How much has hifi gear *really* progressed lately?

I've been thinking about this more and more lately. How much has it really progressed, are we just paying for the same products in new packaging, or worse, are we actually ending up with products that dont quite have the magic of old ones. The budget end of the hifi game is the one I'm most interested in, for the simple reason that in theory, the technology that was once expensive filters down to low cost components. One such example of this, is in some cases, DAC technology. A soundcard with the AK4395 DAC would have costed about £500+ a few years ago, now you can get one for £70.

However, that does not seem to hold true for everything. In fact the above example, if anything, seems to be one of the exceptions.

If things genuinely have not progressed that much, then surely its a great time to be involved in hifi. After all, these old products can be bought for less than the new ones, sometimes the only price we have to pay is uglier looks, but then for some people, that doesnt really matter either (for myself, I dont have a wife to beg).

On that note, in just over a weeks time, I will have a Pioneer A400 to compare directly to my modern amp, the Rotel RA-01. I have heard this amp before, even with the same speakers / source, but never in the same room as the Rotel.

My system is an interesting mix of old and new....
Rotel RA-01 and EMU 0404 are fairly new. Rega Ela Mk1's are probably well over 10 years old. My Beyerdynamic DT531's are likely to be over 10 years old in design. Modern incorporations of those designs (Ela 2000's and DT440's) are said to have lost some of their magic according to some people.....

What do you all think?

 

My CD player is a 1996/97 Rotel 970BX and it sounds more musical than an Arcam Alpha 7SE. I've just purchased a NOS-DAC for it, should be interesting to hear the difference.

 

I know my Pre amp I bought from Rory for £15 would have cost at least £200 in 1989, it sounds great as well, the phono stage on that must be at least on par with a £40 project pre amp.

My sister has a largely 1970's system and basicaly stuff which was given to us before it went in the bin, its pretty amazing sounding stuff for its age.

 

Paul, I think you may be underwhelmed by the A400. I've got one of the later ones in a shed, and it's nothing special. The early ones were compared to valve amps, class A stuff, etc. All warm mid and sweet treble, but never a 3 legged man in an ass kicking competition. Worth a try for an experiment tho..

 

vintage hi fi

I am always amazed how good some vintage components sound. Try a pair of LS3/5a speakers with a Leak Stereo 20 EL84 valve amp, the sound is very enjoyable, although it lacks the dynamics and resolution of modern stuff. To name a few other vintage components which still sound great nowadays: Spendor BC1, Quad ESL57, Leak TL12.1, Sugden A21, Lowther speakers, big corner Tannoy with silver or red drivers.....

Regards
Hon

 

I get great enjoyment from listening to acoustic music / classic FM on my quad 33/303 (although the 303 has a net audio power supply mod) - it's a match for a lot of mid priced modern gear. I guess there has been a lot of development in digital electronics but many older amps can hold there own - DPA 50S for example.

It's interesting to note that my valve amp is "old technology". At a guess I feel modern gear has made bass "slam/thwack" more accessible, perhaps at the expense of the big "breathy" bass that older gear with large diameter efficient drivers produce?

Neil

 

I managed to get a hold of this amp today rather than a few weeks.

First I stopped at my mates and plugged my Rotel into his system. Being virtually the same as mine but in a different room, it all definitely sounds different. The Rotel seems to have a warmer sound, with a lot more bass, and seems to be slightly less bright, but to my surprise, the Rotel also seems to have more detail. In his system and room, I have to say my initial impression is I preferred the Rotel, but it would be rude to back out of a deal now, so I have this A400 here on loan, and am now trying it through the headphone socket into the Beyers. I'm not 100% sure yet, but I think at least the A400's headphone output might be slightly better sounding than the Rotel's, but I'll have to come back on that one. Only problem is it hisses quite loudly through the headphone socket, which spoils any quiet parts of the song. A shame, because it makes quite a passable attempt otherwise.

 

paul,
at the time of the a400 release it was untouchable at the price (about £230?) but didnt work well with everything. ive had several of them, revisiting old habbits now and then and am still impressed with what it can do. albeit limited compared to better engineered units.
as for older hifi, ive just thought about it and i havnt got anything newer than 10 years old except for cables. on the budget scale i feel that things are built down to a price instead of up to a standard. there have been exceptions though. the rotel 965 of old which was a budget cd at the time managed to house a good deal of blackgate caps and a solid construction. sounded great with the a400 too but on comparison with a similar age meridian it sounded awfull. i think yesterdays decent stuff (meridian/ dnm/ marantz etc are the smart buys these days (imho)
its all well that the rotel recovers more information than the pioneer but,
a system only goes so far before you start listening to the components rather than the music and systems that are to analytical rarely do older recordings justice (again imho)
rick.

 

Hi Rick,

Thanks for your thoughts. Even though the Rotel sounded more detailed, the Pioneer still sounded colder and more sterile to my ears, and its probably the Rotel that I'd enjoy listening to on a longer term, as it just sounds a bit nicer to me. I'll see if I feel different in a week, but I'm doubting it personally.

Cheers

 

I've still got an ancient Musical Fidelity B200 integrated in my 2nd system. I don't think I could get much better for less than about £500 now..
And my main system still has Ditton 66/2s from about 1979 - I haven't found anything I'd want over them up to at least £4k, and in some cases well above that..

 

Of course things have changed out of all recognition in the past few years. I mean, you can now get THE WORLDS BEST LOUDSPEAKER!

 

I had a meridian 206 delta sigma with a trichord clock for about 8 years from new (£1k) which was rather nice, someone offered me quite a few £££'s so I took the money and bought the Roksan caspian cd (also £1k) to match my amps, it was so well reviewed and I expected the synergy but to my horror it was no where near the Meridian in any way (I still had the 206 for comparison). I took it back and the search for a new cdp started, it was ages and £2.5k later that I found a big improvement over the meridian with the copland.
But it works the other way I wouldnt go back to an audiolab or tannoy 611's and definately NOT TOGETHER

 

I bought a pair of Spendor BC1's today (the three unit version).

They might lack a little bit at the bottom end, but they are dam fine everywhere else and they work fantastic in my small room.

I have three other pairs of speakers all much more expensive models, maybe upto 10 - 12 times times more than what I guess a new BC1 would cost today, but the Spendors sound the best, by a fair margin.

Ken

 

I think things have progressed a long way, look at the new speaker cab designs around atm, wouldn't have been possible a few years ago. Vinyl has progressed alot lately and digital has come on leaps and bounds. Class T amps are a big progression. Tube and SS amps haven't changed much but why should they?
Things have progressed but that doesn't mean all older gear is suddenly for the bin and it also doesn't mean that everything new is going to completely surpass older kit.

 

i agree that amps havent changed much... i mean of all the amps ive used they were all pretty similar in most ways... im sure my audiolab 8000M monoblocks and Q pre amp are pretty much the same as anything being chucked out today... for example the roksan pre/mono combination.. which costs about the same now as the audiolab combo did in 1997 and in my opinion doesnt sound nearly as good.

wheres the progress there

speaker cabinets and drivers are coming on in leaps and bounds though.. and things like digital active crossovers and DAC's are getting pretty special.

 

well I have owned MANY hifi items, cheap expensive, some just to try out, I have had the full range of cheap jap stuff to compare, and naim, other quality brit stuff, too.
Many speakers, and valve amps.

What I have found is this, the simpler the circuit, usually the more musical, electronic elaboration to attain better measured performance usually saps sound life, and makes it clinical.

that's partly why valves are more natural, they also can be prone to bloom in the bass in preamps, and also due to output transformers in power amps.
they also have lots of problems like hum, microphonics, wear out and stuff.

Thats' also why simple brit amps like naim sound so much more engaging.

i have also read much on amp and speaker design, here are some more thoughts...

Solid stage Power amp design, class A and B hasn't really changed much in 30 yrs, indeed, the naim circuit is 35 yrs old.

I don't know much about hi power class G and H output stages, nor about class D or class T.

what has changed is semiconductor design(transistors and opamps), they are better, much better, nowadays and will continue to improve.

What could be a problem in older amps when comparing to new ones is ageing of components, which can make an itme more mellow, also with old valve amps, materials like resistors and caps were a bit more 'natural' than plastics and metals, so again ,natural parts give better sound.
Ageing can also make things dull.

Just my tuppence.

I have an a400 its quite good, bit ploddy in the bass, and not too much treble, similar traits to valve amps which is probably why it has been compared.

Speakers? again its cone materials that have changed much, it just used to be paper and bextrene, now you get allsorts, but remember, again here the newer the material, the more clinical and less musical. imo. hence carbon and metals.

 

True, mine will be back from Quad Musikwiedergabe in Koblenz in a week or two

 

The difference between HIFI from 1995 and 2005? The cases are now silver and the LEDs are now blue.

Much of the change seems to be cheaper manufacturing processes so HIFI now costs less, as for sound I think some of the budget stuff sounds better, but thats probably only becuase it can be made cheaper.

I can believe that budget CD players sound better, but I am not convinced speakers or amps sound better at all.My sisters system is from the late 70's and still sounds very good even though its from a skip and has probably never been serviced.

 

Quad ESL57?

Tones

Are you waiting for some Quad ESL57 being refurbished by Quad GmbH? I had a pair in the past, absolutely superb speakers. I only listened to them for less than 10 hours because they were too big for my room. Then I stored them in my bedroom for a long time until my real sense told me to sell them.

I always said that £400 I spent to listen to those electrostatic magic for those 10 hours was well spent and I got every penny back when I sold them. Driven by a nice vintage valve amp like a pair of Quad II or a Leak Stereo 20, they make beautiful sound that can't be reproduced by many modern components. Recently I was really tempted to buy a pair refurbished by One Thing but I just don't have the room for them.

If there were only one pair of speakers I could keep, they would be the one. Long live the old ESL.

Hon

 

What confounds me is how companies like Bose or B&O, who've been around decades, still can't make products that aren't crap!

Bob