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Amps from the 1980's -- What gear holds up sonically? Reliably?

Hi Everyone,

For me, the 1980s were a real "golden age" of amplifiers. Dr. Leach’s paper on building a low TIM amplifier had been widely distributed and relied on by budding designers, and lots of boutique brands came. It was also the era of the biggest of the Conrad Johsnon tube amps as well and the invention of the MOSFET.

For me, brands I cared about:

  • Threshold
  • Sumo
  • Perreaux (New Zealand, very pretty)
  • Tandberg
  • Hitachi
  • Kyocera
  • Nikko
  • Krell (of course)
  • CJ
  • ARC
  • Yamaha (professional)
  • Carver
  • Mark Levinson
  • Amber 
  • Tandberg
This was also the speaker era of Snell and Apogee and Martin Logan. I am not sure there would be a Krell today if it wasn't for Apogee's 1 ohm speakers.

I’m curious who is still listening to these vintage pieces, and which brands you think have stood up both in terms of reliability and / or sonics ?
erik_squires

Showing 1 response by enliten

enliten
44 posts
 
Seriously, nobody's bringing up McIntosh ????

I just rebuilt a MC2300 for a friend (can't do what we did for $$$, only for friends). Compared it to our Aurion(tm) with nCores - now the MC2300 isn't a Constellation - but I was surprised how good the sound quality is. Those OPTs Mac held onto must have something to do with it. Stable as hell, very musical amp. Circuit design is as basic as you can get, but this amp has held up for almost 50 years! Who can say that now?


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