp. Heard one that had a trip back to Great Britian on its passport getting redone by the guru.

If you don't like the 2505/112or3 then what do you use? I don't look for those particular units.
 
Morning, I'm running a few different units. My favorite is a Scott 299c. My other living room units a David Berning 270 ampwith a David Berning TF12 pre My other units a Quicksilver. And my bedroom units a HK Citation IIIx thru it's brother pre amd matching tuner.

The 299c, is down needs a redo. And the HK,sounds good, but is do a rebuild. The quicksilvers a warm lovely sounding rig I'm running it thru Speaker Lab Cornerhorn Clones. Which is kinda interesting, literally everything in the Speakerlabs is klipsch.

I'd mentioned my Pilot FA 690, where does it stand in the pecking order.

I'm relatively new to audio, in a couple years Ive snapped up a lot of great to really decent gear. Many many sets of classic old speakers.

I've really embraced tube units. For some reason they just sound warm, and perfect to me.

I love music I play music all day long " I'm retired" mostly CD's these days, but I've got roughly 3k albums when I'm in the mood. I'm running the CDs thru a Tube California audio labs, CD player.


I snapped the 2505 and the 112/3 up is it was a decent price. The 112/3 is the am/fm radio incorporated. I'd really wanted just the FM unit, but the price was to good. My friends tell me the am/fm combo has more utility.

Again the 2505 amd 112/3 I'm not sure which it is. Is at my neighbors home, he's an electronics engineer, was going to upgrade both. It's winter here, it's very cold here, so I've not,spoken with him in a few months.

Dirk
 
Here's my throw back stereo. 3 chunks: speakers, electronics, source. Source used to be a turntable, B&O 3000, then I got the Tanberg 9000x 7" reel to reel, the Nakamichi 550 portable casette with Senheiser mics, the Mac MCD7000 CD player and the Tascam 122 MK 2 casette. Today, all have been replaced by an RME ADI-2 DAC fs hooked up to a Windows 10 HP laptop, Fidelizer, Qobuz and Audrivana. Instant acess to tons of music and all high quality vs time to find, load and play either not perfect anymore records and tapes or CD's...the DAC wins but I'm still having everything else gone through.

I was lucky enough to run around with the Grateful Dead who used first gen transitor Macs so, that's why those are there. Amps are MC2105 for bass and MC2505 for highs using an ESS 2241 Eclipse crossover that matches the speakers. The preamp is a Mac C26 since that's 1st gen transistor and matches, and I bought them together in the 70's. Preamp tape 2 goes to The AudioSource model ONE-EQ series II spectrum analyzer / eq where it's tape monitor hooks to a DBX 119 dynamic range expander.

The speakers are ESS AMT 1AM's. Everything is original and either restored or in process (Tascam and Tanberg need work).
What didn't use to be there are the Auralex 2" wedge studio foam panels which I needed in the last house, the Auralex isolation pads, and a bunch of Anticable wire. The bass uses 3.1 cable which is 4 12 gauge wires wound together, 2 for +, 2 for - so it's like a 9 gauge but still kinda flexible. The Air Motion transformers are using 2.1 Anticable which is 2 12 gauge wires wound together. All the patch cables (interconnets today) are also Anticable. I used them since instead of low O2, they are zero O2, instead of .001 contamination they are .000005, 200 times cleaner and use a .001" mylar coating, Worth going to their website and reading about.

I think the heart of the system is the speakers, everything else is there to support them. I started with AMT1A's way back when, upgraded to 1A monitors and have been happy ever since.

So there's my vintage system with the 21st century source, best of both worlds, at least for me.DSCN2220.JPG DSCN2229.JPG DSCN2220.JPG DSCN2229.JPG
 
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Blue Shadow said:
So TX-9100 is a Nikko guy?
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Yep! Nikko 1976 till 1984. After that ,..not so much! What I want to own from Nikko, I already got. But it really sounds superb. Not very basy, more like very late 70's till end 80's neutral high end hifi; like heavy Yamaha's , Denons, Rotels Meridian, that's how it sounds. Lets say natural it doesn't add it's own typical brand type sound colouring (like the more expensive the more base marketing) very neutral-ish, lots of treble (compare it to sansui 8080 or 9090) That kinda sound. I like the Sound always have from when they were new! especially from the 220/20 series. Looks, the rack mount, slimline, industrial black look, not so much..! I located , collected, found purchased all these stacked components over a timespan of 2 years. Bought locally in physical retail, and online. In total this 220/20 Nikko stack has costs me almost exactly $800,- CAD including sales taxes!
Hence its my permanent daily main listening set-up.
 
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Always great to find the gear you like. Nikko is known to be good but flies under the radar a bit.
 
I just picked up some vintage components. How about:
Nakamichi CA-5 Preamp
Nakamichi PA-7 Power Amplifier (two of them)
Nakamichi CD-4 CD Player
Nakamichi ST-7 Tuner
Nakamichi CR-1A Cassette (wish it was a Dragon)
 
Wildcat said:
The power amp isn't a high-end manufacturer per se, but it's a Nak PA-7, designed by the (in)famous Nelson Pass and using the Stasis technology, same as the Threshold power amps back in the day. I am debating recapping it and keeping it,
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My perspective is that quality should be judged by technology and content not brand. BTW your PA-7 (like mine) takes four 33,000 uF 100V caps, and they ain't cheap. The Nichicons are about $150 each here in Canada from Digikey. Both my amp and pre are being checked out by an experienced tech at this moment
 
UncleAng said:
My perspective is that quality should be judged by technology and content not brand. BTW your PA-7 (like mine) takes four 33,000 uF 100V caps, and they ain't cheap. The Nichicons are about $150 each here in Canada from Digikey. Both my amp and pre are being checked out by an experienced tech at this moment
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DIY Audio is a great forum to get information on the PA-7. One of the moderators has it out for anyone who wants to modify the amps but beyond that, getting feedback from Nelson Pass himself, on a product he designed, is worth the aggravation.

I've sometimes thought of getting the CA-7A preamp to go with the PA-7. But I have no need for a second system anymore. Still, if I didn't have to ship the amp, I'd get it over to Jon Soderberg in California to give it a refresh--he's an expert on Threshold repair, and the Nak is more or less a variation on the Threshold amps back in the day. The issue with the power supply caps is that it is hard to find the right value in a height that will fit into the enclosure--I looked and it was difficult to find something with the correct values that fit. Pass himself has said that Panasonic caps are "plenty good enough" (his words) for redoing his amps, but I would go for the Nichicons myself. With the caps refreshed and the bias reset to where it needs to be, it'll be a fine amplifier.
 
Wildcat said:
One of the moderators has it out for anyone who wants to modify the amps
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That DIYAudio (anatech) moderator is the tech that is currently checking out my NAKs. He lives an hour away from me and as you may know he did warranty service and repair for Nakamichi, Adcom etc. for decades. He's very opinionated but knowledgeable on stasis design. So I'm waiting to hear back as to what he suggests should be serviced and/or replaced on these 30 year old units. I'll let you know Wildcat.
 
UncleAng said:
That DIYAudio (anatech) moderator is the tech that is currently checking out my NAKs. He lives an hour away from me and as you may know he did warranty service and repair for Nakamichi, Adcom etc. for decades. He's very opinionated but knowledgeable on stasis design. So I'm waiting to hear back as to what he suggests should be serviced and/or replaced on these 30 year old units. I'll let you know Wildcat.
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Nice--thanks! I'll be interested to hear what needs to be addressed.
 
Does the HK Citation XX series designed by Matti Otala count? The preamp alone was about $3,500 US back in 1983. I had the XXP in the early / mid 90's. I had been offered the matching Citation XX of which wish I had purchased just to have a matching set. I think those were the only 2 units in the series.

I hope a picture of an actual printed photo counts as that's one of the few photos I have from back in the day... and it predates consumer digital cameras.

IMG_1684.jpg
 
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I recently picked up an ADA(Audio Design Associates) PTM-6150 6 channel amp,with an ADA Suite 7.1 Pre-amp.Can't find much info. I do know the company folded about 15 months ago.Is this stuff considered High End Audio? Very well built.
 
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