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Is older hi end still hi end today ?

MJS said:
Maybe not, but it sounds like one.

I'll add the BD NAP160. A well serviced one would hold its own up against any current amp.
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I own both of these amps and it really seems to me people have either a serious love OR hate for these............until they come and listen to music in my living room !
A friend of mine who is a speaker designer/sound engineer came in with his computer and multiple microphones to make some testing and he stopped everything after 10 minutes and we listened to music for more than 2 hours while having a beer. He couldn’t believe what was coming out of a stock 110. Way better than his Bryston 4B as he said.
 
MJS said:
Maybe not, but it sounds like one.

I'll add the BD NAP160. A well serviced one would hold its own up against any current amp.
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Back when the NAP 110 et al were being made, these were not High-end amplifiers. High end amplifiers of that time were Krell KSA50, KSA100, KSA200, Mark Levinson ML2, ML3 etc, Audio Research D79C, D70, D115, D250 etc, Quicksilver 60w monos, Conrad Johnson MV50, MV60 etc, Threshold S300, I could go on but you get the drift...

BTW I do have a 42/110 but I am not a fan. Compare the 110 with a Albarry 408 will tell you how average the 110 is...
 
G T Audio said:
Back when the NAP 110 et al were being made, these were not High-end amplifiers. High end amplifiers of that time were Krell KSA50, KSA100, KSA200, Mark Levinson ML2, ML3 etc, Audio Research D79C, D70, D115, D250 etc, Quicksilver 60w monos, Conrad Johnson MV50, MV60 etc, Threshold S300, I could go on but you get the drift...

BTW I do have a 42/110 but I am not a fan. Compare the 110 with a Albarry 408 will tell you how average the 110 is...
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That’s interesting.........
A friend of mine is according to me a real audiophile as he listens to classical music, Mahler, Carmina Burana and the like and his main system is made of a large VPI turntable, large Audio Research preamp and amp with solid state and vacuum tubes (hybrid) and now some Boenick W8 speakers. He had some Wilson Sophia before.
Nevertheless, when he wants to listen to some rock music, he gets in his basement where he has an old CD player, a 42.5/110 and some DCM Time Window speakers.
Guilty pleasure ?
This hobby is funny !
 
I will add that if the "Older Hi End" System is used strictly for Analog playback than the Older System can still be very much "Hi End" today. ...One might even argue that the best sounding analog playback system has already been built many years ago, but it does appear that actual turntables/speed controllers/arms/cartridges etc, are still getting better due to new and better materials/designs that can extract more of the musical information from the grooves as the return to vinyl has prompted some manufactures -and their accounting depts.- to further explore the limits of the record player, one can also include Phono Stages here too. ...But for manufacturers to -these days- test the limits of analog playback alone in terms of Amps, Pre-amps, speakers and interconnects without also including how Digital Playback also fits into the overall mix will continue to be, I believe, a non-starter for most of them.
 
My “ high-end” varies. Tannoy Arden Mk1 (1976). I am only the second owner, since new. Pioneer F91 tuner ( 1990) and CT91a cassette deck (1990). I would put these up against many models over the past 40 years, and now. The Pioneer tuner is glorious, especially on BBC Radio. It has the best bass I’ve ever heard on a tuner (inc.ones 2/3/4 times more expensive. The cassette deck still plays effortlessly. I would still consider these three items as “high-end” It is not the big advances in present technology, it’s how they sound.
Strangely, my latest technology is a Marantz CD6006-UK edition. Much applauded in hi-fi press, a good-sounding player (for the price) .It’s been back to the shop twice and was finally replaced with a new model.If I could find a Pioneer PD93 (1990) at a decent price and even find one in the first place! I’d buy it without hesitation and get rid of the Marantz, leaving me with an “ancient “system in hi-fi term but one which I could live with for the rest of my life.:cool:
 
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I just sold a 1994 Linn Numerik DAC for $500. It went quickly.
Given that it sold for roughly the equivalent of US $5000 in today's dollars, I think it sounded ok for something from the same era as the high end digital device shown above, which nobody would everimagine buying today.
 
Some geat ages better than others, in general terms i think we have seen mimimal improvements in amplifiers and turntables but noticeable improvements with digital and speakers.

Strangely old high end digital tends to be very expensive but often beaten sound wise by modern gear at lower prices.

After much playing about i ended up with an audiolab 8000 transport and an smsl m400 dac. Although I could easily live with the early topping e30 as the dac.
 
Mr Ian said:
Some geat ages better than others, in general terms i think we have seen mimimal improvements in amplifiers and turntables but noticeable improvements with digital and speakers.

Strangely old high end digital tends to be very expensive but often beaten sound wise by modern gear at lower prices.

After much playing about i ended up with an audiolab 8000 transport and an smsl m400 dac. Although I could easily live with the early topping e30 as the dac.
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Strange - I've navigated in the other direction, both with CDPs and DACs - far preferring the SQ from good quality older red book players ([modified] Naim CDI is my main player). Before I got into DACs I thought it was just my preference for CDPs with TDA1541 chips, but my favourite DACs are all vintage and only one (Micromega Duo) is TDA 154x based. I also have a Wadia X-32 and Camelot Arthur. They're all lovely, could live with all, but Wadia is my current favourite.

For my sins I'm also in the process of buying a Micromega Drive Duo CD2 transport - early one with CDM3 mech - but honestly that is purely for it's looks :)

Richard
 
TimF said:
I often think the very definition of "high End" in audio is very vague-or very open to any kind of real meaning overall. These days, actually, maybe for quite some time now, it is more about price tag willy-waving really. :(
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Says the man who willy-waves a long list of his high-end gear in his signature:D
 
Colin L said:
Says the man who willy-waves a long list of his high-end gear in his signature:D
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True to a point, and while I am not trying to flaunt it, I do look at it often and think, why do I even need this stuff? Something much more simple seems every bit as good in general. Ugh. Such is. :(
 
High-end is very much a subjective term that can be applied at multiple price points, depending on your wealth, income and aspirations.
Also a lot of stuff called high-end is so on price, but not performance.
Does this mean that cheaper stuff that OVER delivers from it's price point is high-end too?
Is high-end price or performance?
 
High end audio up to about 2012 used to mean high performance, as in very high quality audio reproduction. After then, High end audio has come to mean pretty much anything with a high price tag, and audio performance has become secondary, or even tertiary. I saw this with my own eyes at the 2012 Munich show where our room had about 1M Euros worth of equipment in, Mostly that was the 4.5 tonnes of Cessaro Beethoven horn speakers. At that show our room was one of about 3 rooms where the value of the systems were listed at over €500,000. However, by 2014, nearly all the rooms on the top floor had near 1M euro systems listed. Most manufacturers saw the Asian markets prepared to pay those amounts for systems and thought, we must get some of this action. Not forgetting that in some parts of the world, price is an indicator of quality.
There's more to add about this but I will reframe for the time being...

It was after the 2014 Munich show, the last time I exhibited at Munich, I was so disillusioned about the high cost of equipment being offered vs the audio performance being delivered, that I decided to start a range of high performance audio electronics, the Tron Convergence range, and offer it at unheard of performance, build quality for the price, as in starting at £1000 for a bespoke high quality phono stage.
Convergence: converging high performance and high build quality with reasonable pricing.
 
Obviously streaming options weren’t available but give me 20 year old high end over today’s overpriced overly bling high end anytime.

Examples - Audio Note Ongaku, Tact Millennium, Wadia 861, Mark Levinson 390s, Roksan TMS, Pink Triangle Anniversary. Voyd Reference, etc.
 
At the moment I’m listening to a Marantz 52 as a transport into a pink triangle da capo with a sugden a21 as the amp. It sounds bloody brilliant. Perhaps only the Da capo you would classify as 90s hi end but it all sounds bloody brilliant.
 
The Krell KAV 300CD player circa about 1995 is a fantastic sounding CD /HDCD player.I am yet to hear a modern CD player or DAC which sounds better.These were crazy overbuilt with a massive fully discrete output stage almost the size of a big Krell amplifier.the TEAC VRDS transport and a huge regulated power supply.
Other than that many of the older Accuphase CD players also sound fantastic.
 
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