You forgot the Audio Research D150 and D75 around that time, late 70's. I ran a high end hi fi store. We had Ampzilla's (nicer sounding than the Flame Linear) and BGW's (too harsh) or the Crowns (REALLY harsh). SAE was around then too, had some cost effective stuff that competed with the Crowns and Phase Linears well. Nothing sounded better than the Audio Research in my store. I had Magnaplanars, Dahlquist DQ10s, KEF104's (my favorite of the day) and DCM Time Windows all in my high end room. An Audio Research SP3A hooked to a AR D150 amp to a KEF104 was the best we had.....Nice Micro Seiki turntable with a Grace tonearm and a Dynavector cartridge.....
How do we remember 1970s amplifiers?
I would be curious to hear some of the memories and impressions associated with the following short list of 1970s amplifiers:
- McIntosh "first generation" SS amps, MC2105, MC2505, MC2300, MC250, MC2100
- Dynaco Stereo 400 and Stereo 120
- Phase Linear 400 and 700
- Bang & Olufsen "slide rule" receivers (i.e. especially blackface Beomaster 4000)
- Original Ampzilla (not Son of Ampzilla)
I've chosen this list mainly because they cover a wide range of approaches to solving the issues of early semiconductor technology, and they were all pretty mainstream products in the U.S. I'm excluding the Japanese receivers/amps not out of predjudice; it's simply that the circuit designs varied quite a bit with each model, and thus harder to broadly classify their characteristics.
I'm interested in impressions of both sonic and non-sonic attributes, and a preferred ranking of the above, if you like.
- McIntosh "first generation" SS amps, MC2105, MC2505, MC2300, MC250, MC2100
- Dynaco Stereo 400 and Stereo 120
- Phase Linear 400 and 700
- Bang & Olufsen "slide rule" receivers (i.e. especially blackface Beomaster 4000)
- Original Ampzilla (not Son of Ampzilla)
I've chosen this list mainly because they cover a wide range of approaches to solving the issues of early semiconductor technology, and they were all pretty mainstream products in the U.S. I'm excluding the Japanese receivers/amps not out of predjudice; it's simply that the circuit designs varied quite a bit with each model, and thus harder to broadly classify their characteristics.
I'm interested in impressions of both sonic and non-sonic attributes, and a preferred ranking of the above, if you like.
- ...
- 80 posts total
- 80 posts total