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Unfairly forgotten classics

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.

Should have sent it to me! I've fixed these before.
 
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.

The A60 is a nice amplifier but somewhat overrated. You bought the better amp IMO.
 
My bedroom system is an Armstrong 625 tuner and Goodmans SCD-100 cassette deck (aka Nakamichi 500). The 625 was about £15 as it "didn't light up" - but did work, the bulb behind the logo had blown and the tuner only lights up in tuner mode, functionally it was all fine! I have carried out a full re-cap of the whole receiver, replacing signal path capacitors with bipolars, up-rating the power supply (the main 3000uf is now 10,000uF). The 625 had been back to Armstrong for repair and newer driver transistors were installed on one channel only

My dad's Armstrong 621 and 623 got me into hifi as a kid - along with Mission 710 speakers, a Pioneer PL-112D and Sony TC-377 R2R.

I can post a couple of pictures of mine if you like. I need to find the correct rating of indicator bulb behind the logo, the one I used isn't bright enough.
 
Stick a Dual CS506 with that and you'll have a very nice retro early 80's set up. What speakers are you using? I remember blowing one channel on my 625 at uni, too loud into Whafedale Lintons, took both tweeters out too. It went back to Armstrong and I had it back 2 days later!
 
Not sure if these are old/classic enough but...

Townsend Avalon & Michell Mycro. Both really well engineered decks that sold at a price well below their abilities. I think I'm right in saying that both were discontinued as they became too expensive to produce for the intended market level.

Rotel 500/550 series, especially the amps and receivers, deffo sleepers.

Musical Fidelity B1, eclipsed in the press by the A series and can be had very cheaply, not amazing when new but at 2nd hand prices give excellent value.

B&W 805matrix mki. One of the few models of theirs that are genuinely excellent.

Denon DRS810, drawer loading, 3 head cassette recorder, blows many of their own conventional decks away and dirt cheap.

AR 0x series, polarised opinions on looks but damn good stuff, the entire series.
 
In my youth when I could lust after products in hi-fi mags but had very little money I really liked the Armstrong range. Yet when I go to the point of having money to spend on a hi-fi the Armstrongs were still in production but ignored by the mags. It was Naim, Nytech and A&R that got the attention and I was swayed. The Nytech sounded good relative to the competition but had a justified reputation for unreliability. Fortunately Phil Balaam can fix them and I still listen daily to my CTA252.

I bought a secondhand Armstrong 625 a few years back and had it repaired and upgraded. Looks lovely with its slimline design (although not particularly slim actually) and rich wood veneer. Currently it's in its box waiting for me to buy a pair of speakers so it can provide decent sound in place of the pathetic sound quality of the modern flat screen 4K wonder. Todays TVs offer great picture and online functions but the sound quality out of the box is awful. No wonder so many people buy a sound bar.
 
The room is an odd shape (loft conversion) so I am using some self-built 3" full range speakers in enslosures with a 45 degree slope at the back so they fit in their space - not ideal but it will mainly just be for listening to that great tuner section.

I also replaced the small-signal transistors in the phono amp, pre amp and vas stage with quieter ksc1845 and mje15030/1 drivers. I also bought a set of MJ802 output transistors but haven't fitted these yet, I didn't have any stability issues and the amp was biasing up fine so left it as-is for now.
 
I don't know how old a classic should be, or whether they are forgotten or not but I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of hunting down Sony ES components for my dining room system.
 
Beard amplifiers. Loaned a 505/P50 combo a few years ago and was impressed. Heard the very same combo a few weeks ago at a friend’s house driving a pair of Gale 401s sounding very nice indeed.
 
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

I used a similar design for a bass guitar amplifier for child#1, it is an all discrete circuit. I used it as because I wanted a low damping factor and on that type of circuit its easy to have very little negative feedback, I made two up dropped them in an amp carcass I use for testing and they did sound quite nice on my main system.
 
I always wanted a Sony CDP502es, was £700 then but it certainly looked the biz. Also the Michell Syncro but was disappointed when I preferred the planar 3, it had better bass and energy.
 
Would love to find a Magnum Audio Class A second hand. Brilliant amps they were, but you could cook an egg on the top plate heat sink!
 
Marantz produce two stunning amps in 72 1030 and 1060 , mine drove 57s really good until i got my first new 33/303
 
My very first decent Amp was a Rogers A100 bought in 1980 a lovely amp and still going strong today in a second system with its not so matching T100 tuner

Alan
 
Were they actually any good?

You'd be surprised, buy a pair of 544 or 567, refurb them and enjoy the effortless bass response, they're pretty flat down to 35-40 Hz with an 8 and 10 inch woofer. The treble might be a bit edgy at times, but as a whole more impressive than the huffing and puffing small bookshelf speakers of today. The 545 is a studio monitor and quite rare, but obviously smth special with a 12-inch woofer. The small 541 is a very good gaming or bedroom speaker, connect a streamer to it and enjoy.
Check out www.mfbfreaks.com
Or http://cyrille.pinton.free.fr/elect...leration/SubServoAccelPhilipsMFB/pagemfb.html
 


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