Arny Krueger wrote:

An experienced eye ( such as mine ) can interpret the waveform rather
well.

This is bull**** incidentally. Oscilloscopy is not the tool to track
down non-gross distortions, at least not directly.


Look Graham I was probably looking at crossover distortion from SS before
you were born. ;-)

I rather doubt that actually.

Name a date.

I'll name one: 1962.

1962 was probably the high point, give or take a couple of years, of
commercially manufactured hi-fi equipment. After that they learned how
to make then cheaper, and also more sophisticated designs-primarily
though not exclusively solid state- started being able to generate good
measurements across the procedures Hirsch-Houck and others implemented
while increasingly more often sounding like ****. The technology needed
to do that was nascent in 1962, and the better class of customer was
still willing to pay for quality whilst the manufacturers were willing
to put substantial build cost into the products. The illusory magical
qualities of solid-state, transformerless equipment and the then-low
Japanese manufacturing costs would by 1966 have made the descent to
zero look pretty attractive.

If one could beam back down to November 1962 one could buy, if one had
the funds, a wholly decent system for music listening which if beamed
back could be simply connected to a modern optical player and be a very
good system. (One could also buy up a lot of old WE gear and sell it
for a major fortune to the Ollies today....) In November 1968 or 1972
or 1978 that would not be possible, not with new gear in mainstream
hi-fi stores.