An all vintage system

@zavato It was what my Dad had. In a righteous rage (another woman while they were separated) my mom gave it all away. When I asked why she didn’t give to me she said, “oh.” They reconciled and he never re-upped. 

I have a pair of 1977 Klipsch La Scala in walnut paired to 1950s Quad II monoblocks. The combination of 104 db/1W sensitivity of the La Scalas with a 15W class-A push-pull tube amplifiers is magical.

On the signal delivery side I am fully modern. I currently have an Emotiva XPS-1 (gen 2) differential preamp sending a lower level signal from its unbalanced outputs.

A Bryston BLP-1 turntable with an Ortofon 2m Black cart handles the records.

On the digital side, I have a Denon Professional DN-C680 broadcast player (it upsamples the digital side to 48 KHz for compatibility with radio station equipment). It’s connected up via AES-EBU XLR to a Soekris dac1541 (R-2r resistor ladder DAC). This is feeding the preamp’s balanced connection at 4 dBU level. I have never heard digital sound more natural and coherent yet effortless as this pair together. The Soekris is truly a secret weapon.

My only concern is that the Quad II amps are rated for something like 250 or 275 mV input, so if I’m dumping a 2V modern consumer unbalanced signal into them I wonder if it’ll damage the transformers or something over time.

It’s a secondary bedroom 2-ch setup and I have to say the ease of the sound of it is dangerous for staying awake late nights. I had to put the tube amps on a timer so they wouldn’t run all night!

See my “Vintage System” under my systems page.  I started out trying to make it 100% vintage.  Ordered a restored Fischer 400 tube receiver - seller refused to double box so had to send it back 4 times for repair.  Finally decided the audio gods were sending a message, so unwound transaction and bought a vintage-like but brand new Leben 600x integrated and a separate Leben tube phono stage to pair with resto/mod Altec Santiagos and a resto/mod Thorens TD124 with new Ortofon SPU cartridge.  What was originally going to be a quaint system turned out to be surprisingly kick-ass, and gets as much love (use) as my main rig.  i love having both.

My vintage system is my second set up.  Carver Pre-amp with hologram, (2) Carver TFM 35 amps, Carver tube cd, JBL 4312's and JBL 4309 bookshelves, and a WiiM Ultra.  Sound better than my other system which is 3x more money.  Most was bought in the late 80's.  California sound for sure.  Long live rock and roll!

Vintage is more fun, for sure. But I'm no purist. My AR The Turntable is modified with Vinyl Nirvana parts and a Rega arm. I went down the Lenco Heaven rabbit hole and designed and built a new table around the motor and platter, completed with a modded vintage Ortofon arm. My Quad 57's are modded by One Thing Audio, and mounted on custom stands I designed and built. The amps currently in my systems may not qualify as vintage, except for the Precision Fidelity 7a Revised preamp and an old solid state Mac integrated. But, in addition to the Quads the speakers in all systems qualify as ancient- Altec 604E's (w. Jagusch crossovers, however), Monitor Audio MA 3's, ADS 810's, Linn Kans, Bose 901IV's. Amps on the shelf include an Eico HF81, a Bedini 25/25 and a Naim Nait 2 Olive and a Belles XLM preamp. Other sources include a Meridian CD player and a Nakamichi 582 cassette deck and an Oracle Delphi AC table with a Fidelity Research arm. The modern amps in the systems are Rogue, Herron, Sutherland, and Alan Eaton. No DAC's. Not that I'm against streaming, or don't believe it can sound great. Just doesn't float my boat.