Vintage HI Fi. Anyone else in to it?

[Fab Foodie]

[QUOTE 5174160, member: 259"]I never really liked our Cambridge Audio amp, and it was quite an expensive Azur one. What makes me suspicious is they always get good reviews in What HiFi - the most laughable hifi rag on the planet.[/QUOTE]
Fair point....

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I've got my eye on an 80's tuner, then I'll find a turntable. Its all for the Man Shed, so I don't want to blow big bucks, and I'm not averse to stripping, repairing and rebuilding a turntable. The only concession to modernity will be a DAB deck, eventually.

I'd also like a reel to reel and even and 8 track, but no hurry. They're just Man Cave toys.

Denon TU260 is the way to go, couldn't fault mine. Yes, sold that too, and the Alpha cd player, Alpha 2 amp, JPW Sonatas. For a bit of variety our Ruark Talisman 2 speakers were nicked in a burglary!

 

[CharlieB]

I guess my t/t doesn’t count as vintage as it's a 1982 Linn Sondek, but has had continual updates to current spec.
Do the 1995 Linn Keleidh speakers count as vintage?

 

[KneesUp]

I don't know about your Keilidhs (I'd call them almost-retro because I remember being very impressed when I heard the ones the father of a friend from school had just bought, and that can only have been 20 minutes ago) but if they do count then so do my Goodmans Maxim 2s (albeit they're vey much 'budget' and aren't my original ones, which went with an ex-partner - these ones I bought because they're such a good size for our small house and were a fiver in Oxfam - the benefits I suppose of Goodmans having a slightly shoddy reputation for everything but very occasionally putting together a cracking speaker)

Anyway, they're connected to an Arcam A72 (this century, but still 15 years old) and all the music comes from a Rasperry Pi with IQAudio DAC+, so I'm really on the wrong thread now.

EDIT - I've a Cyrus One and a Muscial Fidelity B200 under the stairs - both awaiting more skills than I posess to bring them back to life.

 

[Salar]

Most of my gear is Yamaha and Technics and I'm mostly analogue .

I tend to concentrate more on good quality audio cassettes for playback and recording. Recording CD's onto tape also somehow seems to give better separation and stereo effect.

With a decent set up you can be surprised with the quality from a good cassette deck particularly when using chrome cassettes.

I considered getting a tuner, but the need for a decent aerial put me off, although I'm virtually in sight of a transmitter mast.

Tuners are dirt cheap though and I might give one a go with one of those T antennas.

FM will eventually be switched off by the Government when Digital radio % reaches FM % use.
From what I read digital is approx 50%, FM 90%.

 

[Fab Foodie]

I don't know about your Keilidhs (I'd call them almost-retro because I remember being very impressed when I heard the ones the father of a friend from school had just bought, and that can only have been 20 minutes ago) but if they do count then so do my Goodmans Maxim 2s (albeit they're vey much 'budget' and aren't my original ones, which went with an ex-partner - these ones I bought because they're such a good size for our small house and were a fiver in Oxfam - the benefits I suppose of Goodmans having a slightly shoddy reputation for everything but very occasionally putting together a cracking speaker)

Anyway, they're connected to an Arcam A72 (this century, but still 15 years old) and all the music comes from a Rasperry Pi with IQAudio DAC+, so I'm really on the wrong thread now.

EDIT - I've a Cyrus One and a Muscial Fidelity B200 under the stairs - both awaiting more skills than I posess to bring them back to life.

You can keep the Cyrus one, but the MF B200 is an absolute cracker, you can cook dinner on it IIRC.

 

[KneesUp]

Most of my gear is Yamaha and Technics and I'm mostly analogue .

I tend to concentrate more on good quality audio cassettes for playback and recording. Recording CD's onto tape also somehow seems to give better separation and stereo effect.

With a decent set up you can be surprised with the quality from a good cassette deck particularly when using chrome cassettes.

I considered getting a tuner, but the need for a decent aerial put me off, although I'm virtually in sight of a transmitter mast.

Tuners are dirt cheap though and I might give one a go with one of those T antennas.

FM will eventually be switched off by the Government when Digital radio % reaches FM % use.
From what I read digital is approx 50%, FM 90%.

I stream all my radio via the Raspberry Pi and IQAudio DAC+ using volumio. It's very impressive - I get all the BBC stations at 320kbps which is good enough for my ears (and significantly better than DAB - 6Music is 128kbps on DAB iirc) I can heartily recommend it - I do have an Rotel tuner for use in a national emergency (i.e. the internet is down) but I haven't used it in a long time. I shold have kept my Denon TU260L though.

I used to think tapes of CDs sounded better than the CDs too - I used to have a Rotel 920ax, CD player I can't recall and a Technics RS-BX 626 MkII cassette deck (also shouldn't have sold that) and the tapes were very good - I used to use Thats metal ones from Richer Sounds, and splice them to the correct length for the album with one of those razor blade and mitre block things from Argos. Or Index probably - they were cheaper.

I still have a cassette deck too - a Rotel one that works, but where on earth are you getting decent priced chrome tapes from now?

 

[Salar]

Most of my chrome cassettes are pre recorded ones, artists such as Springsteen, Police, Dire Straits etc. who produced good quality chrome recordings.

For run of the mill download recording (which is legal to record from radio to tape) I just use what I can pick up.
One very underrated cassette tape is the Memorex dbx, lots of people slag off Memorex, but this one seems ok.

I have dbx noise reduction on one of my decks, but that's another story.

 

[KneesUp]

You can keep the Cyrus one, but the MF B200 is an absolute cracker, you can cook dinner on it IIRC.

I've just been to check in the attic to see if it was where I thought it was. It is, but it's a B1, not a B200. Disappointed now! It's never worked as long as I've had it, mind you - it keeps blowing it's fuse, as does the Cyrus One (which I liberated from a skip - that worked for about an hour and now just blows fuses)

 

[KneesUp]

Tuners are dirt cheap though

because

FM will eventually be switched off by the Government

To add - I got my tuner (Rotel 930AX) and current cassette deck (Rotel 945AX) to replace the Technics one I should have kept) because I spotted them at a charity shop for £10 the pair and I couldn't say no. I also have a Technics ST-X302L tuner with matching SU-X120 amp which, again, I saw in a chartity shop and couldn't say no. I paid £19.99 the pair for them though

So yes, tuners are cheap as chips - might as well give it a go. I get FM in fairly hiss-free stero using an old TV aerial extension cable looped over a picture on the odd occasion I do use it - which has mainly been just because I can - Mrs Knees is not a fan of this set up however.

 

[Salar]

I can easily rig up my set up to our TV and pick up 30+ radio stations off Freeview and record to cassette.

I too wouldn't be allowed to have an antenna dangling around.

 

[raleighnut]

Still using QUAD amplification here although a bought a 44 pre-amp to replace my 33 which is now acting as a phono stage for the Yamaha 5:1 set up in the front room. I've still got the 303 I bought 2nd hand in 1987 with it but now have a 2nd 303 and run both poweramps as 2 channel monoblocks powering my B&W DM 602 S3's.
Turntable is a modified Thorens TD 166 with a Rega RB250 tonearm and a Stilton Audio bodied Nagaoka MP11 Boron cartridge and the other sources are a Yamaha tapedeck that has 'playback bias trim', Denon CD player and a Sony minidisc recorder/player.
As for cables I just use reasonable quality interconnects (Gold plated plugs/Oxygen free Copper) and 79 strand speaker cables

 

[Salar]

My Yamaha cassette deck, with bias adjust, play trim, auto tape tuning etc.

I use it for recording and copying CD's to cassette.

 

[raleighnut]

My Yamaha cassette deck, with bias adjust, play trim, auto tape tuning etc.

I use it for recording and copying CD's to cassette.


View attachment 398916

Looks the same as mine, KX-393.

 

[KneesUp]

The RS-BX626 I should have kept was 3-head and had bias trim - used to spend ages recording the hiss between radio stations and listening to the recording on headphones to get the bias right. I don't really miss that, but it annoys me slightly that the Rotel is only 2 head, even though I have no blank tapes.