New vs Vintage
On Mar 26, 10:10=A0am, Audio Empire wrote:
I was just somewhat surprised at how GOOD these old amps
actually were and thought I would share it with the group. Except for a n=
ew
set of tubes and a couple of new filter caps in the power supply, and
cleaning the controls, these amps' signal paths were untouched.
I don't know why you would be surprised since this has been know for
decades. Tube amps that were essentially transparent were
designed back in the 1940's I believe, and some were in production in
the 1950's if my memory serves me. Maybe it was the sixties but
somewhere around then the Leak .01 amplifier was sold in England. It
was +- 1 db from 20-20000 hz and had less than 0.1 percent distortion.
And of course by the end of the 1960's solid state amplifiers that
were essentially sonically transparent were commonly available.
These amplifiers did not put out much power it is true, and had
trouble driving the early and inefficient "acoustic suspension" system
that came
to popularity around then. I heard in the 1950's a system that,
though monophonic, would very likely meet the standard of "high
fidelity" even today. Of course records of the day were outclassed by
the CD systems that came later, but I remember listening to the
Shostakovatch fifth on my friend's Dad's monophonic system while I was
still in high school and being quite amazed at the sound quality even
back then from his kit built dynaco amps and preamps driving a
Wharfdale 9 cubic foot corner brick enclosure with a 15" woofer, 8"
midrange and 3" tweeter. That system was efficient for sure and the
30 or 40 watts from the Dynaco kit could drive it to extraordinary
levels and I had my first taste of real deep and un-boomy bass, not
repeated for many years except at live concerts.. Later that year I
heard our local symphony with an aunt supplying the tickets and was
surprised at how much like the orchestra in front of me sounded to
that old home built Wharfedale speaker.
We can do just as well today for what amounts to a lot less money when
you discount for inflation. But HI-Fi was invented in the 1940's and
could be amazingly good even with the old gigantic speakers that you
pretty well had to have to make things work.
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