Vintage vs Modern Audio Gear: Which is better?

[BoredSysAdmin]

Mildly relevant:

 

[slipperybidness]

The limit may have been reached long ago but the advent of the carbon fiber tone arm and new materials used in plinths have given us significant improvement for a lower cost than what was available back in the 60's and 70s.


I totally agree.

+1

I agree, I think the introudcution of newer / better / cheaper materials is key to advancing the analog side (phono, speakers, etc) of this field into the future.

Pretty much all of the electronics side has been nailed down for decades in general, but not so much on the materials side.

 

[slipperybidness]

A question for some of the "old timers" (I promise that is a term of respect ),

How was the "snake oil audio industry" back in the day? Was it as prevalent and as in your face as we see today?

 

[Swerd]

A question for some of the "old timers" (I promise that is a term of respect ),

How was the "snake oil audio industry" back in the day? Was it as prevalent and as in your face as we see today?

Within audio, I was unaware of the snake oil industry until the late 1970s or early 1980s when I first saw Monster speaker cables for sale. They made money, and later during the 80s and 90s, all hell broke loose.

Maybe I just wasn't looking. When I was that young, I didn't have money burning a hole in my pocket, and those snake oil products were never aimed at such people.

Of course, snake oil was never limited to audio. It has long been around, sold in other forms.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

 

[slipperybidness]

Within audio, I was unaware of the snake oil industry until the late 1970s or early 1980s when I first saw Monster speaker cables for sale. They made money, and later during the 80s and 90s, all hell broke loose.

Maybe I just wasn't looking. When I was that young, I didn't have money burning a hole in my pocket, and those snake oil products were never aimed at such people.

Of course, snake oil was never limited to audio. It has long been around, sold in other forms.

Hmmm. I'm wondering how this lines up with the decline of DIY audio?

DIY audio used to be a very well accepted path to hi-fi sound, right? I'm thinking Dynaco, Heathkit, etc.

You see where I'm headed with this........the consumer used to be much more knowledgeable on the topic so snake oil had no market. When the consumers started backing away from DIY, a market opened up for snake oil.

Just a theory at this point.

 

[Swerd]

Hmmm. I'm wondering how this lines up with the decline of DIY audio?

DIY audio used to be a very well accepted path to hi-fi sound, right? I'm thinking Dynaco, Heathkit, etc.

You see where I'm headed with this........the consumer used to be much more knowledgeable on the topic so snake oil had no market. When the consumers started backing away from DIY, a market opened up for snake oil.

Just a theory at this point.

I don't know what fraction of the total sales those electronic kits represented at their hey day. I suspect it was always small.

I believe snake oil became more prevalent because the audio market, as a whole, was shrinking. The manufacturers and dealers were looking for any way they could to boost sales and/or profits. They also had significant help from a few audio magazines and writers who promoted the overpriced and mysteriously performing 'high end' audio products.

Compare audio to TVs or automobiles. Those products certainly are at least as complex as audio, but their sales didn't shrink like audio. If anything, during the 50s & 60s, cars were much less complex, and many more people did their own tune up/maintenance/repair work. Now with computer controlled fuel and ignition systems, much fewer DIY mechanics are around. But I don't see car snake oil products. The same goes for TV repair.

 

[slipperybidness]

Compare audio to TVs or automobiles. Those products certainly are at least as complex as audio, but their sales didn't shrink like audio. If anything, during the 50s & 60s, cars were much less complex, and many more people did their own tune up/maintenance/repair work. Now with computer controlled fuel and ignition systems, much fewer DIY mechanics are around. But I don't see car snake oil products. The same goes for TV repair.

Yeah, that is a good point!

 

[markw]

There were, and always will be, good and bad products. This is not always determined by price.
Nowadays, it seems the difference between DECENT entry level audio (which is generally better than all but the best of "vintage" stuff) and the esoteric stud now for sale is a much, much wider gap.
)
But, I (symbolically) invite some of you to come over, pop few beers, sit back and listen to some old vinyl on the Miracord 50H turntable playing through the trusty old Marantz 2270 driving a pair of JBL L-26's. I think you'll find it quite enjoyable.

BTW, I prefer brews form Stone Brewery.

 

[Swerd]

But, I (symbolically) invite some of you to come over, pop few beers, sit back and listen to some old vinyl on the Miracord 50H turntable playing through the trusty old Marantz 2270 driving a pair of JBL L-26's. I think you'll find it quite enjoyable.

Imagine just how good they would sound now, if you had only regularly applied Armor All and STP for all those years .

(Note the clever crossover use of auto snake oil on audio gear .)

 

[XIANV]

Paul, concentrating on ETs without trap speeds gives an advantage to the car with the better tires. What ET would your Z06 turn with '60s street rubber? What would an L88 run on modern drag radials with a DOT stamp?

Also, Dodge Max Wedge Stage III. (Though I'm sure the 11s were run on Mickey Thompsons.)

 

[XIANV]

Turning to audio...

Well done, Paul. I believe you wrote a very fair & realistic comparison.

IMO, what's most amazing about modern gear is how much fidelity & quality you can buy on a real-world budget. Which is pretty much what Paul was getting at with the Altima comparison...

There were, and always will be, good and bad products. This is not always determined by price.

That about nails it. I'd much rather have quality vintage gear than modern junk. And vice versa.

White-van speakers driven by incompetently cloned knockoff electronics? No thank you. But taking that example as proof that "They don't build 'em like they used to!" is equally foolish.

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

Paul, concentrating on ETs without trap speeds gives an advantage to the car with the better tires. What ET would your Z06 turn with '60s street rubber? What would an L88 run on modern drag radials with a DOT stamp?

Also, Dodge Max Wedge Stage III. (Though I'm sure the 11s were run on Mickey Thompsons.)

You bring up a very valid point. Most of us ran slicks, cheater slicks, or some type of drag tire at the strip. Trap speed would be about the same, but you could take maybe .5-second off the E.T., depending upon the car. Cars that ran 14-seconds (the faster stock muscle cars) wouldn't break the tires loose much in 1st gear, anyway, and maybe they'd pick up .2 to .3. Unless I brake torqued my 428, it wouldn't break the tires loose at all on concrete, on F70 radials. No STOCK Max Wedge ever went under 13 seconds, I'll wager. I saw The Ramchargers factory '63 Max Wedge at Union Grove, and the best it turned (not stock and on huge slicks) was 12.22 @116 mph. Very fast for the time, but not stock...no back seat, headers, bigger carbs, cam, etc. Another issue with Plymouths and Dodges of the period was axle tramp (or hop). They were useless in 1st gear, and slicks made them worse. The rear leaf strings would wrap up and snap back five times a second. My Mustang had staggered rear shocks to mitigate this issue, but it didn't have enough power to make a difference. Our memory of the performance of these cars is not reality. *Factory prepared drag cars like The Dodge Boys, Color Me Gone, Ramchargers, Mr. Norm, et al don't count. They weren't streetable and they were far from stock.

That said, I would love a red '63 Dodge Hemi with red dog dish hubcaps.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Paul, concentrating on ETs without trap speeds gives an advantage to the car with the better tires. What ET would your Z06 turn with '60s street rubber? What would an L88 run on modern drag radials with a DOT stamp?

Also, Dodge Max Wedge Stage III. (Though I'm sure the 11s were run on Mickey Thompsons.)

Paul's C6 Z06, bone stock, would trap in the low to mid 120s. The C7 Z06s trap in high 120s. And they idle smooth, sip gas at 80mph, and happily drive down residential streets at 25mph.

Yeah, you could put an 8-speed automatic behind an L88, with the right differential and an awesome suspension, and probably run 11s at 120mph or so too, but why would want to? Old muscle cars engines are a PITA.

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

Paul's C6 Z06, bone stock, would trap in the low to mid 120s. The C7 Z06s trap in high 120s. And they idle smooth, sip gas at 80mph, and happily drive down residential streets at 25mph.

Yeah, you could put an 8-speed automatic behind an L88, with the right differential and an awesome suspension, and probably run 11s at 120mph or so too, but why would want to? Old muscle cars engines are a PITA.

An 8-speed automatic wouldn't make much of a difference at the drags because the car would most likely trap in 5th gear. The higher gears on new automatics are for highway cruising and fuel economy. Hell, I can get 90 mph out of 2nd gear. I trap the quarter barely out of 3rd gear. In the muscle car era, top gear was 1:1. 6th gear in my car is a leisurely .5:1.

In the interest of accuracy, I submit this; a collection of 1/4 mile times from Car Craft, Motor Trend, Hot Rod, etc. http://roadtests.tripod.com/ Lots of the most frightening muscle cars of the era turned 14 and 15 second 1/4-mile times. Few ran in the 13s, and nothing ran in the 12s. At the end of the page are some factory and dealer specialty cars. I had lots of experience with one of them, the Mr. Norm's '69 Dart GSS, with a 440. It was faster than anything I had ever been in, and the test yields an ordinary 13.71 @ 105 mph.

I see the car and audio gear analogy as valid. Our memories can augment reality. My Crown IC-150 was a horrible preamp, and my '68 Torino GT 390 4bbl ran a 15.9. Thank gawd for new stuff...

 

[Irvrobinson]

An 8-speed automatic wouldn't make much of a difference at the drags because the car would most likely trap in 5th gear. The higher gears on new automatics are for highway cruising and fuel economy. Hell, I can get 90 mph out of 2nd gear. I trap the quarter barely out of 3rd gear. In the muscle car era, top gear was 1:1. 6th gear in my car is a leisurely .5:1.

Yeah, but most stock L88s I've seen were delivered with 4:11 or 4:56 differential gears, and they aren't getting 90mph in 2nd. Anyway, I brought up the 8-speed auto mainly because it shifts in milliseconds, while the old Turbo-Hydro, well, took a lot longer. It's not how many gears, it's that it is just better technology.

It's the same with audio. That old Marantz 2270, I had one, nice-looking, especially in the optional wood cabinet, was limited to about 45W/ch into 4 ohms. Even my butt-ugly ATI AT3000 will do well over 500W/ch into 4 ohms. Old technology may sometimes be fun, or have a pretty package, but it's still old technology.

 

[ski2xblack]

Hmmm. I'm wondering how this lines up with the decline of DIY audio?

DIY audio used to be a very well accepted path to hi-fi sound, right? I'm thinking Dynaco, Heathkit, etc.

You see where I'm headed with this........the consumer used to be much more knowledgeable on the topic so snake oil had no market. When the consumers started backing away from DIY, a market opened up for snake oil.

Just a theory at this point.

It seems to me that DIY is enjoying something of a Golden Age right now, if not as huge a portion of the market as it once was. Hooray for the information age! DIY land is generally inhospitable to BS and snake oil, too.

 

[Paul Scarpelli]

But I don't see car snake oil products.

Claims for horsepower gain from air filters or air intakes are pure fantasy. "Cold air" intakes don't do anything appreciable on today's electronically-controlled cars. None of that headlight lens cleaner spray does anything (you have to buff.) Octane boosters are bullshirt; just run what's recommended. (Higher octane does not have more energy; it's just less susceptible to pre-ignition.) "High performance plug wires" offer no advantage if the wires they're replacing are functionally good. And do any of you remember that thing you attached to your carburetor called "The Tornado?" Pure horsehockey. But the amount of snake oil in the audio industry is far greater.

 

[TLS Guy]

I think you're only referring to Quad amps. Come on, fess up.



I don't think FM radio can be considered high fidelity by modern standards, but some old, analog FM tuners are cool, like my Marantz 2110. I can always impress the people who don't know what they're talking about with the oscilloscope.



There were some very good speakers, like the Apogee ribbons (I especially like the Scintilla), the Martin-Logan electrostatics, the ADS towers, especially the L1530s, and, of course, the SoundLab electrostatics, which are still in production, and I still covet. But let's face it, these were all very expensive speakers when they were new, and there are numerous designs now for under $5K per pair that perform very, very well.



I completely agree.

I think there are a lot of good vintage amps. Leak, Armstrong, Rogers and especially Sugden come to mind.

In the US Dyanco certainly comes to mind.

I put this vintage Dynaco system together for my eldest grandson. The electronics was "inherited' from my friend Phil. I did service work on the power amp over the years.

There were many other good US amps form the likes of Marantz and Fisher prior to the corporate wrecking balls and many others.

If you think good analog FM can not be high fidelity, then you have not owned a really good FM tuner. I doubt there is one made now. Designing good FM tuners was another of Peter Walker's specialties. I really doubt there is a better tuner than his FM4.

 

[TLS Guy]

TLS..did you vote?

No I did not, as there was not an appropriate answer to tick. It is not an either or, but case by case basis.