Advice please, Have amps greatly improved over the lasts 20 years? Is it worth upgrading?

[heath22446]

I’ve been using my family’s old NAD C740 (from the 90’s) stereo amp to power monitor audio BX 2 speakers; I love listening to records at the moment and purchased a Project2 Xperience basic with a Pro-Ject Phono Box S pre amp. I have been looking at updating the amp to a Rotel RA-10 or a Arcam FMJ A19, my question is. Is it worth changing the amp? Has the technology/sound of an amp gotten better over the last 20 years? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question but any opinion would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ImcLoud]

I think the prices improved more than the equipment.. Now you can get an amp for $1000 that would have cost 5 times that a while back and may sound better..

 

[heath22446]

Thanks for the quick post. So it would be worth upgrading?

 

[ImcLoud]

Thanks for the quick post. So it would be worth upgrading?

You are obviously looking for something integrated and don't need a lot of power, I wouldn't spend a lot of money if I were you...

on sale PA 2-50 Stereo Amplifier | Sherbourn Technologies has a remote that is a nice option and on sale rite now while supplies last...

or a dayton apa150 would sound good {I own a few, and love them}.

I love the sound of the class t tripath toppings, they are amazing amps and make a 50wx2 model Topping TP60 Tripath TA2022 50WPC (80WPC 4 Ohm) Amplifier 310-326 I own the TP21 and it is AMAZING sound, I will say better than amps that are 20 times the cost!!!! I love that little amp, I have had people listen to my sons Lepai 2020 and be amazed then I tell them it costs $20 and they go home and buy them....

But anyway their are a lot of integrated options, pioneer has some in the elite line, marantz, emotiva, ect...

I know some people like Rotel, but I would rather have a music hall 15.3 for the same cost as the Rotel any day {I own a 15.3 and its really nice}... MUSIC HALL A15.3 INTEGRATED AMP at Music Direct but like I said a lot of options... what is your actual budget and what kind of power are you looking for???

Also look into the outlaw rr2150 and or emotivas usp1 or xda2 with a upa200 for separates..

As for your question "is it worth upgrading" thats a tough call, is your amp on its way out? Are you looking for somthing to make an audible change or just something different? Changing amps is tough because amps don't {most of the time} change sound much , unless you are going from tube to solid, or you are getting a great deal more headroom... But lets be honest, its nice to have new stuff, and the integrated amps of now are inexpensive and nice, will you hear the difference, I don't know.. I compare my inexpensive tube amp ($1100) to a inexpensive class T ($120) and the T sounds better, I compare it to my xpa2 and the xpa2 sounds better (but I think that is because of the output}... its all up to your ears..

 

[3db]

I’ve been using my family’s old NAD C740 (from the 90’s) stereo amp to power monitor audio BX 2 speakers; I love listening to records at the moment and purchased a Project2 Xperience basic with a Pro-Ject Phono Box S pre amp. I have been looking at updating the amp to a Rotel RA-10 or a Arcam FMJ A19, my question is. Is it worth changing the amp? Has the technology/sound of an amp gotten better over the last 20 years? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question but any opinion would be greatly appreciated.

If that NAD has no problems driving your speakers to loud levels without audible distortion and its still being reliable in its operations, I would consider it a waste of time/money to upgrade to something newer. You will not get a sonic improvement if that is what you are looking for.

 

[markw]

Simply put, no. If what you currently have cleanly drives your speakers to your preferred listening levels then you have nothing to gain by replacing* your power amps.

For what it's worth, that's a pretty fine two channel analog based receiver you've got there. Yes, the tuner is digital but it's still beter than most anything you'll fine nowadays.

* I chose that word carefully. Note I didn't say upgrading.

 

[fmw]

HiFi power amplifiers were pretty much perfected in the 1940's. The only big change has been from tubes to solid state in the 1960's. The solid state devices have gotten smaller and more efficient but they don't do any better job of amplifying a signal. There are newer forms of amplification such as switching amps which are more efficient than the amps of yesteryear. Basically, none of the changes in technology except for the move to solid state has improved amplifier performance in terms of fidelity. Your old amp is just as good as the new ones.

 

[avengineer]

HiFi power amplifiers were pretty much perfected in the 1940's.

If you change that to the 1980s, I'd agree with you. The amps of the 1940s were horrible, with power output in the 10 to 20 watt range, high distortion caused by poor quality output transformers and weak power supplies. Even though power pentodes like the 6L6 were introduced in the mid 1930s, we didn't start getting good power amps until we learned about how to wrangle output transformers and feedback and get distortion under control. Tube amps didn't start getting really interesting until the early 1960s, just before solid state amps burst on the scene, and slightly thereafter. Early SS amps were also horrible devices, generically because tube engineers didn't immediately adapt to the new design constraints of SS and ran headlong into output topology issues, and all kinds of nonlinear distortions, even slew limiting. Early 1970's SS amps were just ok. As an example, some 1970s and 1980s Crown amps were well known to break into oscillation under even moderately reactive loads, even though they sold thousands of them.

The current state of power amplification didn't really hit its stride until the 1980s. From then on, improvements in designs were largely in efficiency, size, and cost, with output devices moving from stacks of paralleled bipolar transistors and power Darligntons to MOSFETs. Then we move to the current digital and quasi-digital circuits that pack huge power into a small space with cheap devices.

Sonically, not much changed radically, though, since the early to mid 1980s. Before that things were fairly flakey.

As far as your old amp being just as good as a new one, stuff does age, capacitors dry out and degrade, controls and switch contacts get dirty, stuff happens. I once owned a Dynaco preamp that I used for years, thinking nothing had changed. One day a friend heard my system and said, "Hey, what happened to the bass?" All the coupling caps had dried out, I lost 12dB at 20Hz and never noticed because it happened gradually over time. I changed the caps, got my bass back.

Gear from the 1990s is due for some maintenances, or at least a checkup. If it's working as designed, no sonic reason to replace it though.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Good post, avengineer. One measured improvement I have noticed in the past ten years or so in classic class AB amps are better unweighted signal to noise ratios. I'm not sure the difference is all that audible, but it seems to be real.

 

[fmw]

If you change that to the 1980s, I'd agree with you. The amps of the 1940s were horrible, with power output in the 10 to 20 watt range, high distortion caused by poor quality output transformers and weak power supplies. Even though power pentodes like the 6L6 were introduced in the mid 1930s, we didn't start getting good power amps until we learned about how to wrangle output transformers and feedback and get distortion under control. Tube amps didn't start getting really interesting until the early 1960s, just before solid state amps burst on the scene, and slightly thereafter. Early SS amps were also horrible devices, generically because tube engineers didn't immediately adapt to the new design constraints of SS and ran headlong into output topology issues, and all kinds of nonlinear distortions, even slew limiting. Early 1970's SS amps were just ok. As an example, some 1970s and 1980s Crown amps were well known to break into oscillation under even moderately reactive loads, even though they sold thousands of them.

The current state of power amplification didn't really hit its stride until the 1980s. From then on, improvements in designs were largely in efficiency, size, and cost, with output devices moving from stacks of paralleled bipolar transistors and power Darligntons to MOSFETs. Then we move to the current digital and quasi-digital circuits that pack huge power into a small space with cheap devices.

Sonically, not much changed radically, though, since the early to mid 1980s. Before that things were fairly flakey.

As far as your old amp being just as good as a new one, stuff does age, capacitors dry out and degrade, controls and switch contacts get dirty, stuff happens. I once owned a Dynaco preamp that I used for years, thinking nothing had changed. One day a friend heard my system and said, "Hey, what happened to the bass?" All the coupling caps had dried out, I lost 12dB at 20Hz and never noticed because it happened gradually over time. I changed the caps, got my bass back.

Gear from the 1990s is due for some maintenances, or at least a checkup. If it's working as designed, no sonic reason to replace it though.

Not all of them were horrible. I had a Leek power amp made in 1948 that was high fidelity. It drove a Klipschhorn. Stereo hadn't been developed yet. I'm not suggesting that there haven't been better ones made since, but it was certainly high fidelity. Great solid state amps were made well before the 1980's. I had a Harmon Kardon Twelve that I bought around 1969 that would compete with a modern 60 watt per channel amplifier in terms of fidelity. Yes, it was heavy and inefficient for its modest power, but it had a flat frequency response and inaudible distortion.

 

[avengineer]

Not all of them were horrible. ...

Yes, there are always exceptions to a generalization. Was that a Leek TL-12? 12 watts into 8 ohms, right?

The definition of "high fidelity" has been ambiguous and changing right along. "Hi-Fi" for 1948 would have been 10 - 20 watts, the Williamson topology was fairly new, and Ultra-Linear probably hadn't quite happened yet, thus the lower power, and pentodes were not appreciated until ultra-linear. The key to that 12 watt amp being "high-fidelity" was the Klipschhorns. 1 watt would have done it just fine to normal listening levels.

I owned a Citation 11 pre and Citation 12 power amp too. I benched them both, the preamp wasn't too bad, the power amp was pretty good, but that was in 1975, and they were already being surpassed. They sounded fine too. Also had a Dynaco Stereo 120, which was a beast, and an SAE Mk 31B (in roman numerals, of course!), which wasn't bad for early power Darlingtons.

Yes, there are exceptions, but the average wasn't that good. It's a bell curve, you know.

 

[fmw]

Yes. Just a single Klipschhorn, however. That was before stereo existed. I used my Eleven and Twelve for almost 20 years. I finally gave them to a nephew who uses them to this day with a pair Altec 15's I gave him at the same time. The Dynaco was a huge seller in the 70's. I never had one but heard several of them. Not bad at all.

 

[avengineer]

I first became aware of what high fidelity audio was hearing an all Dynaco system demo in a large electronics store. Pair of Mark IIIs, not sure of the pre or the speakers. Blew me away. I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me...

 

[slipperybidness]

I first became aware of what high fidelity audio was hearing an all Dynaco system demo in a large electronics store. Pair of Mark IIIs, not sure of the pre or the speakers. Blew me away. I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me...

Cool. I recently did an ST-70 build from Bob Latino kit. Nice gear and fun to build. My only regret is that now I wish I had ponied up for the ST-120!

 

[avengineer]

Cool. I recently did an ST-70 build from Bob Latino kit. Nice gear and fun to build. My only regret is that now I wish I had ponied up for the ST-120!

Had to look that one up. The Dynaco Stereo 120, originally, was their solid state amp (had one). Looks like Bob Latino makes a completely different ST-120, tubes. Looks like he's done a great job improving on the old ST-70 too. Nice.

Good thing I looked. I was going to jokingly chide you for going SS over tubes!

The Mark IIIs and system I heard was original, and heard in the mid 1960s. I still remember the impression the system left after all these years. Those were the days when I thought our 14 watt Heathkit had unlimited power.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Let's take two specific examples about 20 years apart. The ATI AT602 I use for my video system, which is a currently available design, and the out-of-production Adcom GFA-535 that was popular in the late 1980s. The AT602's list price is $645, but it is available online for $299. The GFA-535 listed for $299 in 1987 dollars, and discounting was very rare back then.

The specs are very similar. 60W/ch into 8 ohms, though the ATI is rated at 90W/ch into 4 ohms, the Adcom isn't rated for 4 ohms. Stereophile measured the Adcom at about 110w/ch into 4 ohms, and given how ATI likes to conservatively rate their amps I suspect the AT602 would measure quite similarly. Stereophile complained that the Adcom wasn't very stable into 2 ohm loads, and the ATI is almost certainly superior in this regard, but it is unclear how important that point is to most users. For the JBL minimonitors I use with the AT602 the difference is not important.

The Adcom's measured performance was about equal, distortion-wise, to anything available today, though the 1W frequency response down 0.5db at 20Hz was somewhat curious. The unweighted SNR for the Adcom of -88db below 1W is competitive with many modern power amps. Overall, the Adcom would still be a viable product if it were sold today.

Adcom GFA-535 power amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com

 

[slipperybidness]

Had to look that one up. The Dynaco Stereo 120, originally, was their solid state amp (had one). Looks like Bob Latino makes a completely different ST-120, tubes. Looks like he's done a great job improving on the old ST-70 too. Nice.

Good thing I looked. I was going to jokingly chide you for going SS over tubes!

The Mark IIIs and system I heard was original, and heard in the mid 1960s. I still remember the impression the system left after all these years. Those were the days when I thought our 14 watt Heathkit had unlimited power.

Oh. I didn't realize that the original ST-120 was SS. I was only familiar with Bob's ST-120. The death of tubes happened well before my time. I did the ST-70 build mostly as a learning experience.