What Motivates You?

[mobydud]

The look, the feel, the sound of power. Even at low volumes, the sound of a truly POWERFUL stereo is a visceral thrill that goes back to my childhood. Dunno why, but it's there. And modern plasticized, computerized and sterileized gear just don't got it..no matter how many "watts" it claims to have..or how big the subwoofer is. It's got no soul.

 

[GordonW]

Why do I do it?

...Because I love "rescuing" old gear... bringing it back to top-flight condition, and being able to place it in a place (either mine, or by selling it to someone who appreciates it) where it can be appreciated and USED, in the way it was INTENDED.

To me, it's almost like art... in fact, it IS art in some ways. Many of these older pieces were obviously built by people who had PASSION about their craft... or at the least, had HIGH STANDARDS about what they considered "acceptable quality". I want AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE to be able to experience this stuff as it was, in its 'prime of life'.

So, really, it's not ONLY about vintage audio for me... it's just that SO BIG OF A PORTION of what I tend to like, tends to be vintage. Sure, there's some REALLY GOOD new gear... I'm a real fan of the VAC tube gear, the Tannoy Dimension and Eyris series speakers, the VPI Aries turntable, the Music Hall MMF9 turntable, and the like... but there's SO MUCH gear that came, throughout the last 60+ years, that is SUBSTANTIAL, and sometimes IMPORTANT to the improvement of the art of reproduced sound. The more I can experience, and help others also experience, the better...

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[tx1488]

For me, maybe even more than the sound, it's the solid look and feel of 70's receivers. It's the solid aluminum knobs and switch covers, the wood cases, and aluminum faces. It's the heavy and smooth tuning mechanisms that will spin effortlessly from one end of the dial to the other. It's the meters and glowing dials. It's all these things plus the solid power, weight, and rich sound of these receivers that I love.

 

[OvenMaster]

My motivation is a shoestring budget, as well as features and build quality that just don't exist anymore. Try finding an affordable and decent tuner, as well as a well-built, powerful and affordable integrated amplifier that are both NEW and not mid-fi. I can't find 'em.

Tom

 

[melofelo]

motivation

my only *vintage purchase* so far has been a sansui au 719 amplifier...my turntable could be called vintage i guess but i bought it new nearly 20 years ago and it still sounds as good as the day i bought it...perhaps even better having found the *sweet spot* with my trusty heybrook and ortofon cartridge alignment guage.. :scratch2:
i auditioned some newer amps thinking i could get a decent sound on a limited budget of £200 but nothing i heard at even twice the price satisfied my ears..
then after a few weeks hangin out here and having read some of the posts i began thinking perhaps some of the stuff i'd dreamt about at school might still be available in good condition for a reasonable price..and must surely give at least as good a sound as their modern day budget counterpart...
i saw my current amp with a buy it now of £200 and took a gamble...
the postman refused to deliver it leaving a note saying something about i wasn't in when they came around... :lmao:
a trip to the local post office collection depot and i could understand why he lied...this thing weighed a ton..
i dragged it home on the bus..un-wrapped it....mint as described...
worried that the internals may have suffered from years of abuse or deterioration it was with some trepidation that i plugged in my nad pp1 into the aux socket before proceeding to play my first record in what seemed like months.. :scratch2:
the sound was strange...20 years listening to my previous yamaha a420 amp had made my ears accostomed to a thin 2 dimensional sound...i kept looking to see if the bass was turned up but no..the controls were set to *defeat*..
hm i thought...i've never really heard what my turntable could do..i've never really even heard what a decent budget phono stage like a nad pp1 could do till i got this beauty...come to think of it..i had previously wondered what all the fuss was about with my recently purchased grado sr60 and where the bass was disappearing to that the reviews spoke so eloquently about..
the sansui made it all abundantly clear..
ths amp despite all its facilities and handy bi-directional tape switching..its two phono inputs ( one currently giving an outlet to a long neglected mint rega p3)...was designed with one purpose in mind..sound quality...
the controls feel positive...the switches *click* instead of that crap digital switching thingy that modern plastic fantastic crap does....the subsonic filter isn't a cheap gimmick..it lets my speakers get on with making low frequency music instead of cone flapping...incidently i had considered upgrading the speakers too ( B&W DM110's)....having wired them up to the sansui...
after a few hours listening...NOT A CHANCE ! ..in fact i'll be adding a pair of their younger siblings the 602s3 to the second pair of speaker outlets when funds become available...
my gamble had paid off...
i am not electrically minded but opened up the amp just out of curiosity..this thing was definately not built to a price..as it seems more like two amps sandwiched into one box from what i can see...
i guess the point i'm trying to make is..all that glitters is not gold...modern stuff can sound very good and some can sound truly disgusting...linn amplifiers included no less :thumbsdn: ..but with certain vintage gear just the feel of the controls and the sheer size of the thing makes you feel that the people who made them ..actually knew what they were doing...
its no coincidence i spend most of my time online seeing what other vintage treasures from the past i can get for a good price now...
i dream of heybrook turntables ..pink triangles..systemdeks...logic tempo's etc....and i hope i've got enough spare cash if a marants pm74 84 or 94 ever turn up within the uk and the seller is williing to ship..heck i may even get the train and go pick it up myself just to give the postman a break :thmbsp:
select pieces of vintage gear in good working order makes whatever source you throw at it sound less like hi-fi and more like music to my ears...bugger what the magazines say :thumbsdn:
-*forever converted away from plastic boxes with overpriced fresh air hiding inside*
it really is true..
not only dont they make 'em like they used to....i think they've actually forgotten how to... :thmbsp:

 

[PMik]

To locate and buy defect 1980's amps for repair and for the "to keep" amps... i also make severe modification.

My latest buys:

Last friday:
Sansui B-2101 (2x 200W/8Ohm RMS)
semi-defect caursed by age (dry caps) ....
price €73.9/US$97.67


Last night:
Harman Kardon HK870 (2x 100W/8Ohm)
Stated as defect, but a few indications from the person who made me the offer, makes me believe that the problem is minor. :yes:
price €47.3/US$62.15

Cheers

 

[lorne]

What motivates me is the euphoria that accompanies the transport from everyday concerns. It is the journey towards something else that involves the passion, joy, pain and fulfilment that is like life itself. This can all be found in music. It is in a CD version of Mozart's Requiem, and it is in an LP of the The Doors’ 'Moonlight Drive'.

MORE: It is the fact that I have been able to do this with equipment that was in some cases literally thrown away, abandoned, sold cheaply, or, as has been more often the case, sold with faults that I took responsibility to put right.

I love the older gear, even though many of my ancient contraptions are not very beautiful to look at. The thing is, when you peel off the hood, there is something you can identify and feel viscerally and intuitively connected to. In an old amp, there is still something familiar, tactile and comprehensible. We can still imagine and feel a process whereby we understand that it was made by the flesh of humanity. We can viscerally comprehend the genius and the beauty of it.

A bare looking T-amp that weighs merely ounces can be stuffed into a cheap plastic box. It may be able to blow the knobs off of our vintage gear. It is our predilection to appreciate the elegance in it. But most of us will understand that we cannot feel about a T-amp the same way as we do our ageing works of industrial art.

The lights are low, and I am finally settled in with a good glass of Bordeaux claret. The electrons start doing their magic. I am stunned and amazed. I am an electronic moron, and yet THIS can happen! Friends hear the same thing and proclaim that I am a sonic-nerd-genius. Totally FALSE! EMBARRASSING! Compared to many hundreds of people on AK I know nothing. Still, this musical miracle can happen!

It is the miracle of nature, sound, art and the imaginations of hundreds or even thousands of people who inherited the skills of the ages and took things to yet another conclusion — another objective. At best, all I did was recognise a few facts.

The lights are low, and I am finally settled in with a good glass of Bordeaux claret. The electrons start doing their magic. There is an epiphany that strongly suggests that there is something decidedly larger and more important than my little everyday life. It is made possible by what we hobbyists do. In part, we do it because we share an experience as a community. We encourage one another. We help each other. Our enthusiasm supports what we already know — the miracle DOES exist. I am not the only one who feels such intense pleasure. And even if I were the only being to sense it, would it change anything? Perhaps not, but would I have achieved this experience alone in the first place. In my case I can say no. The things I have learned from others — people such as you in AK have made this possible for me. This is why I sometimes feel compelled to try and answer a question in a forum when no one more qualified comes forward sooner.

That is my motivation. One listens to the conclusion of Tristan and Isolde or a recording made in a night club performance of Billy Holliday and realises that there really is no choice. We are simply moved — ‘MOT’-IV-AT-ED

What I keep asking is — why is there so little appreciation of the miracle of sound in our modern culture? Why is it that so much of modern culture avoids the appreciation of a soundscape? Why does modern culture seem to produce more noise than music? Music IS a community. Music is what we do to include our appreciation of what we hear in a common experience. For example, The Eurythmics made the screaming rails of a subway part of a song. So, why is it that we do not make more of our noises a song? Why do we default to the barest and uncelebrated qualities of sound. Why did we go from the uncertain complexities of the LP to redbook CD — to digital lossy format — to .... We have put people on the moon with a technology that is already primitive. What has happened to sound?

I once heard a demonstration of the organ at St. Paul’s in London. This organ has pipes that extend from the crypt all the way up into Christopher Wren’s dome. Others are merely the size of a hand’s little finger. Now that WAS the world speaking to man. That is part of the meaning of a cathedral. These places were a common cultural objective hundreds of years ago. This awe in relation to sound is now in the dark ages despite our technical finesse. And the darkness is by no means stinting. If you have heard a choir in the vast musical instrument that is a cathedral, surely you will know what I am driving at — and I hope that you do anyway. Modern life is not a friend to sound despite all the gadgets which promote it.

Part of my motivation is just an effort to keep sane amidst all the noise. As a boy, I sometimes had the opportunity to sit all alone in a forest. There was so much to listen too that I never thought about music. I guess that it was already there.

 

[cmonty]

Vintage audio gear is a cheap fix for mid-life crisis. Muscle cars and young women are expensive and carry even less WAF.

 

[cudaken]

Vintage audio gear is a cheap fix for mid-life crisis. Muscle cars and young women are expensive and carry even less WAF.

God I have it bad, I am into Musle car's and old gear. Blowen 440 anyone.

Main reason I buy the old stuff is 2 fold.

Got into High End gear around 1986, bought one time only but bought well. Looking at gear I could not afford then. Puls I know the old names, and know what I trust.

I am cheap, OK broke being a gear head much less Mopar Gear head. I got a set of mono blocked Adcom preamps for $600.00 with shipping at 600 watts a side. What the heck can you buy for $600.00 now that has over 100 watts at a real rating like the ADCOM's.

Will not say new gear sounds bad, only audition one system in the last 20 some years. Funny little story.

Went to Ulitamte Disapointment 7 weeks ago. Audition there Reference system. Kef 205's retail $8500.00, Monster Mono blocked Amps, Preamp, CD player, Power Enhances and subs. To say I was not doing the is a understatment. Told the sales person as well and invited him over to audition my system.

Well, he came over and his jaw dropped. :thmbsp: Could not believe my DQ 10's KEF Q75.2's, Adcom Preamp, CD Player, and Power amp's where 20 + years old. He now knows why I had a funny look on my faces when I audition his gear.

By the way, Alec that is a friend of mine said the KEF Reference 205's must blow due the Monster Stuff. Said the ADCOM gear would make them sing. He should know, he worked for Adcom, and now works for KEF.

Cuda Ken

 

[Tony75]

For me it's the thrill of the chase, finding something that no-one else wants and making good use of it.
What really gets me going is finding items that people have left out on the kerbside for council collection, and seeing how little can be done to them to have them working again. Only last night found a Sony mini system with twin auto-reverse tape and 3 disc CD and the typical airport runway display with 10,000 flashing lights. OK this piece has no cred at all. Plug it in, radio and amp OK, Then tape decks seem to do the right things, CDP non functional. Clean the lens of pick-up, all working again. This unit is less than 10 years old and would have sold for around $800 AUS. A great unit for someone else who otherwise could only afford a $100 boom box.
A real joy comes from doing up old good gear and have people amazed at how it sounds, ("is that really a record/cassette, no they couldn't sound that good") is an often response.
If only the general populace knew what they were missing out on, but maybe it's better for us that they don't. :thmbsp:
Cheers
Tony

 

[DS1784]

after getting hooked on the "digital age" i found out i didn't want to play the flavor of the week with audio and video gear that has been out for the last few years. the build quality on some of this stuff is marginal at best. the ever changing format wars. they seem to change every other month. so at the ripe old age of 47 i remembered my youth, the great old gear. you know, metal, wood, copper, glass, heavy components that lasted. so a couple of years ago i started to rediscover this great old gear. never could afford this stuff when it came out. but it's such a bargin now. this is kinda like the muscle car and hot rod business that has been booming the last few years. these vehicles have pushed the true classics, packard, pierce arrow, etc. to the back burner. there is alot of value in these old components and people are starting to really drive the prices up. shure wish someone would come out with a small magazine based on the early gear. kinda like a glass audio type of format. anyone have any other thoughts on this.

 

[Photobitstream]

shure wish someone would come out with a small magazine based on the early gear. kinda like a glass audio type of format. anyone have any other thoughts on this.

That is a damn fine idea. I have a lot of publishing experience. Maybe we should start another thread on this. Count me in if anyone else is interested. Reading the archives here I see we have a lot of talent to draw upon. Now we need some capital.

 

[DS1784]

I would think the difficult thing would be how to support the magazine. subscription fees would be lucky to pay the postage. advertisers would be needed, but this is such a small market i don't know if you could raise enough capitol or get enough advertisers to participate, the biggest advantage to advertisers is we seem to be a very focused group. great little nitch market.. i don't think finding writers or items to write about would be a problem. maybe a new thread should be started on this subject and see if any interest could be developed. there could be some great companies out there to go after for advertising, parts express, audio advisors, etc.

 

[Yamaha B-2]

I would think the difficult thing would be how to support the magazine. subscription fees would be lucky to pay the postage. advertisers would be needed, but this is such a small market i don't know if you could raise enough capitol or get enough advertisers to participate, the biggest advantage to advertisers is we seem to be a very focused group. great little nitch market.. i don't think finding writers or items to write about would be a problem. maybe a new thread should be started on this subject and see if any interest could be developed. there could be some great companies out there to go after for advertising, parts express, audio advisors, etc.

That's exactly the reason Al Gore invented the internet. You could do so in electronic format and charge admission. $12/year or something reasonable. And have folks who are interested contribute articles. My guess is you could talk to some of the erstwhile folks in the business, like Jonathan Scull and see what they think. He might be willing to offer some ideas and other folks to talk to. And folks like Axel and ilimzn and EchoWars and B/F could contribute articles. Bolly could review his new AR9/M-2/M-80 rig, etc. Might start out as every two months, etc. Good luck, but better do it out of love and not out of thoughts of profits.