How do you value vintage HiFi?

[PJL]

Do you have a collection of records you purchased and have not played much and then only on good equipment? Finding second hand records in good enough condition to benefit from high-end record decks is not easy. As a backup I have a Technics SL-Q202 which is not 70's but sell at reasonable prices and keep in mind that a decent cartridge with an unworn needle is worth more than the deck.

[Radio Wrangler]

For me, the value I get from vintage hifi gear is manyfold:

1) I have a collection of records and tapes dating back to the sixties and CDs from the mid eighties, so I keep the machinery going to be able to listen to them. Some records simply aren't available in 'newer' formats. I don't eschew modern equipment, so I'm free to listen to a wider range of material than any single format could provide.

2) I'm not tied to any particular era, my home doesn't try to be a time-capsule. Instead, I'm free to pick satisfying equipment from any era.... whenever it was done best will do.

3) I'm not an audiophile, but I might just be a musicophile I find it easy to listen to the music and ignore the equipment. I don't believe I have unusual super-powers in the hearing department. I'm mystified at all the descriptions of Huuuge differences in the sound of things where I can hear nothing, or not much. So I take current hifi magazines with a shovelful of salt (make that a steam-shovel). I reserve the freedom to make my own decisions and choices.

4) I don't have to be seen with the latest pundit-trumpeted gear, or the most expensive. I'm not out to impress anyone. Something to the limits of my discrimination will do fine. I think good equipment should vanish and leave you with the impression of the performance happening in your room. I don't like stuff that forces you to admit you've noticed it.

5) I'm an engineer, a serious one with various bits of paper, a working lifetime's worth of experience and a fairly decent track record. I'm free to pick things I like the engineering of, even if it's something most probably beyond my ability to hear, knowing what's involved can be satisfying, when I think about it.

I place a lot of value on these freedoms.

The value of some piece of equipment to someone else, with a different viewpoint to mine can be quite different.

These values have no direct relationship to the price which that equipment would fetch at auction.

I enjoy finding genuinely excellent equipment which doesn't have a cult following, even better is something good which the pundits pooh-pooh.

I suppose we could call it non-conformist hifi

David

[Al (astral highway)]

We don’t determine the value, the ‘market’ does. Do for example, we ca now see sllly prices for broken husks of Hacker radios on EBay that cost so much that a buyer is taking a huge risk: by the time s repair or restoration is complete, so much money will have been spent to achieve a working model.

I used to buy Quaod monoblockdand restore them. Now, they are auctioned in a state that requires hours and hours of work to fix and yet the price is already close to their ‘value’ if they were working 100%.

I’ve discussed silly old Damsetted going for £175-200 in local vintage shop.

Price is just where the market clears ; a seller’s price matches a buyers . EBay has gone awry with the market not clearing ; so many offers not being met as they are bluntly unrealistic , but still slew prople’s impressions

[mole42uk]

In 1974 I bought a Connoisseur BD1 turntable kit, a Lenco L75 arm and a Shure M75 cartridge. I made a plinth out of ply and three little aluminium screw feet for levelling.
I am still very pleased with my choice.

[Ted Kendall]

I started out the same way, but with a Goldring G800 before switching to an M75EJ. That Connoisseur turntable was an excellent bit of kit - £10 if you built it yourself! - and I recall the Lenco arm was available for not much more - Hi Fi for pocket money. Another £10 for a pair of Bush badged Dentons from a school mate and £30 for a Texan (qv) and I was away...

[ToneArm]

I’d like to say I learned my lesson with the Linn to Lenco swap but I subsequently forked out for a Garrard 301. It sounds a lot like the Lenco...

But it does look fab, and is a pleasure to use, but unlike the Lenco all the spare bits cost a bomb, and the spectre of it’s value stops you experimenting on it like you might with a lenco.

David I like your stance of non-conformity towards hifi, I wish i was more resistant to the iconic stuff and its iconic price tags. My wife and bank account will be much happier when i finally get it out of my system!

Glyn

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by mole42uk

In 1974 I bought a Connoisseur BD1 turntable kit, a Lenco L75 arm and a Shure M75 cartridge. I made a plinth out of ply and three little aluminium screw feet for levelling.
I am still very pleased with my choice.

The only maintenance over the ensuing 43 years of use is new drive belts, new motor mounts, new knife bearings for the L75 and several new stylusses..... and a little bit of oil in the turntable centre bearing.

[Radio Wrangler]

Hi Glyn, 38 years ago I designed myself a pair of speakers and an amplifier to drive them. I'm still rather pleased with the result and objective measurements support this - I'm enough of a real engineer to have thrown difficult signals at them and tried to catch them out. Probably they're stupidly over-engineered, but that's OK, it was fun doing it.

However the real fun comes when anyone of an audiophile tendency meets them. There are no badges, no model numbers and on hearing them said audiophile doesn't know what to say. The things most definitely don't look home-made. He can't have read anything about them, so he doesn't know what he's supposed to say. He doesn't dare give an opinion of his own in case a proper golden eared 'name' ever hears them and gives a contradictory opinion! It's quite amusing to see them so uncomfortable!

They don't know what style of invisible clothes this particular emperor is wearing.

The best place for rhino horn is on the front of a rhino.

In all fairness, the golden ear brigade have distorted the market for all sorts of equipment and parts. They've put some spares out of the reach of people wanting to maintain original equipment. It doesn't seem too harsh to take the mickey out of them in return.

David

[Bazz4CQJ]

In post #20, Ted comments on using a particular Steely Dan track to evaluate performance. Is it my imagination or am I right in thinking that Dan tracks seem to be used quite frequently for evaluation?

B

[mole42uk]

I've always used the first track of "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd, that heartbeat remains my favourite test track intro!
Mind you, I have a passion for the trumpet obbligato in Bach's 2nd Brandenburg Concerto recorded by the München Bach-Orchester in the early '70's too....

[dave walsh]

Fascinating amount of technical advice/insight here but as Al sort of implies [post 27] attempting to decide what's a "sensible price" isn't that easy! I'm not sure that it can even mean very much in this context, others may disagree of course. It will be interesting to see what Mr Most can find now [that's a good name for a vinyl enthusiast to adopt Micky]

Dave

[GrimJosef]

Originally Posted by Bazz4CQJ

... Is it my imagination or am I right in thinking that Dan tracks seem to be used quite frequently for evaluation?

I find it depends very much on what I'm trying to evaluate. The main requirement for test tracks is that you are familiar with them and ideally that you know what they sound like on a high-performing system (for me that's one with low distortion, low noise and capable of reproducing wide dynamic range).

Then I pick a) something simple and 'pure', b) something that requires the wide dynamic range I'm trying to test for, c) something percussive (can tell you a lot about risetime and a system's tendency to carry on making a noise after the music is supposed to have stopped), d) something complex (good kit will not confuse the elements here) and e) something with a tuneful bass (this can tell you a lot about the listening room too though).

When you're done with all that then try some plain male speech and then the sound of a solo piano. Making a recorded piano sound like a real one is tough.

You do have to watch out, especially if you're thinking of buying something, for the seller putting on tracks which will make any system sound good. Jazz, including Steely Dan I'm afraid, can fall into this category. Others include Stevie Ray Vaughan's blues guitar e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oydj5H9C-no and Nils Lofgren's rock acoustic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6_B1AB9nu8.

Cheers,

GJ

[Radio Wrangler]

I think G-J has touched most of the bases. There are several things hard to get sounding natural. I'd add in the sound of a single undamped cymbal and applause to his list.

You either need to be familiar with how that recording can sound on good equipment that you wish to equal, or it needs to be something you are familiar with live. Both would be good.

David

[qualityten]

I would want to offer a balancing comment about idler drives. I'm not an engineer, but I have owned/serviced many of the models mentioned (and not mentioned, e.g. Pink Triangle) here. In the Thorens line, I still have a TD135II, a TD150 and a TD125II, but my daily turntable is a Garrard 401. If I didn't have it, I'd be happy with the Lenco L75 that I have stashed away somewhere. If not that, I'd be happy with the Elac Miracord that I think I still have somewhere. I can't afford to be a big spender on arms or cartridges either, so I tend to use an SME 3009 in one version or another, and a Shure M75 cartridge. I've tried to love belt drives and direct drives and will probably keep my TD125 and one good quality direct drive just for fun, but well-made (and maintained) idler drives give me the most musical pleasure. For this reason, I can't recommend forgetting them.

I would say the same of valve amplification and, especially, a valve phono stage, but that's another story.

[Ted Kendall]

The particular point about using that Steely Dan track in that context was that there is a complex bass solo buried in a complex mix and I wanted to see how well the LP12 articulated it compared to my memory of what the TD125 could do. This I thought was a fairly deterministic test - you can either hear more notes or you can't, and in this case I didn't.

In general, I tend to take a walk-before-you-run approach to subjective evaluation - speech, acoustic guitar, solo violin, triangles and cymbals to start with. If it falls down on those, you needn't waste more time on it - no amount of crash-bang-wallop will compenste for a basic lack of fidelity.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Bazz4CQJ

In post #20, Ted comments on using a particular Steely Dan track to evaluate performance. Is it my imagination or am I right in thinking that Dan tracks seem to be used quite frequently for evaluation?

My consumer 'audio test' source for the last few decades has been Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. The original Virgin vinyl release is good but the subsequent remasters are better.

It's got lush levels of transient high-frequency-rich pulse waveforms, and the guitar-work really emphasizes the ability of an amp to deliver power in the 8KHz-and-up range.

If I want to explore low-range response something like The Animals' House of the Rising Sun is good [Eric Burdon's vocals cover a rather extensive range]

::::Position-statement: I really don't hear much below 250Hz which may distort my assessment::::

[RojDW48]

I came across a record in a charity shop which made me stop and think.....'I have very rarely seen modulation like that!' It was one of those 'club' anthem sort of things - not my usual taste by any means, but an astonishingly good pressing. It's called 'The Black Mamba' and the perpetrators describe themselves as The Nuff Orchestra. It's a 12", 33rpm single(?) lasting about 8 mins. Not for the faint hearted...but a hell of a test for an arm and cartridge.