In praise of older hi-fi

Possibly some accurate ones maybe Steve?, any ideas

 

Hmmm, this has got me stumped. Seventh Veil?

They say that speakers from the 'All Tones Corrupted' speaker company are accurate.

 

Now Steve, your just be dellusional, must be something like B+W 801 nats?, maybe Wilson Watt Puppies?, or maybe James has been keeping secret from us he owns Harbeths rebadged?, got me in lather just thinking about

 

You see James it goes like this.

Buff " I've got ATC's, I find them so natural. They simply tell it as it is!"

Salesman " Oh I agree Sir, nice speakers BTW, which model have you got?"

Buff " The 100ASL's although I have them supported on Mana scaffolds"

Salesman " Oh sir, you don't do things in halves Sir do you!! Fantastic! I agree, most of our clients don't apreciate just what fine speakers ATC's are Sir. They don't recognise true transparency when they hear it Sir! In fact most domestic speakers have a tilited up frequency response to give the impression of more detail. Quality speakers like your ATC's dont need that Sir!"

Buff" What a pleasure to meet a really knowledgeable dealer! Nice not to get all that usual salesman BS as well I must say!"

Salesman " I agree, too many shops these days will tell you anything just to try and get some of your money! Sad sir but true! Now has sir tried the new ATC Preamp? If you like the 100's you simply must have one of................"

I can't think of any other reason why the idiot concerned would have fed you such a pile of crap James, can you?

 

Merlin, I'm afarid it was the Great JW himself , who ditched the ATC's for Briks (with stealth amps no less), then for some totaly unexplicable reason, he lost the Stealth contract. can't think why

 

Wow! I didn't realise james had had an audience with the chief scaffolder himself. That would explain a lot I guess, James having clearly been intoxicated by the poisonous words of the white wizard of Angle.

So let me get this straight Tone. you are saying that this so called Guru "upgraded" from an ATC monitor to one of the most musically offensive creations of the 20th century (rivalling the Soundburger and Axel F).

And this guy is supposed to know what a rack should sound like

 

Don't you mean the White Wizard of Angle-sey?

 

It is a pity that hif-fi press ignore components that are no longer made.

A rare exception is the Pioneer A400 amplifier.
It was placed at number 6 in 25 Best Ever Hi-Fi Components in Hi-Fi Choice couple of months ago.

More details and links of this no-nonsense audiophile amp is at
http://www.gbaudio.co.uk/data/a400.htm

Tom Evans claims that his modified versions A400 GTE and A300R Precision sound better than amps costing £2000 !!!

Any views on how these amps compare with those made today?

 

Bm, we have here a 400 GTE (Both evans modded and your fave guy, R/A, did the trip and schokky diode & kimber rewire trick) not bad, we paid £140 for it, spent £40 on it tuned it into a half about little test bed, they do respond to decent power calbes too, not just ours either Wm

 

WM, that is good to know

I have had a couple of A400s and a A400GTE in the past and now a A300R/Precision with 'full upgrade' by TE. It is claimed to run more in Class A.

As you say, they all respond well to a decent power cable. I used a 1.5 mm csa double shielded cable, hard wired.

TE still offer a 'full monty' upgrade for the A300R/P. But at a whopping £500.

Chassis of the A300s are not as substantially built as the A400s. So generous application of damping pads help.

Only 35W on paper. But even with 14dB attenuators for CDP input, I hardly ever had to use the volume control at over 12 o'clock. And no lack of headroom with a pair of Mission 753s they are hooked up to.

May be because they are so old, I often wonder how they compare with the latest tecnology

 

Bm, not so bad at all, this one is pretty down the wire & matter of fact (what we are looking for in a test cell), a bit dry & monocromatic, Grey ???,(a lot less than the stock version), but has drive and detail too, power is ok too, (not that we needs lots in the fun room)
Timpy's densens B100 beat 60w intergrated, is a fair bit better, but the Pioneer doesn't digrace it's self, and makes a fair amplifier for nice price. Wm

 

its the old word again, satans meaning of what he understands as accurate.

certainly what the rising treble response is complete nonsense.

Some companies do have a rising treble. Proac, and the more famous british voiced.

But others have a slightly falling treble, to avoid spit and bright budget and japanese components.

 

Trouble with the A400's might be (although this might just be me reiterating a spurious rumour) is that they were not all created equal. Something to do with parts supply. Although I've seen and heard a few and they are ertainly basically the same in stock form.

But who want's to listen to anything in stock form, far better to get in there and perform the performance changes the manufacturers can't justify....

Certianly ours is better then the stock items I've had through (before it was all a job and I had time to play ). Whether that's what we've done or not I don't know, or whether being a RA'd GTE it was better than a stock one before WM's paws got hold of it I can't say. Having seen the evolution of it, I'd say it was a bit of both. It's easily the best one I've heard now. Certainly power leads help it alot too, so the original captive lead must go, whether the things otherwise stock or not.

They are a bit special, although the overall build and fit and finish of them is nothing to write home about, and I never bought into Pioneer's whole honeycomb thing either, but there's no denying the things work, and are far better today at the FE'er leanings of sound and music than anything I can find comparable today. I suppose the Rega amps are their now closest competitor, but I'd have "our" A400 everytime. They are fun, and they really boogie, and with ours, we've managed to increse drive and all the things it was good at, as well as introducing the thing I always moaned about them not having; Colour and Tonal Contrast. It's been un-greyed a bit!.

Cheers

 

Chimps,

I asked the guy if he had an explanation why vinyl noise was less pronounced via the ATCs vs my previous amps & speakers. That was it. Don't argue with me, the words are someone else's - I thought I'd made that fairly clear. The guy was actually a bit miffed he'd lost the sale.

All Tones Corrupted - lol.

 

I have read in magazine reviews that the later 400X and 300X versions were not as good as the originals because the original parts supplies dried up. There was nothing to choose between the two A400s I had in standard from. Did WM do additional mods to his A400 GTE/RA ? Would like to know the details.

Now this BIG question to all ye experts!
Which amps will be a worthwhile replacement to an A400 GTE or a TE A300 R Precision? Or is the money better spent on replacing my midly tweaked Marantz CD-67SE/CA Dacmagic 3 or Mission 753s speakers?

 

Source first is my motto. Whats the budget?

 

Very poor elephant description

Julian, with the greatest respect, your description of this most magnificent of beasts leaves a lot to be desired. I am a big fan of this creature, and I have to say, even to an elephant aficionado like myself, your description could apply equally to an aardvark or indeed any number of other mammals . It relies far too heavily on our knowledge of elephants and makes no mention of their social habits, diet & general disposition.

Try describing one to someone who had never encountered this pachyderm.

 

Hopefully not all...

 

james,
my post was not intended to be a full description of an elephant rather a demonstration that the words that one would use to describe one held the same meaning for everyone (with certain exceptions of course). this does not seem to hold true for audio. if i was to try to describe an elephant to an inteligent bat who 'saw' through sonar then vocabulary would be a great problem. however if i was to describe an elephant to someone with the same cultural and linguistic references as myself but who had never seen an elephant before and then took them round woburn safari park as a kind of ID parade i'm confident that i could describe said pachyderm well enough to be picked out.
cheers

julian