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I’m sorting a vinyl set up for my lad for his 21st.
Would a cheap modern amp (Fosi £100 jobbie) be better than a vintage one, say Akai or Technics 1980’s?
I’ve got my eye on a turntable for him and I have speakers.
The vintage ones also tend to have built in phono stage which makes them pretty decent value, and many look great. Love the mid C style of them.
I like the 'vintage' ones.. Only real problem is they are quite big and heavy compared to some of the modern compact class D amps...
And I do like the retro look of the steel/silver fronts with proper knobs and switches.
So personally I wouldn't hesitate to go retro if you want... I wouldn't really know what's good value though as you might end up paying 'scene tax' if you're not careful! 😉
From memory these things have a finite life as the capacitors dry out. Something like 30 years
The modern one will be more reliable. But if the old one works then it might appeal for its vintage looks, 'worn in' sound, and built in phono stage.
HiFi folks will recommend a separate phono pre-amp. I bought one when I got a new turntable the other year. I can't tell the difference between the separate phono pre-amp and the one built into one of our amps. YMMV.
Cool, yeah pretty much my thoughts. I prefer the look of the old stuff but maybe a new one would be less hassle. What does class ‘D’ signify. Also the modern amps are so small- I guess they don’t get so hot?
Does he want one, or do you want him to have one?
From memory these things have a finite life as the capacitors dry out. Something like 30 years
"Capacitor plague" is a thing (google it, it's an astonishing story), but through-mount caps on old hardware are readily replaceable.
I’m sorting a vinyl set up for my lad for his 21st.
Would a cheap modern amp (Fosi £100 jobbie) be better than a vintage one, say Akai or Technics 1980’s?I’ve got my eye on a turntable for him and I have speakers.
The vintage ones also tend to have built in phono stage which makes them pretty decent value, and many look great. Love the mid C style of them.
What speakers are you looking at regarding the ohm’s/sensitivity rating?, and what turntable is it?.
Nowt wrong with Fosi stuff, their £100 phono pre amp is excellent and their class D amps are decent as well.
But I’d be tempted to go Wiim Amp Pro as it offers streaming/peq options and app accessibility through phone
I bought a mates kid the Wiim Ultra, Kanto Ora active monitors/Kanto Sub8 and Audio Technica AT-LP70xBT turntable for Xmas and the Wiim stuff is excellent in use
https://www.wiimhome.com/wiimamp/overview
I do like the new modern small ones.. I have a tangent ampster BT2...
But if your DJ'ing.. I'm not sure it would have the raw grunt?
I did this for my daughter last Christmas, got a nice wee Denon pma 250 iii on gumtree and a new Project primary E from Richer Sounds. Also got some Tannoy Mercury's on Gumtree which I swapped for the KEF Crestas in my system as the Tannoys were a bit big for her room. It sounds great, she was listening to some Aretha Franklin and Amy Winehouse on it today.
He does actually want it- I checked.
The TT I’m looking at is a Technics on marketplace, not an SL1210 obvs, but a cheaper one.
I’m not sure what the speakers are, but I think my old ones are at my mums, some shelf speakers, mission I think, they would have been about £100, 35 years ago.
Class D is a digital amp. IRL no one should care about ‘class A’, ‘class B’, ‘class AA’, ‘Class AB’ or whatever. They’re, well some are, valid engineering terms but for regular folks the questions should be: does it go loud enough; is its distortion unnoticeable; and can I keep it cool enough? Class D has all of those at a fair price. Audiophiles are likely to spend £10,000s on fancy Class A amps with valves and wotnot because they can.
https://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplifier/amplifier-classes
Class D is a digital amp.
Nope - it does not stand for digital, the reason "D" was chosen is merely down to naming nomenclature, class d uses what is known as Pulse Width Modulation PWM to switch transistors on/off to create a waveform that represents a signal which is then filtered.
(did electronics/mech engineering at uni)
Yeah all amps are technically digital unless they are tube amps.
Yeah all amps are technically digital unless they are tube amps.
How is that then?
If your mission speakers are 30 + years old/cost £100ish then I guess they’ll be the 760 or 780 versions, the ferrofluid in the tweeters will have dried out by now which will cause the tweeter voice coil to seize leading to very off putting audio. The rubber surrounds on the main cone will also be knackered as will the caps in the crossover which may lead to an impedance rise which could damage the amp
They sounded pretty ropey 30 odd years ago and will sound even worse now, sorry to break it to you.
Is the technics turntable a SL1500?, the capacitors on these are a weak point and will need replacing, good turntables once set up correctly but repairs can be costly.
A Rotel amp would be my suggestion. They came on the market in the early 80’s, when I was working Saturdays in a local HiFi shop. They upended the consumer audio market by introducing a simple amp with a big, hefty power supply and transformer, no fancy things like EQ, balance carried out by a split volume control. An RA820 would be the perfect thing to use with a quality turntable.
https://www.retrotechaudio.co.uk/rotel-ra820ax.html
Lots on eBay for around £70-ish.
I'm far from a 'boffin', but I suppose I am a 'casual audiophile'. In that I like a decent sounding system to play music on. I've listened to an awful lot of hi-fi equipment over the years, some of it actually awful. But I have found that older, more basic amplifiers produce a better sound given the same source, than some modern equipment. For reference, I have an Audiolab 8000A, fed by a Marantz 67SE CD player and a Bluesound Node digital streamer, into a pair of Focal Aria 906 speakers. So pretty much at the lower end of the 'proper hi-fi' spectrum, but more than adequate for home listening, and excellent across a wide range of music.
At lower budgets, say a couple of hundred quid or so, an older type amplifier will probably produce better sound than some of the new stuff; a s/h Cambridge Audio or NAD for eg is going to be a bit better than an Amazon special, but really what matters is where you'll play it all. The average living room probably isn't the most clinical listening environment, so it's really not worth going mad. As mentioned, Class D doesn't actually mean 'digital', as amplifiers are all about producing an analogue output, but they can accept a digital input without the need for any digital to analogue conversion. At the cheaper end, the internal electronics will be compromised somewhat, hence my recommendation for an old analogue amp. I've yet to hear a £100 Class D amp sound as good as most older 'decent' amps, especially when pushed a bit. If you like your music loud, then power (RMS) is important; 20W will be ok for general listening in a smallish room, but 40W+ will give you more sound in any larger space. 60W is about all you need for really shaking the house, unless you live in a mansion. More power will theoretically give you potential for greater dynamic range; the difference between the quietest and loudest sounds, and it is much better to run say a 60W amp at a quarter way round the dial, than a 30W amp at 3/4 the way round. But power is nothing without control, and the better amps control this much better. More money normally buys better quality electronic components, so you can theoretically have a 30W amp producing a better sound than a 60W one at the same volume level. But it is a minefield especially for the newcomer, and in my experience, not really worth worrying about too much. Unless you have a specially designed and constructed listening environment, then it's really not worth wasting many thousands of pounds; spend it on other things that bring you joy instead.
Class D and a phono stage would be my choice. From a Music Fidelity A1 and Quad 303 owner. The Fosi sits on my desk and is excellent with a Cambridge DAC. Just use a small phono amp in place of the DAC. And some classic speakers. I have Rogers JR49’s.
NAD 302 was renowned for its high quality phono stage, and could be had for £99 when I looked on ebay a couple of years ago.
(Goes well with Mission 771 speakers)
Thanks for the great replies.
the turntable is a sL-bd22 Technics, about £40 with a new belt.
it seems the ‘cheap but not shit’ new equipment route may be less risky.
The electrolytic caps drying out is a real pain with older amps (and other electronics) but they are replaceable. Also speaker suspension can stiffen with age and glue eventually fails (but that's far more of a high power issue). Class D isn't digital!
If there's a easy way of adjusting the volume (and switching sources if required), active speakers solve a lot of issues.
All the usual suspects were great in their day all my Rotel, Arcam/A&R Cambridge all eventually packed in but Marantz is quality stuff that lasts
My two Cd players from '91 and '93 still play perfect and my current set up is a Marantz amp maybe 10 year old with my Aegis speakers can blast out loud and great
The Rega Planer 3 like the set up too, they are all pals together, forgot to add my Chromecast for Spotify works perfect
cgg, I hadn’t really thought about active speakers. Richer Sounds do some for less than £200 and interestingly this turntable which has the pre amp already for the same price as most preamp s.
https://www.richersounds.com/audio-technica-lp60x-black/
This set up should be fine for uni house duties, and if he wants to upgrade later when he’s earning that’s fine.