Regarding old school amps...

[george graves]

Are old school amps better value that was being made today? I'm almost worried that the noise floor on an old amp would be much higher see as the major source material was hissy as hell cassette tape.

What your take Luke - good value? No? Yes?

[StereoInstaller1]

Both? odd that you should point a finger at S/N ratio, that really is the only spec that seems to be far worse on todays Chinese amps

[harv]

Hiss

I think he's thinking that since there was a lot more hiss in the old days from tape that maybe the amps had more hiss to begin with.

Man Led Zepplin recordings suck!

Old is better than new.

John

[Schnitzer318is]

Old is better than new.

John

Always been my philosophy... but I do run some newish Performance Teknique amps now. Been really happy with them, but if I can find a Kenwood X401 to match my X501 I'll run those instead.

[StereoInstaller1]

I have a small collection of old school glory. I have a couple of Orion XTRs, a couple 250HCCAs, all the damn signal processors you might ever want, too.

I also have 3 old H/K CA260s and 2 of their 24db/oct crossovers

I also have a pile of Audiocontrol, like EQ-X, EQ-L, and even an EQQ, plus a Four.1

Like many of you , I want the old stuff to be better.

I installed my 3 beloved HK amps in my E30. 1 of them on the XP 12 SVC 4 ohm woofer, 1 on a pair of the XP mids and 1 on a pair of XP tweeters.

What a dissapointment.

Was not the clean, smooth, elegant thing I remembered...was instead basically really really "musical" but with no depth, no clarity, no detail. My chinese made Exile amps kicked the crap out of them, easily, and for 1/3rd the price.

I refuse to believe anyone would prefer the old school amps over mid-level hifi today.

Even James' all ADS system, which does sound excellent, would be massively better with modern amps. I so wish the old school were better...but it ain't.

Luke

[bryant.cw]

My old school Xtants (90's, not early 80's stuff) smoked our audison LRx, JL audio, and alpine top end model (forget name) amps we had on our demo board at the car stereo shop I used to work for.

Source was clarion DRZ-9255, speakers were Focals or Polk SR (top end, near $1k). I brought in my amps, Xtant 2140c, 60wpc, and hooked them up. We could do A/B switching and everyone there agreed they sounded better.

I like old school hi-fi, but alot of the brands like USamps and such seemed destined for the high SPL stuff back in the day. I LOVED my xtants.

You can still find them on ebay and craigslist, if you search craigzoom. They had a lot of flexible stuff, like 2,3,4,5 channel amps etc. 2140c, 4180c, 404m etc are all great amps. This was cost no object, matched mosfet stuff. The C series had forced air cooling so they are good mounted upside down etc.

Have fun!

[StereoInstaller1]

With Xtant, I would agree...real Xtant though, before the passion got diluted by lack of sales.

[StereoInstaller1]

I so wanna hear what the new chinese made Crown amps sound like (home stuff) they are supposed to be excellent, better than any of the old US made amps ever were.

I know I really miss my SAE amp...best of the 70s, IMO. Better than almost anything.

[bryant.cw]

Yes, I believe anything with X in the model number, or hexagonal holes in the shiny chrome amp covers was after MTX bought them. They supposedly sound good, but I wouldn't buy one. The OP would want to get the amps with square holes in the covers. One peek under the hood on the old stuff shows the quality. Very warm and musical, but plenty of detail. You need a good source I'm sure.

I was running them with active XO's and time align from my clarion DRZ-9255 to bi amp my polk audio SR's. They sounded amazing. I could listen for hours with no fatigue.

I am thinking of sealing my doors up and cutting the door cards to drop in some 6"s up front, no sub. Having so much trouble with bass in my cabrio. I don't think my 5"s in the factory locations really go below 80 or 90hz. It is so little of the signal, but it sounds like I'm missing half the music.

[StereoInstaller1]

verts are such a pain.

9255 to those Xtants should have been pretty sweet!

[318Joe]

What a dissapointment.

Was not the clean, smooth, elegant thing I remembered...was instead basically really really "musical" but with no depth, no clarity, no detail. My chinese made Exile amps kicked the crap out of them, easily, and for 1/3rd the price.

I refuse to believe anyone would prefer the old school amps over mid-level hifi today.

Even James' all ADS system, which does sound excellent, would be massively better with modern amps. I so wish the old school were better...but it ain't.

Luke

Thanks a lot. I have some old school stuff I have picked up over the years, for use in the "good" car once I could afford it. It was all stuff that was unobtanium back in the day, as a young lad.

I suppose your post could dampen the expectations enough to make the old stuff not sound too bad...

You sure it wasn't the 20 yr old components that needed refreshing?

[Mless5]

never understood the boner over a/d/s/...