This is something I hear more and more often. Usually ’older’ or at least veteran audiophiles who stumble upon some piece of vintage gear and are ’teleported’ to the times when it was still all about the music, not the gear. Is this just psychological, ’nostalgia for the old folks’ as it were, or is something more tangible going on?
Time to investigate, so I decided to put a carefully selected, top end vintage system side by side to my modern ’high end’ system in the same room. In terms of cost there’s no comparison (about 1:10 ratio), but sonically it’s quite a different story. I’ve been having ’this can’t be’ moments ever since. And it’s always a delight whenever people with expensive high end systems at home come listen to both systems and to see that same ’this can’t be’ look on their faces. It also happens to young people, with no nostalgic mind games involved. Of course this doesn’t ’prove’ anything, but at least it should give the ’new is always better’ crowd something to ponder.
Time to investigate, so I decided to put a carefully selected, top end vintage system side by side to my modern ’high end’ system in the same room. In terms of cost there’s no comparison (about 1:10 ratio), but sonically it’s quite a different story. I’ve been having ’this can’t be’ moments ever since. And it’s always a delight whenever people with expensive high end systems at home come listen to both systems and to see that same ’this can’t be’ look on their faces. It also happens to young people, with no nostalgic mind games involved. Of course this doesn’t ’prove’ anything, but at least it should give the ’new is always better’ crowd something to ponder.