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Which Amp/Receiver to buy?

S

shay1510

New Member
Hey guys,
I'm new in this vintage stuff and I'd really appreciate some help.
I want to buy an amp/receiver + turntable + speakers.
The first thing I need is a nice (and cheap) vintage amp.
I've been reading a bit about vintage equipment and found some nice stuff.
Please help me choose one, plus tell me if the price is good/fair enough.

luxman l-215, 140$
luxman lv-112, 130$
luxman 1030

nad 7240pe, 195$

marantz 1515, 90$
marantz pm-66se ki, 270$ (not realy vintage)

sansui 6060, 160$

I want a warm sound, and an amp that can match any kind of speakers/tt.
Thanks to all of you experts out there.
 
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I'd suggest you change your priorities and first look for a set of speakers you like. They are the biggest variable in a system and most are somewhat to amps, some much more than others. Also, the efficiency of the speaker is a critical issue. For instance, a set of Klipsch K'horns can go loud with a 5 transistor portable radio but a set of AR LSTs take about 300 watts to really open up. A common term between an amp and speakers as well as between othe components is synergy. A 30 watt amp of decent quality may sound really good with speaker X but with another 30 watt amp of similar quality, feature, and cost may just miss the boat for some reason.

Some speakers may present either complex or loads that many amps can not handle. An example is most electrostatic speakers present a load that with many ss amps will cause them to self destruct due to heir capacitive load and other speakers may present something at or below a 2 ohm load that most amps can not handle.

Add to the equation the size of the room, size allowable for the speaker voicing such as New England, British or West Coast sound and it gets complex.

Some speakers seem fairly universal with many amps and some amps the same. Such an amp are the Marantz 1060, HK A-402 and, Sherwood S9500c as well as the McIntosh MC250 and MC2105 power amps.

Electro-mechanical devices are the components that offer the most variables in sound voicing so things besides speakers in include the phono cartridge, headphones (earplugs for you youngins) and tape decks. The it gets down to more subtle differences and I tend to find preamps and then power amps in that order to be the most variable provided the power amp was initially matched well to the speakers.
 
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