Vintage Audio part 5 - Speakers

[William]

Originally Posted by djg

Positioning matters (for some speakers it's huge), but it has to work for your use of the room too, and sometimes you get your most bang-for-the-room-use compromise when you ameliorate placement issues, as you've done. You might also play with lateral placement a bit, but you might be even more constrained by the room there.

It seems you've sort of scored here -- if you have new (to you) speakers set up in a way that really have you and your wife immersed in listening to music you both love -- in a way you weren't with your old setup, then you've hit a home run. Enjoy.

I kind of stumbled my way into this but with the forum's advice and meeting an old audio engineer/vintage hi-fi repair guy and his recommendations I think we've ended up in a good place. Thank you!






William

[parris]

With all the audio threads that have been going for a while I've started to listen to my gear more again.

We reclaimed the basement family room which in addition to the big tv I've set up my main system so I can actually enjoy it a good amount. That has led me to want to listen to more music which is always a good thing .

Yesterday I did some cleaning out of the spare room on the main floor which lead me to putting another small system in it. This one's an old Yamaha CR-420 with a basic Yamaha CD player and the speakers are some mid 90's Infinity bookshelf models.

I've forgotten how much fun this stuff can be! Thanks for starting the threads !

[William]

Some equipment doesn’t play well together

Interesting turn of events illustrated this fact to me: My Marantz 2225 developed an issue with the left channel where it would intermittently go softer and then eventually stayed that way. In getting it repaired I was given an Onkyo TX-811 loaner to run in the meantime. This is for the system I run downstairs in the house and when I installed the Onkyo and fired it up I was greatly disappointed in the sound quality. It just sounded dead. The Marantz, and even my Harman Kardon amp sound sublime when paired with the VR-M90’s I run in this set up. The Onkyo was night and day different and not in a good way. I ran it through a couple of different sources and was greatly disappointed. I immediately disconnected it and grabbed the HK from the system I run upstairs and hooked it up…much better. For the heck of it I took the Onkyo upstairs and hooked it up to that system where I’m running a pair of Klipsch KSB 3.1’s. Expecting it to sound similar to what it did downstairs I was pleasantly surprised by what came out of the speakers. It actually sounded very good paired with the Klipsch speakers.

I have read about this but it’s not something I had experienced before in such a dramatic way. The reaction was immediate the moment sound started coming out of the speakers. As I said, night and day different.

Live and learn.



William

[William]

Btw, anyone running Carver preamp/power amps? Thoughts?







William

[Steve in SLO]

Hi William,
I got this stuff. I bought both tuner/preamp and power amp in 1990 as my first purchase after graduating from medical school. They powered my Polk SDA-1c speakers at your splitting levels for years. I had not used them for over 20 years and pulled them out a couple of weeks ago when I bought some Elacs. Everything is as good as I remembered. Just need to clean out the volume pot and all will be set.
I remember the amp having lots of headroom to drive my Polks, and they are pretty thirsty speakers. The sonic holography on the preamp is gimmicky to some, but it works amazingly well with the Elacs in my 14 x 17 living room. The feature may not stand up to critical listening, but it is kind of neat to sit there and listen to the soundstage jump out 2 feet past the speakers on each side.

[William]

Nice!

Re-enjoying the vintage units? I'm eye balling a couple of vintage reconditioned units right now.







William

[glepore]

I have a carver pre that's not being used- c1- yours for 100 plus shipping.

I've had m400's, 1.0t's, and currently have a thm25 that needs caps. They all need caps now. A guy on ebay has them. Lots of headroom with these. The THM's sound awesome, the other pretty much like any solid state amp. In that price range I'd also look at used Adcom GFA55's -a Nelson Pass design.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by William

Btw, anyone running Carver preamp/power amps? Thoughts?

Never heard their preamps, but I spent a lot of time with several different Carver power amps: A 400T, a couple of 1.5Ts, and four 36-space racks full of PM-1.5Ts.

Yes they have tons of power in a wonderfully light, compact package, and plenty of dynamic headroom... but either their damping factor or their slew rate (or both) are conspicuously underwhelming to the point where their ability to translate low-frequency transients suffers. In the vernacular: They sound slow/soft.

[Jeff N.]

I once owned a Carver "The Receiver". I found it to be lacking on the low end (bass). Very flat. Same with anything by Phase Linear which, I believe, was Carver-esque. They sure all look nice though.

[glepore]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

four 36-space racks full of PM-1.5Ts.

Uhh, didn't take you for the Metallica soundboard guy type, but whadda I know.

[glepore]

Originally Posted by Jeff N.

I once owned a Carver "The Receiver". I found it to be lacking on the low end (bass). Very flat. Same with anything by Phase Linear which, I believe, was Carver-esque. They sure all look nice though.

Yes, see Bob's post above. The THM amps were better at this. They're actually ok sounding. All Bob's stuff lacks warmth though, at least his ss stuff. I mean even more than most ss stuff already does.

[William]

I don't know what you folks are talking about, I just picked up a refurbished and upgraded M500T and it sounds good to me. A little different than my Marantz and HK but not in a bad way...and way more power to play with. Pair up well with the VR-M90 reference speakers.


Oh well, the journey continues.






William

[marsh]

1 year plus in the new house and I'm ready to set up my system again.
My old speakers didn't make the move, so I need to pick something up.
I have a basic setup - vintage Pioneer receiver and turntable.
Are any of these worth a darn? This is for the garage shop, so I don't want to spend too much. I also want some good clear bass, will I need to get a subwoofer too? The receiver has bass boost, but it always sounded muddled
(maybe it was my old speakers).

Infinity

Advent Legacy

JBL

[djg]

Originally Posted by marsh

1 year plus in the new house and I'm ready to set up my system again.
My old speakers didn't make the move, so I need to pick something up.
I have a basic setup - vintage Pioneer receiver and turntable.
Are any of these worth a darn? This is for the garage shop, so I don't want to spend too much. I also want some good clear bass, will I need to get a subwoofer too? The receiver has bass boost, but it always sounded muddled
(maybe it was my old speakers).

Infinity

Advent Legacy

JBL

Things that work, work -- if you like them in the context in which you intend to use them, you can run with them, either making changes later or not. Pioneer made a wide range of electronics over quite a few years -- I'm no authority on the ins-and-outs. If the receiver is working fine, I'd just ignore the base boost switch and run without it. I don't recall anything about their old tables. Is it running well (and quiet)? Is the cartridge in good shape?

Speakers of that vintage might be fine and dandy, or damaged or degraded. For a garage system, any of those three pairs might be fine if they are in good condition. The first two advertise recent repairs, at least to the surrounds, which might be pretty welcome if they were done correctly (not rocket surgery). If the sellers can have them hooked up, and will let you listen to them, you can judge whether you like them, and what you think of the low end. There are some surprisingly decent new bookshelf speakers at low prices these days, but not for 60 bucks, so . . .

[C40_guy]

Speaking of vintage speakers, I have a couple of sets of vintage ADS speakers that aren't being used anymore. I think they're model 520 and 400, if I remember correctly...

If you are within driving distance of Cape Cod (Massachusetts) and are interested, let me know via PM and I can provide details. Would prefer not to deal with Craigslist for these, so happy to work with a forum listener...