Old Gold or New Plastic?

[Darren]

My hifi system at work consists of old components I wanted but couldnt afford back in the eighties as a teenager. You can see the kind of stuff at the bottom of my posts. Most are not true classics but all were well reviewed at the time. I have a great deal of fun playing with it and buying new things at low cost and that's cool.

Just this week I have treated myself to an Arcam Pre amp/dac and am also due some 'new' speakers to add to my collection. But just today I've started to wonder if I get value for money in terms of achievable sound quality.

Budget components seem to have come such a long way and the whole computer audio thing seems to have changed things too. My squeeze box touch sounds great and the new small Rega amp sounds fab too by all accounts. I'm also aware that budget speakers are very different beasts to when I first got started. How about the squeezebox touch/dac/pro active speaker route?

So to cut the shit.... (In terms of sound quality alone) should I sell the lot and get modern budget stuff? Has anyone compared old amps and speakers to modern low cost stuff? Am I mistaking quantity for quality? Or does good sound then mean good sound now and what we have is different but not better?

[hifi_dave]

Looking at your extensive stock list, I would suggest you enjoy it as it is. You could spend a whole heap of money and get no improvement or even worse sounds. At best, it would sound 'different'.

[Darren]

Hi Dave,
I was hoping to benefit from your experience. So you dont think that new budget stuff can out perform old, more expensive kit?

[synsei]

I've found that new and older gear can compliment each other really well, but in general you are going to achieve far better sound quality from carefully selected secondhand gear that used to be mid to high end audio than you are ever going to hear from most new budget gear. :cool:

[Dingdong]

You should sell all that dodgy old crap to me and buy something new, and shiny. That Decca especially sounds dreadful compared with modern stuff I hear;) And the Wadia must be falling to bits by now.
You would probably have to spend a fair bit of money to improve on the sound of the stuff you have. Older stuff does, at some point, need a service as some components age.
I have older stuff as I get a lot better quality for my hard earned. I've probably spent roughly a grand on my system and I think it sounds pretty good compared with anything else I've heard.

[hifi_dave]

Hi Dave,
I was hoping to benefit from your experience. So you dont think that new budget stuff can out perform old, more expensive kit?

Sometimes it can but depends on the 'old' kit. I would suggest that your 'old' kit (with a couple of exceptions) is very good and you'd need to spend a fair bit to equal it.

[DSJR]

Cheaper far eastern modern hear has come on in leaps and bounds in fairness, but there are other reasons too for buying vintage kit. i really wouldn't worry about it - the newest bit of both systems is the AVI preamp I have and that's from 1997 or thereabouts - oh yeah, I forgot the AVI Pro-Nines I swapped my N5's for - 2001 or thereabouts..

[Welder]

New Plastic ;)

[Darren]

Sometimes it can but depends on the 'old' kit. I would suggest that your 'old' kit (with a couple of exceptions) is very good and you'd need to spend a fair bit to equal it.

Ok. Now I need to know what the exceptions are. Give it to me straight Dave: I can take it.

[hifi_dave]

I'm only pulling your pudding..:lol:

[Darren]

You bugger! :)

[Darren]

Cheaper far eastern modern hear has come on in leaps and bounds in fairness, but there are other reasons too for buying vintage kit. i really wouldn't worry about it - the newest bit of both systems is the AVI preamp I have and that's from 1997 or thereabouts - oh yeah, I forgot the AVI Pro-Nines I swapped my N5's for - 2001 or thereabouts..

Yea but you spent a thousand years in the trade and you know how to get great sound..... I'm just an amateur. I've heard very few other systems.....

[hifi_dave]

Almost a thousand years..:rolleyes:

He used to demonstrate the virtues of 78's v wax cylinders when he was a lad:wheniwasaboy:..

[DSJR]

I was brung up on 78's I'll have you know :ner:


http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q8/DSJR_photos/decca20decalian88.jpg

[goraman]

I would suggest recapping the old stuff and having the pots cleaned and rebiased.

[bobbasrah]

+1
You have the gear already and it is paid for. Any additions or tweaks are your only additional outlay.

eg -I have a 20 year old Pioneer VSXD1S AV receiver, never a "fashionable" amp, and unavailable in the UK IIRC. This unit was semi-retired 2 years ago to the computer desk due to updated AV decoding requirements in the livingroom. The new amp seemed almost as good in stereo and handled DTS etc. flawlessly but the Pioneer still had the slimmest of edges in terms of stereo at that time. A year later I replaced the MA speakers with a DIY design for the new AV amp, and was happy with yet another improvement.
Just for the hell of it recently, I hauled through the D1S running to the TL's for the first time ever (dumb, I know). Even with the poor analogue out from my cheapo DAC to the D1S, it was stunning in performance and SQ, and markedly better than the new amp. Changing over to the DVD player on HQ analogue showed the same effect. Whether system synergy with the TLs is causing this I do not know. It was not a straightforward AB comparison due to re-connecting everything however, but it was quite dinstinct. Newer in this case is not necessarily better.
A re-cap and overhaul of the D1S is back on my to-do list as a result and it is not being sold.