Vintage vs Modern Hi-Fi listening & gear

I kept away from your channel for a few months after one of your videos where you reviewed a few portable cassette decks. I remember how those chinese peace of junk sounded. I my opinion, what I eared was ABSOLUTELY DISASTROUS !!! But, this video is maybe one of your best that I viewed from you. I love your explanations about vintage vs modern gear. I 100% agree with EVERYTHING you say about this. CONGRATULATIONS, this video is FANTASTIC. Keep going this way and I will watch everyone.

My one question here is what constitutes vintage or not. Many would say vintage has to be before cds came onto the scene as that brought forth the age of “digital”music and the end of analog, but then cassettes were still strong through the 90s and yet they are considered vintage. So how we define vintage and modern is a nebulous one. It depends on what technology is talked about and even the period of time for that tech (“vintage” cd players vs modern one for example).

i sometimes buy vintage hifi if it has a good reputation and, most importantly, been serviced and repaired. Regarding synergy that is something that will come with experience and expensive mistakes. New hi fi units can be auditioned and returned if unsuitable but pound for pound are seriously expensive these days, finding your perfect sound can become a financial black hole. I would recommend finding a reasonable sounding system and just concentrate on the music and spend money on new records which can be auditioned online for free or cheap but clean copies from charity shops.

I am both into audio and photography too, it's interesting that on both there's a push towards vintage stuff. I think aiming to perfection a lot of times leads to soulless equipment, often you fall in love for defects more than features. That's also why measurements can get you only that far to understand a component.

Well said! Are the evolution (changes especially the use of digital vs analog components) better ? Well i think the answer lie in vintage gears!

agree with your comments on measurements. Unfortunately as some US and Euro mfgrs may be moving a bit away from them, the plethora of Inexpensive tube amps mostly from China that come nowhere close to meeting their stated power outputs are resulting in the US consumer trade group to start to implement tighter restrictions on meeting published power output levels.

Regarding transparency, i think that even if tube amp aren't clearly the choice for sustained use, their are also very good and transparent vintage solide state amps with incredible bandwidth that clearly is hard to find today used effectively with good cables, whose are clearly easier to find today, equalizer coupled to vintage passive monitors, can make a killer monitoring system, that none of those active one will able to beat! This said not clearly cheaper or space saver than high end active monitors!

Loose of analog knowledge = another disease of digital!
Neither puts all your eggs in the same basket did never apparently reach compagnies ears! Too bad, Too late!

Regarding music creation
Thanks to some compagnies we got analog clone equipment that are quiet close to the original for many less!
However they lakes of true passive components, a lot are CMS base which is clearly why they don't reach exact sound of originals and for the worst, don't allow as easy servicing as the originals!
Regarding plugin's, non emulation will be close as equipment whose are not relying on a dac to generate sounds!
Daw are however the most powerful boring using sequencer! They actually makes full track creation more easier/effective.
In analog music creation, it's takes, splice, rerecording, etc, unless you get through a daw!
This said what's the point of analog music creation if it's to finish trough digital dac!?
This said, digital never comes with drawback, daw midi timings are horrible! And generally a true sequencer for great live performances when syncing analog gears is more than welcome!

Yep i'm sharing your point and i confirm, i'm tired of the mouse, keyboard, grid screen, Os, software, bug, upgrade, incompatibilities, Dac, sampling rate, bit rate, bit Depth, colors depth, MENUS, etc, mathematical thinking for doing whatsoever possible, and for most of us everything, even for getting time!
This spec based, Cartesian proof paper, of mostly poor quality, or analysing a specific point with always the same point of view based on digital references society!
People whose what to explain/modelling everything, even emotional feeling again in a Cartesian way for again more digital!
Fake virtual compressed media composed of 0-1, nothing physical, nothing true!
Actual masters cuves eq, bass, muddy, without anything which makes you stop for enjoying!
IA, virtual headset/world, brains digital implants!
Screen to screen communications. living, playing...
And many more thing of THE DIGITAL AGE!

One thing i will miss of the digital age is fast and varied sharing experiences and informations access, but hey we can take the best of both world, and that would be the TRUE AGE!

An perhaps who know modern analog gears with all the best feature, like r2r with all dolby, manual full bias, four speed or 8 track cartridge or cassette with also all of this, Very high bias > 150Khz modulator carrier, true 1000line or> video images, abordable and usable optical cartridge! Their is so much to do to mature the analog gears! (without using digital in the signal path)

There's one/two compagnie in musical domain which are actually focusing like that, and their re released gears are astonishing unfortunately building quality is still a tremendous lack!

I have been interested in buying a good reel to reel tape deck for a while now & have watched your videos on them & many others. It seems the option if you don't want to spend a ton of money for the few new ones, is to buy vintage with the shortcomings you mention here. I feel kind of stuck in moving ahead in buying a vintage one & how much I would have to spend to get it working correctly, maintained & finding a qualified technician. I do have a pair of my Dad's Electrovoice Aristocrats from around 1960. It was nice I could do all the upkeep on them myself & they still sound very good! I amalso very happy with my vintage Nakamichi cassette recorder & the high quality tapes I have made myself or good prerecorded ones.

One other thing. I would love to buy the new reel to reel master tapes but the price for one is so high. I realize they cost a lot to create but wow!

I agree with you hybrid idea, my system is exactly that!

Great reflective, thought provoking.
A mixture of the two can be an ideal. Recent used purchases, Quad ESL 57s (£200) and Unison Research Performer Anniversary Integrated (£3000). All thanks to carefully chosen combinations used equipment. Pennies compared to what most pay and getting nowhere near this.

So much said here is parallel to what Rick Beato says( about music today)

I use vintage Grundig and JVC gear.

I was always anti “vintage” technology. I never understood why underpowered terribly measuring tube amps were relevant. Then I bought a tube amp and now I’m hooked.

I never had access to very high level equipment. But, from everything I know at an intermediate level, I prefer old amplifiers and reveivers that use potentiometers and don't have a digital conversion stage for using DSP. For me, the sound without this digital stage is always better.

I do not have high end vintage amp but I got some vintage receiver from Marantz and Onkyo that could be around $500-1200. Couple of years ago I got popular Chinese tube amp which was about $300, recommended from online and you tube. This cheap Chinese tube amp sounds more musical and had more details playing whatever music I play from 60's oldies or modern. After this I bought around $1200 Chinese tube amp and it was better than most amp I had ( Creek, Adcom, Cambridge and etc) except Audio Research VT100 which was Stereophile class A rated amp. I will not deal with vintage amp anymore.

My mid-80s pre-amp makes peoples jaws drop

old is better

Do another one if you can
Modern vs vintage recording and mastering

You’re looking well suntanned! Which beach?!

There are plenty of modern incarnations of old technologies. R2R DAC (I use a Holoaudio May), single driver Voight tube (I love my Pearlacoustics Sibelius), tube preamps (I use PrimaLuna EVO 300). Then there are updated old technologies, e.g. Pass Class A amps (mine is an XA25) or Rega Naia taking old concepts and putting them on steroids (just picked up my package). Tape decks are too widely available and too niche for ne comers to make a profit, Mine is a TEAC 7000. I listen at least 50% to new releases (last 10 years), so modern gear makes sense to me. Some is recorded extremely well with wonderful soundstage, others rather flat. Also true for vintage recordings. It may take a bit more digging today to get good recording quality, but music is not only enjoyable if ping pong balls are bouncing around the soundstage. Remember, mono was once a thing. So consider many modern recordings mono, and you will be much happier.

Buying used stuff can be of enormous value, if you are cautious, know what to look for and also have a bit of luck. Specially speakers and amplifiers - those are very mature technologies and components that will last decades virtually unaltered. Turntables may also be of good value but personally I find those more prone to failure as they are very mechanical dependent devices that will of course degrade over time.
Just bought a set of speakers and an integrated amp with around 15 years each. Cost me 700€ a piece and are like new. If bought today I would easily have to spend 4500€ on the set and as mentioned previously the new technology would be the same as integrated amps and speakers had basically no significant developments in the last 20 years.

What kind of sony amplifier did you refer to at about min. 24 in xour video?

You mentioned you like the Sony VFET amp. What about the Yamaha VFET amp? Any experience with that one?

Regarding your sound card, i have a story on these the guy who sold me the incredible grid less tubes was doing sound card like this, I was very surprised and ask him why, the answer was that digital is so different (or badder what is it more obvious for you), that even it's full AAA hand made tube chain was unable to cover that so as he was researching the analog feeling he decided to add serialised tubes (yes insane guy) just after the dac! i answered that'it was useless and better listening to it like it has too and use true analog and as moreover true audiophile use unfiltered dac as it is the closest thing to the source! Anyway for him it was experimenting, building, and researching!
However for an audiophile: Bad, very bad to modify the source like this!!!! Do it like it has to unfiltered 44.1Khz Moss dac for CD! It would be a more objective judgment!
How someone can be credible using 768Khz dac filtered+ analog tube for listening to CD! Like those audiophile who are listening to CD via over-sampled DAC in deck with analog stage!

@starlightgrecording559. Hi Guido***. Gerard Stroh I Will Send You Some Pictures and Videos That I added to My System!!! Good Video Guido!!!

Excellent video, I love the build quality of my Sansui AU 505 and the sound quality is excellent,. My main turntable is a lenco L75 fitted with an Alfred Bokrand as 209 tonearm and the venerable Denon Dl103 great for my Jazz Collection. Loudspeaker are diy open baffle with a single 12" Fane 12-250tc in each baffle. I'm still searching for a luxman L10, one day?

For some of the more popular brands its not cheap these days ( Marantz / Sansui / ADS / Canton / etc ) your gonna pay up if you wanna play.. But another huge thing with vintage is your buying something thats NEVER going down in value and is infinitely rebuildable... I think of it no different then having a project car, If I can do some of the repairs / tune ups myself its fine but if I have to pay someone else it can add up.. Fully restored and functional vintage gear still sounds great today, Something breaks and it can be fixed and if you get bored you can sell it and make your money back to fund the next piece...We have made tons of improvements in speakers but when it comes to 2CH amplifiers and preamps we havent improved leaps and bounds.. Yes im sure with bar graphs and testing gear we will find improvements but to your ears the old stuff sounds great.. My daily setup is a fully restored Apt Holman Pre + Hafler XL-280 going to ADS L810s and it sounds awesome, If ever sell ill make the money back I paid for it and if something breaks its usually an easy fix.. Thats a huge plus vs buying new where if it breaks outside of the warranty you mines well just throw it out or if you try to sell it will go for half of what you paid. Good video!

Hey what alternative speakers you have?

That vintage Mic sounds really impressive, I just back into the hobby and started out with a vintage Rotel intergrated amp from the mid 90`s, great sound for a couple of hundred.

My words Guido😊. I allways will prefer Vintage over digital. It just sounds better and has a soul. The gear is made with so much knowledge and love, that you just have to adore it.
And most things you can fix yourself. And no company builds gear that lasts for 48 years or longer( like my Technics RS 671❤, or my Dual C 824).
Super video again Guido👍🏻

A rhetorical question. What smartphone would you buy today? All (above a certain price) are super high quality. Why? The competition is huge! No manufacturer can think of making a low-quality product, because it will be out of the market. In a not very long period of time, between (in my opinion) 1970 and 1980, the market for HI-FI equipment was the same. Whatever you buy from that period will play beautifully and will bring you joy for many years to come. Greetings from Bulgaria Guido! 🎶

Very nice VIDEO ...... still using my SLD1 technics....and Sansui 317 amp....works for me....SINCE 1979...not to mention my 1979 Stanton cartridges (multiples)

I love vintage gear class a tube and even class a transistor amps have sole as you say but digital sounds good but it sounds robotic to me although I have cd md aki real to real kt88tube amp and a tube preamp for my technics sl1200mk 2 turntable an I have a mixture of old 60s 70s80s right though to very new q aquatic tower speakers witch my tube amp drives with eas As always like your videos 😎👍🇬🇧

Right on! I like to match older equipment with older equipment of the same time period to get good synergy.
Great commentary!

As far as bad recording practices goes, I’m OK with them, because I grew up listening to DIY indie and punk bands, so dogshit sound was usually par for the course. Digital recording democratised the music industry for artists who didn’t necessarily have the resources other kids had (like trust funds).
Ironically it was the second and third albums with higher production values that sounded lifeless, even from an analog perspective, because they’re essentially rehashing their original ideas, without the energy or passion behind it.
But as result of all this, a lot of my favourite albums are shit recordings, and as I upgrade my system, I need to make sure whatever I buy is forgiving of bad recordings.I’ve heard some of my favourite albums on better equipment, and transparency is not my friend.

Neumann overkill for a vlog. I like it, it's crazy 😁👍

I would never use an old AD/DA converter unless it is so good that it is equivalent to what is currently available right now.

For speakears, big 3-way speakers always will sound better than the average 2-way ones. In headphones, technology now is far better than 40 years ago.

There's no such thing as "transparency" in my own opinion! All recordings are an illusion! You put the sounds together by many different people and instruments to give you the ILLUSION of "being there"! You can't take two microphones and say "there ya go it's transparent now! No, it will sound Terrible! Transparency is an illusion within itself, just my opinion of course, doesn't mean im necessarily right, it also means I'm not necessarily wrong either!😊

In the EMI archives circa 1930s the 1st subwoofer was designed, Why because stereo was designed for the theater then downgrade for HiFi

Just a lil warning. what i have here is not like real audiophile equitment. i'm not like an real audiophile but i like hifi stuff with turntable and decks. so i experience a bit more about it

i have a audio technica LPW40WN turntable with Microline stylus. i use my preamp the built in ones, i also have a Art Phono Plus but i use it to digitize my record. Maybe the preamp is usable for older vinyl records i own.

i have a sony deck (TC-KE400S) with Dolby S, its only 2 motors, but hey Dolby S is rare and expensive. so i found one cheaper. and JVC KD-V44 for 80s Cassettes with Dolby B encoded tapes, not regular dolby symbols. which this deck has ANRS NR, it performs a bit better to their NR process. However, it could be also not perfect due to the lack of wow and flutter. But overall a decent deck i have atleast.

My speaker and receiver is an bookshelf microcomponent JVC UX-P7R (i'll get another bookshelf JVC component but with an woofer built im), its kinda those JVC thing when they like to be bassy in 2000s era. so i want to have seperate speakers to put on my shelf. and it does its job i'll say, the base is maybe not the best but its good as what it is.

so usually i'm also a hybrid person, New turntable and Phono preamp, vintage decks and vintage component. they're reasons either to need new or old. it all matters how the value is worth to you and not like which these are equally better. just watch reviews or see demos and then to think wanna buy it or not. it all depends to your budget you need.

As a musician who does recording and mixing I could not help but think of the quote by Alan Parsons. "Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment".

Luxman preamps are reasonably priced, and what I like is the tone control. allows me to fine tune treble correctly to boost cymbals, a must for any amp. very good specs. i replaced 12ax7 with Tesla spiral filaments 12ax7.

I've been collecting "vintage" gear since the 1970s -- when it wasn't VINTAGE at all! It was new, and new recordings in the '50s and '60s and '70s were made, mixed, mastered, sequenced, and pressed to be heard on just this kind of "hi-fi" equipment (or home audio playback devices that were much less sophisticated -- like AM car radios or console stereos). That's what I like about it. Plus the build quality (including the capacitors, transistors or tubes, pots, etc.) of even mid-priced stuff was incomparable. I could never afford new stuff of similar quality today -- tens of thousands of dollars worth! And the look and feel (from the design to the tactile qualities of the controls) -- as well as the substance of the sound -- provide me with the experience I'm looking for. No doubt, there's an element of nostalgia to it, but if you're interested in hearing something like what the musicians themselves heard in the studio when they made this music, "vintage" is the only way to go. (I listen mostly to acoustic jazz from the '50s-'70s, and pop/rock of all kinds, so I'm not interested in digital/electronic music played through high-wattage amplification and concert P.A.-style horn monitors. I reach my limit at about 90 db -- and most un-amplified acoustic bass, keyboard, drums + reeds or brass combos -- were never meant to be heard much louder).

I appreciate what you say about the tyranny of the "measurement dogma" -- which is something I've thought about a lot in the last few years. Our "measurements" don't even necessarily measure what we think they're measuring. Often, what we're really assessing are the capacities (and limitations) of the measuring equipment itself as it was designed -- not ineffable qualities of the "sound" as we humans actually experience it with our bodies and minds. Whether it's watts per channel, or frequency response, or distortion -- the specs just don't tell the whole story. Besides, humans are not inherently rational creatures! We know what we feel, no matter what "the numbers" say...