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Unfairly forgotten classics

Arkless Electronics said:
I was never suggesting that old kit is generally better than modern kit. However, there will often be an amp from the '70's available for say £50 second-hand which will beat most modern kit up to say £400. The old amp will often have been more like £800 new when converted into "modern money" though!

The old kit most often recommended tends to be pretty predictable though....Leak Stereo 20, A&R A60, NAD 3020, Quad 303 etc. Now these are all undisputedly classics and worthy of their reputation, but all had many rivals at the time which came close to or equalled their performance but which seem to have completely fallen off the radar since. These are often available for a fraction of the price of the "usual suspects"... hence this thread to get some more suggestions from people.
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Truth is there are thousands of vintage analogue items out there which will be fully competitive with modern kit with either restoration or light modification.
The 'usual suspects' are just the tip of the iceberg.
 
Have a look at Hifi Hanger’s website for vintage gear; there’s some lovely old kit there. One of their demo rooms used to have some swirly 1960s wallpaper - I remember it well from my childhood, our next door neighbours had the same paper in their lounge!
 
Robert said:
Truth is there are thousands of vintage analogue items out there which will be fully competitive with modern kit with either restoration or light modification.
The 'usual suspects' are just the tip of the iceberg.
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True, but the problem is getting them to critical mass, and it would be nice to help do that here on pfm. There are many reasons things like the Quad II, 303, Garrard 301, Leak Stereo 20, A&R A60, countless Naims etc etc are so popular; they were made in huge numbers so many good condition examples still survive, they are very simple, very well constructed, and all data needed to service them to factory spec or beyond exists freely in the public domain. The latter often broken down into step-by-step tutorials that anyone who can wield a soldering iron can follow. Take any one of these factors out and things get a heck of a lot harder for a vintage product. HiFiEngine is a huge help in that every year more service manuals become freely available and it is great to see so much ‘70s silver-face Japanese kit joining the ‘restoration list’ and it would be nice to see some of the also-rans from the UK brought back into the limelight. I’m firm believer in keeping good serviceable kit out of landfill!
 
I have a Huldra receiver I use most days. Must be what? 45 year old? Had it 30 yrs. Still sounds good.
A Tandberg Huldra in a dark room, lit up in blue, played through Philips single cones with whizzers...........the shipping forecast is sublime!
 
I used to have an Armstrong 625. Nice bit of kit. I occaisionally look on a certain auction site for another. One day I'll find a nice one at a sensible price.
 
lexi said:
I have a Huldra receiver I use most days. Must be what? 45 year old? Had it 30 yrs. Still sounds good.
A Tandberg Huldra in a dark room, lit up in blue, played through Philips single cones with whizzers...........the shipping forecast is sublime!
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I know what you mean there:) My TR-2055 lights up in blue as well and I use it about 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in my workshop. The tuner section is one of the finest available at any price. The amp is very good. 55wpc and 75 into 4R. http://sportsbil.com/tandberg/tr-2055-b.pdf
I laughed at the "compare even with more expensive units" bit! They were more than a similarly specced Pioneer, Trio, Marantz etc!
Examine one in the flesh, take it to bits etc, and it's obvious why they were so much more expensive ;)

The Huldra range was the one before this range but very good. The top Huldra models were very good, in a more "vintage" way, and have a following.
 
trouble with the thread is that most of us old enough to remember classics were too poor then to buy the stuff. I had a used rogers ravensbrook, but you pointed out it wasn't all that...
The good classics are well known for a reason. They were good.
My only contribution is a memory of Dahlquist DQ10 electrostatics, which were superb. Not really forgotten, but rarely spoken of in the UK. Quad's with bass.
 
The DQ10 are not stats, they are a time aligned combination of open baffle and sealed box conventional moving coil drivers. A rather good speaker IMO.
 
I heard Jarrett’s Köln concert for the first time through a pair of DQ10s at a Hi-Fi show at the Excelsior hotel near Manchester airport back in the 70s. It was a quiet Friday afternoon and the rep played all 4 sides of the LPs for me. I’d never heard music like it and bought the LPs ASAP.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
That thread I started on Leak Stereo 70's etc got me thinking that there is quite a bit of gear out there which although of decent quality one barely ever hears about any more... and more rarely still is it ever suggested as a classic purchase.

I guess a classic example of such a scenario reversing would be old Japanese kit. Once you couldn't give it away but now it's suddenly desirable and fetching good money.

here's a few as a starter from me then:

1/ Leak

2/ Armstrong 600

3/ Tandberg

4/ ReVox amps, tuners and receivers.

5/ Rogers

6/ Sonab and Scan-Dyna. Mainly the Sonab 4000 series and Scan-Dyna 2400 receiver. Very well regarded in its day and for good reasons.


What have you got?
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Hmm. Never much taken with Leak or Armstrong. Like the original Cambridge Audio, or as we knew them, 'Cambridge Audio Bang!' – far too many reliability problems. Often easy enough to repair, but customers used to get pissed off trudging back with an amp for the third or fourth time by which time patience was often exhausted...

We also stocked Rogers electronics. Decent enough if a little constipated sounding with their own speakers, but couldn't give them away in sales terms. Best of the Brits from both sound and reliability POV for me was Sugden, can't ever remember a fault.

Tandberg? Now you're talking. I thought the TR2075II/2080 was the best amp in the shop, with the possible exception of the Sansui AU919. I revisited the TR2040 in a bedroom system a decade ago, still sounded very good on radio.

I didn't know the 3000 series so well, but first impressions were good. Even with those all those buttons which were too small...

Revox electronics would sell to A77/B77 owners, can't remember ever selling an amp to anyone who wasn't already a Revox owner. Nice gear, especially the tuner, but the amp was awfully expensive for the performance level.

Sonab 4000 receiver was great, but hard to sell to anyone who didn't take to the speakers. ScanDyna had quality control problems as I recall.
 
I remember listening to a pair of Audiostatic speakers, tall full range ribbons. Sounded magical with some Jazz (not my cup of tea, generally) , even at a hifi show. Heathrow as I recall. I promised myself I would buy a pair one day, but they seem very rare and probably impossible to maintain in good working order.
 
JensenHealey said:
I remember listening to a pair of Audiostatic speakers, tall full range ribbons. Sounded magical with some Jazz (not my cup of tea, generally) , even at a hifi show. Heathrow as I recall. I promised myself I would buy a pair one day, but they seem very rare and probably impossible to maintain in good working order.
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Electrostatics surely?
 
Typo - Yes they are electrostatics. About 6' tall. They did that whole disappearing thing and just left the music 'hanging' in the air.
 
Of all the old school gear, I would say the GL75 has the biggest cult following to this day, even a whole forum dedicated to the things. I have one myself, and a Tandberg 2075, which I never use, tragic really !
Not to mention reel to reels...Akai 1721, 4000D...lovely stuff!
 
Yes Lenco, sold heavily for a while. Then thrown in bins and lofts when belt drive took over.
Always cheaper than Garrard, Td124, because it was not as heavily built all round. However, it was sold cheaper than it should have been. Many reasons for that of course.
 
I don't think Lenco's qualify as 'forgotten' though given that they have a pretty active forum dedicated to them, and I'm sure most people on this forum will know at least something about them. Nor The Claymore come to that, I've read many a thread extolling their virtues. Or at least, if either of them had been forgotten about for a period of time, they've definitely been remembered since :D
 
A good condition Claymore will easily break the £300 barrier even unserviced, it was the best of the 80s Nait competitors along with the Onix OA21. Both are sought after. The later related Magnum amps can be a sleeper though. Plenty of others out there too e.g. Quantum, Crimson, Nytech, Ion etc. Even the little QED 240SA was a decent amp and I bet you could find one for £60-70 or so. I still think Musical Fidelity are a seam worth mining for Jez, especially as he has history with them. To my mind the P170 is a real sleeper; it seems possible to land them for £150 or so and it is a good powerful TdP designed amp that with fresh caps and setup will compete in the >£1k area.
 
When 'subjectivism' first came into fashion in the mid '70s - we were told to go out and listen to equipment, rather than go on looks, spec, etc, so I did that and auditioned an A&R A60 vs a Pioneer SA 6500 - preferred and bought the latter... apparently, according to the magazines, that was the wrong answer - you go out and listen, then buy the one that they are (currently) raving about - silly me. Kept the 6500 for years as it sounded great, but eventually went wrong and no-one could repair it - I suspect an A60 would have been easier to fix.
 
Tony L said:
A good condition Claymore will easily break the £300 barrier even unserviced, it was the best of the 80s Nait competitors along with the Onix OA21. Both are sought after. The later related Magnum amps can be a sleeper though. Plenty of others out there too e.g. Quantum, Crimson, Nytech, Ion etc. Even the little QED 240SA was a decent amp and I bet you could find one for £60-70 or so. I still think Musical Fidelity are a seam worth mining for Jez, especially as he has history with them. To my mind the P170 is a real sleeper; it seems possible to land them for £150 or so and it is a good powerful TdP designed amp that with fresh caps and setup will compete in the >£1k area.
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I wasn't looking for "a seam worth mining" here... just trying to provoke conversation:)

As I said a few weeks ago, the MF P140 and P150 are the same as a P170 in all but the larger mains transformer in the P170, which makes little difference. From a sound per pound basis these should be highly sought after!! A friend is now using 3 of them on his ATC SCM40's
 
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