Why do people that own vintage gear think It's better than new gear

When you grow up with something it is very hard to change it later, this is where the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" come from.
The same reason why people who started with vinyl can't move to digital (at least some of them), the sound is imbedded in their skin.

taters said:

I am always amazed when people that own vintage gear think It's better than new gear. Are these people just Into nostalgia or are they In denial?

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IMHO, not all new gear is superior to vintage or older gear. Just because something is the latest doesn't mean to say it has to be the greatest. If one uses one's ears as the primary determinant
of sound quality, then I think there are cases to be made from all eras in audio.
Sonus, I grew up with vinyl and I can tell you, for my ears that's where my primary emphasis is going to remain. Digital has it plus's BUT IMHO, it simply isn't able to bring me the closer to what i hear
at a live venue as well as vinyl. OTOH, IF you are only interested in ease of use then I can see your point. Obviously YMMV.

DaveyF said:

Sonus, I grew up with vinyl and I can tell you, for my ears that's where my primary emphasis is going to remain. Digital has it plus's BUT IMHO, it simply isn't able to bring me the closer to what i hear
at a live venue as well as vinyl. OTOH, IF you are only interested in ease of use then I can see your point. Obviously YMMV.

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There is no right or wrong here, you prefer what you prefer and I respect you for it.
I tried many times vinyl and i can't understand how people can compare it to real life, every aspect of vinyl, to my ears, is far away from the original sound compare to digital but on the other hand i also don't understand how can people drink Starbucks' coffee, i guess i am just different

I also think that older gear is sometimes better than newer gear. I come from the standpoint that i try to judge every component on its merit and performance...not by its age. Until proven otherwise, i assume new is just new...not necessarily better. Manufacturers are businesses...many of them continue to create 'new models' to generate more sales. Naturally, many try to improve on prior models...but sometimes they miss. Some of the latest tube preamps 5-7 years ago were part of transition from classic tube sound to more modern sound...and many felt they became sterile...neither tube nor ss. only recently do some think tubed equipment guys got it right. Some manufacturers also cheapen production to improve margin hoping the reputation of the earlier model will drive sales of the 'new model' and those who buy the new one wont have heard and directly compared to the older one.

Then there are manufacturers who have realized a big pot of profit lies in the uber-wealthy who can buy 50-150K turntables...and i think some of us have realized that these 'new turntables' are not even that good...just expensive, new 'sota'.

To name a few 'vintage pieces' that i think are great or have read are great: IRS Infinity V speakers, Quad electrostatics, Wilson X1/Grand Slamms, Rockport Sirius Turntable, Apogee Stages, Sonus Faber Electa Amators or Extremas, CJ Premier 8, CJ ART, Krell Master Reference Amplifiers, FM Acoustics, Gryphon Antileon/Ref One monos, the list goes on. All of these are roughly 20-years or older at this point...some no longer made for over a decade. Any one of those speakers will compete exceedingly well against newer speakers today. None is perfect (even back when they were new)...but darned good!

I have found that this feeling is most of the time due to old gear not mixing well with new gear. Most people do not replace the whole system at once, they you just try to introduce a new piece, that often has no synergy with their equipment. This happens with digital - many systems that sound really good with vinyl, sound miserable with CD.

I have tried once trying to assemble a complete system that I had enjoyed in the past, but found it did not surpass the current one I was using.

Hi

We may have also to define vintage but if you think 20 years ago , yeah OK! Here I go

I believe there are areas where he new really surpass the old. IN speakers and in digital there is no contest in my view. New speakers make the old sound lacking. An exemple is the Quad ESL63, good to great speaker, in itself, one of the best midrange reproducer ever devised. As a complete speaker woefully inadequate... Compare it to the current Quad 989.. The beter part remains truly unchanged the midrange is to me the same but becasue of the presence of more (bass, upper midrange, IOW the rest of the spectrum) you no longer focus solely ton the medium range .. So at first and casual listening ou may find yourself not noticing the utter quality of the midband because it no longer call attention to itself ...
Similarly now box speakers no longer sound so boxy... The Wilson, Magico, Rockports, etc to only name these three no longer sound like "boxes" .. Yet between generations if you put the prejudices asdie and listen with an open mind and ear the generational change between the speakers are clear.. The Rockport Hyperion is a case in point.. very good speaker, very good in the medium and in fact touted as a full range .. Heard it several times, not my idea of a full range speaker in you ask me, then comes the new Rokcports .. Listen to the Mira far from the top of the Line ... I would say that the general presentation of the Hyperion is superior to the Mira but barely and in the bass I prefer the Mira .. now move up just one notch within the the Line Aquila (?) I think, no contest the Aquila is a superior speaker everywhere that matters whether you like the Rockport sound or not .. I would say the same about Wilson the X-2 changed it all and now the Maxx3 or even the Sasha sound to me more cohesive and more natural than the X-1 , the X-1 remains superior and by a large margin to the Sasha.. In the case of the Maxx3 however it surpasses the X-1 in everything that matters to me , I am not even a Wilson fan.. I could go one..
For DACs there is not much I can add today's DAC are cheaper better ...

Now for electronics and there I hit a snag .. Better, i am not so sure, different? Definitely .. I must say that at the very top there seems to be some progress. oerall not so sure, when you couple some yesterday gears with today's speakers, the results can be truly breathtaking.

IN Analog there is some progress according to those who know a lot more. I must say however that we recently compared my current TT rig with a VPI recent rig (VPI arm JWV (?) and my SP-10 Mk2 with SME IV arm and frankly there were differences but it was all about flavors with the SP-10 darker more robust and the VPI more airy. Cartridges were different the VPI had a grashopper or something the SP-10 was using a DL-A100 ... Different carts but same Phono amp... An ARC
yet in term of ultimate analog the consensus seems to be RTR and there the decks are old decks some we didn't take seriously then the Technics RS-1500 comes to mind but also some Tandberg and Uher I am seeing in European fora... They are far from new and in some instances the stock electronics sounds pretty good, as was the case of Steve Williams Studer A 820. He might have changed it to a new head amp but he can tell you that the stock electronics are pretty good ... My favorite amps last update is 9 years old and the amps itself is TWENTY years old, the Burmester 911 MK3, You can read a lot about this superlative amp in this very forum .. So to me in electronics not so much .. Oh and by the way I would like to listen to a beast such as the Krell Reference the KRS-200 of yore on a today's best speakers ...

A lot of people forget that high end audio is an experience. What this means is that when normal people listen to music - to enjoy the music for its own sake, they are not primarily concerned with mathematical graphs of the music waves or gear measurements. (I don't consider compulsive gear swappers or reviewers who dissect gear along audiophile words like transparency, pin point imaging, etc., while missing the musical whole, normal music lovers. But those guys have their own goals...)

The term "experience" implies that emotions play an equal - or greater - role alongside the physics and math side of the hobby. By considering the emotions people have when encountering music, one needs to understand that subjectively people experience emotions based on different life happenings. So what if the latest gear has slightly better resolution or better extension? The music that vintage lovers have been listening to since the 60's or 70's in their basement has been a great thing in their life. That type of sound has become their reference, is meaningful to them, and meets their human needs. And for them that's what a great audio experience is all about.

Most of the time, it's because the fond memories of something cherished are better than life. When I was young and just got my driving licence, I drove a rich friend's Lotus Elan. It was exhilarating. 20 years later, I test drove one with a view to buying. It was horrible.

It's the same with hifi. I fell in love with the Genesis brand with the Genesis V years ago before I bought the company. A couple of years ago, I compared a new-old-stock G-V with the current G5.3, and it's nowhere near. Owners of the vintage (nearly 20 years old by now) still think that it is better than the newer brother because of an external servo-bass amplifier and it had 4 woofers instead of the current 3 woofers. But they don't understand the technology advancements that went into the 5 subsequent generations that made it better.

More 'road feel' without power steering~ same concept.

To answer the OP's original question of "Why do people think vintage gear is better than new gear?". Simple - because it is.

Vintage gear is "better" for the same reasons that "vinyl" is better. Several things going on here;

1) Modern gear is all about "purity" - absolute recreation of and stunning verisimilitude to the original signal. Unfortunately this often comes through as a soulless bore which is incapable of expressing the emotional content of music. Great gear if you enjoy the sound of the gear - not so much if you are looking to be engaged by the music. I don't listen to be captured by the weird capabilities of some incredibly expensive modern piece of whatever as it recreates the sound of the third violinist moving to his right and his wallet catching on the chair. That is not music - that is a sound effect. Stereo pyrotechnics are boring.

2) We all harken back to whatever it is we first heard "music" with - that, no matter our later exposures will always deliver the soundtrack of our heart - to many of us this is the epitome of music. This phenomena explains a great deal of the vinyl resurgence - I want to hear "Ball and Chain" as Janis recorded it on Cheap Thrills - all of the softness and roundness of vinyl brings that tune "home" for me. I don't care about the incredible purity of CD and its vastly extended range - I want to hear that old familiar vinyl sound with all its scratchy limitations.

3) The "old" gear is simply good sounding - nobody has ever built a dome tweeter as dispersive as AR did 40 years ago (Interesting side note; that paragon of soulless sound, one David O. Wilson, has with his latest ridiculously overpriced speaker, returned to a silk dome tweeter - no more unobtainium David?). The old Advents and KLH still sound quite nice - they make music that is engaging and entertaining.

4) And with this good sound there is a significant reduction in price - essentially not so much a reduction as at least an order of magnitude decrease. You can buy an AR-9 for about $1500, spend $1000 more to completely overhaul the crossover and for $2500 you have a speaker that competes quite well with a Magico Q3 or a Sasha (both close to $30k). The old speaker is not as fantastically coherent as the modern, nor is it as smooth across the band - but it goes as low, couples really nicely to "real" rooms and is very engaging despite its rougher character.

5) and the main reason - humans are proud of their possessions - do you really expect somebody with a "vintage" (older) piece of gear to tell you that your soulless, ridiculously overpriced chunk of audio jewelry is "better" than his bargain? Really? What planet do you live on when you are not here?

valkyrie said:

To answer the OP's original question of "Why do people think vintage gear is better than new gear?". Simple - because it is.

Vintage gear is "better" for the same reasons that "vinyl" is better. Several things going on here;

1) Modern gear is all about "purity" - absolute recreation of and stunning verisimilitude to the original signal. Unfortunately this often comes through as a soulless bore which is incapable of expressing the emotional content of music. Great gear if you enjoy the sound of the gear - not so much if you are looking to be engaged by the music. I don't listen to be captured by the weird capabilities of some incredibly expensive modern piece of whatever as it recreates the sound of the third violinist moving to his right and his wallet catching on the chair. That is not music - that is a sound effect. Stereo pyrotechnics are boring.

2) We all harken back to whatever it is we first heard "music" with - that, no matter our later exposures will always deliver the soundtrack of our heart - to many of us this is the epitome of music. This phenomena explains a great deal of the vinyl resurgence - I want to hear "Ball and Chain" as Janis recorded it on Cheap Thrills - all of the softness and roundness of vinyl brings that tune "home" for me. I don't care about the incredible purity of CD and its vastly extended range - I want to hear that old familiar vinyl sound with all its scratchy limitations.

3) The "old" gear is simply good sounding - nobody has ever built a dome tweeter as dispersive as AR did 40 years ago (Interesting side note; that paragon of soulless sound, one David O. Wilson, has with his latest ridiculously overpriced speaker, returned to a silk dome tweeter - no more unobtainium David?). The old Advents and KLH still sound quite nice - they make music that is engaging and entertaining.

4) And with this good sound there is a significant reduction in price - essentially not so much a reduction as at least an order of magnitude decrease. You can buy an AR-9 for about $1500, spend $1000 more to completely overhaul the crossover and for $2500 you have a speaker that competes quite well with a Magico Q3 or a Sasha (both close to $30k). The old speaker is not as fantastically coherent as the modern, nor is it as smooth across the band - but it goes as low, couples really nicely to "real" rooms and is very engaging despite its rougher character.

5) and the main reason - humans are proud of their possessions - do you really expect somebody with a "vintage" (older) piece of gear to tell you that your soulless, ridiculously overpriced chunk of audio jewelry is "better" than his bargain? Really? What planet do you live on when you are not here?

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I like you valkyrie, you're an honest fellow who doesn't delude himsefl. I disagree with you on this point -- I've owned vintage ARs, KLHs, Advents, Altecs and vinyl - lots of vinyl - and I think, when I'm playing a good recording, my digital files and active monitors sound much better. And more musical. Some of the old stuff can smooth and soothe the bad recordings, but I've got eq for that. I'll take the good stuff unadulterated, thanks. But I have a whole lot of respect for this...

all of the softness and roundness of vinyl brings that tune "home" for me

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...because you didn't have to pump it up with faux superiority. You like it. That's enough. Enjoy.

Tim

Senor Phelonius (that is Chinese correct?).

Interestingly I had a chance in the last month to hear the Lyngdorf/Steinway system - four speaker boxes (the mid/tweeter were a really small things - very light about a quarter of a pizza box in size and depth), the two subs were air suspension with opposed woofers (exactly like Roy Allison and Tim Holl of AR fame said they should be - for effective vibration cancelling and room coupling) - the electronic boxes were smaller than pizza containers.

It sounded WONDERFUL - absolutely wonderful. The person who was previewing this rig had his own "high end" rig set up - full ARC stack (including the REF-40 pre all $25k of it), exotic wire, exotic (and absurdly overpriced) this and that. Which after listening to the Lyngdorf/Steinway we then put on.

How did they compare? To my ear the Lyngdorf/Steinway was a bit "hard" sounding - the pile of tubes and other high end gear seemed to be softer and more gently engaging.

Now this was a very short exposure - maybe an hour or so. Consequently my impressions are exactly that - very shallow and narrow impressions - no doubt my host had every interest in portraying the active speaker/amp system (Lyngdorf/Steinway) as deficient (he is a less than honest fellow when it comes to the superiority of "high end silliness").

BUT - and this is a very, very big butt - the active amplified Lyngdorf/Steinway was very impressive for a set of smallish boxes, in a far from optimal setup with only minimal room tuning performed(which the system requires to be done in a very careful manner). In fact I was very intrigued - very.

So mark me as very interested in the possibilities of active speakers with appropriate EQ - there is no reason a stereo should look like a NASA console.

Chinese? No, I think Thelonious was a piano player.

My little monitors are no Steinway Lingdorf system, but I think there are some distinct advantages in active done right. All the issues being discussed here lately regarding top amps sounding different, perhaps because one may be better suited to the load presented by the speakers...this can easily become a moot point in a system in which the amps and individual drivers are an engineered match. The resulting driver control results in a clarity that results in imaging, attack, air and natural tonality that can be pretty stunning.

But all that warm, soft, round...it is not there. If that is what connects you to the music it's probably not your road.

Tim

No - the "Chinese" comment is just one of my little idiosyncratic jokes - when I hear somebody say their name is "Cacironi" I always comment "oh you are Irish" or if their name is "Goldberg" I comment that "So you are Chinese" - the point being that all our names sound the same - they sound like HUMAN BEINGS. Nothing negative or derogatory intended.

I think what is going on here is that no 1 hour listening test can actually tell most of us anything at all. We need lots of time, lots of our favorite and familiar recordings. As for the soft and gentle - well some stuff seems to play better that way - but I don't want to hear Shostakovitch with soft and gentle - nor Hans Zimmer (must be an Italian that guy) or Philip Glass (that guy is simply great) - I must hear those in digital for that soft and gentle doesn't work with their music. A music which demands clarity, force and range (which vinyl simply will not deliver).

I am going to further investigate the active/speaker approach - I have an old National Semiconductor manual (circa 1982) that describes building an active crossover (and then tri-amping) as the only way to real music - so the technical basis is "there" - passive crossovers, with a single amp driving it is NOT a solution - it is a tech kluge - a big band aid that has become a de facto standard.

interesting.

There are some really good Vintage drivers out there that if you purchase cores and have them reconned you end up with essentially new drivers. Some of my favorites are alnico's the likes of which will never be produced again. Fit and finish on them can be really good. Here is a couple of pictures of a 14" alnico woofer vs a state of the art S/R 15" subwoofer. I like the look of the 60's alnico's better.

I also like Preamps that have good quality shelving tone controls selectable phono loading and a -20Db switch.

Rob

taters said:

I am always amazed when people that own vintage gear think It's better than new gear. Are these people just Into nostalgia or are they In denial?

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Depends on what you call vintage, and it also depends on what new gear you consider to be in the running with it.

I'll give you an example. I own a pair of RCA SP20 monoblocks that were made in 1954. They are 20W parallel push-pull tube types configured to run in triode mode. That is pedestrian enough until you look a bit closer. The amps are comprised of one-half percent tolerance components that still meet that specification even after all those years. Transformer iron was initially made for 200W theater amps. Each solder joint has a QC mark, and each one was assembled by an RCA engineer at their pro sound division in Camden. That makes them a lot different from the typical stuff you call vintage. The tubes on my pair are Bendix ones that were made to withstand a 6g force. (It is funny to me how owners of modern equipment like vintage tubes, but reject the old equipment as being somehow inferior.)

Those old amps are only one example of many to be found. There is vintage, and then, there is vintage. You have to define the term with greater clarity.

Mosin said:

Depends on what you call vintage, and it also depends on what new gear you consider to be in the running with it.

I'll give you an example. I own a pair of RCA SP20 monoblocks that were made in 1954. They are 20W parallel push-pull tube types configured to run in triode mode. That is pedestrian enough until you look a bit closer. The amps are comprised of one-half percent tolerance components that still meet that specification even after all those years. Transformer iron was initially made for 200W theater amps. Each solder joint has a QC mark, and each one was assembled by an RCA engineer at their pro sound division in Camden. That makes them a lot different from the typical stuff you call vintage. The tubes on my pair are Bendix ones that were made to withstand a 6g force. (It is funny to me how owners of modern equipment like vintage tubes, but reject the old equipment as being somehow inferior.)

Those old amps are only one example of many to be found. There is vintage, and then, there is vintage. You have to define the term with greater clarity.

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Aren't those beauties!

Thanks whart.

They weren't easy to come by, either. I assure you of that! Back in the day, I suppose these were sort of like TAD stuff is today. They were RCA flagship pieces.

I never bought anything because it was "old" or "nostalgic". Every equipment I have bought in my life was "brand new" and "state of the art" at its time. We just grew old together with some of them. I recently coughed a lot of money for a "state of the art" home theater system for the family. Lots of big speakers and mean looking black machines outputting superb sound. I really am amazed by the clarity and depth... The now "old" stuff which grew up with me are in my study and in my office at work. When I listen to them, I listen to my old friends. ?nexplicable feeling...