Any Vintage Audio Lovers in the House?

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scottosan

scottosan

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I sold all of my stuff when the kiddos were born. Been craving those sounds for a long time. I absolutely love vintage JBL speakers. I just picked up a set of JBL L40s. I’ve owned L150’s, 4311s and 4312s. I wasn’t sure what expect with these 2 ways, but the are damn good. I usually rolled with Marantz 22xx series receivers but the seller has a Yamaha CA810. Excellent receiver I think the speakers and the amp were from 78-79 before they started building with ICs. These were still discrete circuits. Pure Bliss!

 
Yeah I used to have a solid 2.1 setup for when cleaning the house or jamming to music. I gave all of it away when I went to college for a tax write off one year. I didn’t even want to put it in storage and didn’t have time to deal with selling it piece by piece.

I’m wanting to get back into the game. I’ve got a super heavy 2 channel Onkyo solid state 100W poweramp that was made from before Gibson bought out Onkyo and killed the brand off. I want to buy some B&W 600 series floor speakers and a possibly tube powered preamp that has a subwoofer pre-out. I have a stand-alone powered Sony 12” sub I kept around that sounds great.

It’s been low priority as obviously the shit can get outrageously expensive and loud but also does wonders for movie watching with the wife.
 
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I learned early on in the home stereo game to sink the money into the speakers. The rest of it matters but the speaker quality makes a big difference.
 
glpg80 said:
I learned early on in the home stereo game to sink the money into the speakers. The rest of it matters but the speaker quality makes a big difference.
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I agree. Pick your speakers and get the amp/receiver that compliment. Klipsch have lots of highs and do well with tube amps, low wattage amps and warm voiced receivers like Marantz. The JBL is a bit fuller and warmer, less efficient and like clean power.
 
Not long ago I got a '70s Marantz 4300 receiver which is a 40Wx4 quadraphonic receiver but can also be run at 100Wx2. I also got a pair of Pioneer HPM100s. It's in the jam room for playing along with recordings...loud. Tons of punch.

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I been looking for a set of hpm’s or L100s for a while now and haven’t found any.
 
I really dig 70’s Marantz amps and 90’s PSB speakers.

I had my dads 70’s Marantz 2385 receiver / amp for years.
It had this gooey warm sound, without any hint of harshness but not feeling like it was lacking much detail. Warmer than tubes, reallly , it was unreal.

After I moved to a bigger place I found it slightly underpowered for the PSB Golds I drive.
So I found a local 2300 preamp and 250 power amp (same vintage as the receiver)

Stunning sound from the 2300/250 combination.
Just a bit more detail and slightly less warmth than the 2385 receiver but much more power.

I don’t have a lot of experience with the high end modern amps.
To me 70’s Marantz stuff is euphoric. No need to search any more.
 
Any of you guys notice excessive background hiss with these old receivers? Mine has it and I bought a kit to fix it (it's pretty common) but have yet to install it.
 
SpiderWars said:
Any of you guys notice excessive background hiss with these old receivers? Mine has it and I bought a kit to fix it (it's pretty common) but have yet to install it.
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Not yet. Is it with just phono, or any input. bought a Bluetooth to toslink receiver for $40 and that goes to a decent DAC then into the aux. it’s pretty silent. I’ve read than a lot of new sources are lower voltage than the original RCA spec for input which result in a lower signal to noise ratio, so curious if it’s source specific. I haven’t done phono yet, but this one has 5 different phono levels to choose from.

 
Harman Kardon Citation One here. I have rebuilt three of them; one with Jupiter copper and foil caps. Killer with all vintage tubes. I also own 4 Braun Lv-1020 Triamp speakers. I have replaced some transistors in my one pair. I have an amazing speaker guy near me who does work for the CEO of Sony and many others.
 
scottosan said:
Not yet. Is it with just phono, or any input. bought a Bluetooth to toslink receiver for $40 and that goes to a decent DAC then into the aux. it’s pretty silent. I’ve read than a lot of new sources are lower voltage than the original RCA spec for input which result in a lower signal to noise ratio, so curious if it’s source specific. I haven’t done phono yet, but this one has 5 different phono levels to choose from.

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Not phono because I don't even have a turntable. That's another hole that I have yet to crawl down into. I use one of the tape inputs IIRC but the kit I got is more for the tone section, not any particular input.

That's really cool it has the different phono inputs tho.

Are those JBLs 3-way or what? I'm not even sure if my old ears can hear those super tweeters in my HPMs.
 
SpiderWars said:
Not phono because I don't even have a turntable. That's another hole that I have yet to crawl down into. I use one of the tape inputs IIRC but the kit I got is more for the tone section, not any particular input.

That's really cool it has the different phono inputs tho.

Are those JBLs 3-way or what? I'm not even sure if my old ears can hear those super tweeters in my HPMs.
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These are 2 ways
 
SpiderWars said:
Not phono because I don't even have a turntable. That's another hole that I have yet to crawl down into. I use one of the tape inputs IIRC but the kit I got is more for the tone section, not any particular input.

That's really cool it has the different phono inputs tho.

Are those JBLs 3-way or what? I'm not even sure if my old ears can hear those super tweeters in my HPMs.
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If you do go the a turntable route I highly suggest the Fluance RT82 ($299) or higher. I just got one this weeks and it’s fantastic. As for vinyl, I’m finding the new stiff st box boxes is hit or miss. Your best bet is imports. There la lots of fun presses out there.
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I’m piecing together an all tube hi fi now, I have two Heathkit power amps my dad built back in the day (each carries two 5881 output tubes and a tube rectifier) and I have one Heathkit tube preamp (looking for another). Speakers are next on the list, although I have a nice set of KLH 2 way bookshelf speakers from the late 70s kicking around.
 
paulyc said:
I’m piecing together an all tube hi fi now, I have two Heathkit power amps my dad built back in the day (each carries two 5881 output tubes and a tube rectifier) and I have one Heathkit tube preamp (looking for another). Speakers are next on the list, although I have a nice set of KLH 2 way bookshelf speakers from the late 70s kicking around.
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These JBLs are all sorts of great. There’s a few stores great stores here. I’ll put out some feelers for the HealthKit tube pre.
 
The Heathkit stuff (both pre and power amps) are available on eBay and/or Reverb, I just haven’t gotten around to pulling the trigger. It’s not expensive either.

EDIT : And as you well know, the options for modding and tweaking with tube audio anything are pretty limitless. So far my poweramps have been recapped, I've rolled some tubes through them, and swapped in plug in SS rectifier devices, but there are loads of mods and upgrades on various tube audio forums. The Heathkit stuff is pretty good, good transformers, decent layout, etc, but like any device designed so long ago, can benefit from some changes, which will be coming...

EDIT AGAIN : I found the preamp I needed on eBay earlier today, it's on it's way to me, so speakers are up next.
 
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