Vintage Receivers vs. Modern MidFi

I've currently got in house a Luxman R1120A receiver driving a pair of a/d/s L1530's in the bedroom. Big sound from this old reciever! In my home office by the computer is a Yamaho CR-2040 with an a/d/s CD4 cd player (first generation!), Nakamichi 1000 tri-tracer cassette deck and an Akai GX747dbx reel deck. All this feeding a/d/s L9e 3 way speakers. One of my favorites to collect and sound great are the a/d/s atelier series components. All of them carry the same size, look and feel. Hard to find, but worth the trouble. I can't help myself, I'm a vintage junkie!

If you're going to go for a used Advent, I recommend trying before buying. I have a 15 year old one that I use in a 3rd system. As time has passed, the tuner section has had more of a tendency to drift and it takes about an hour of warm up for the tuner to be able to receive in stereo. Also, while the phono stage is ok, the linestage does not seem to match up well with cd players. Suggest you consider that many older receivers were designed before CD players became popular and the line stage sections may not match up well. There was a time when I used the Advent with a Hafler 120 amp as my second system. I replaced this combo with a NAD 710 receiver around 7 years ago which sounded a little better, had better FM reception and took up less space. The NAD also had a decent headphone amp, a rarity amoungst receivers. I did like the sound of the old Pioneer and Yamaha receivers that I owned in the 70's, but I would not trade the sound of my NAD for either of them.

As already said there were some very nice receivers made in the '70s. The Marantz' were my favorite line, especially the 2270 model which a buddy owned. Some have said that Sansui made good products which up to a point is true. BUT in the late '70s and early '80s they made some absolute JUNK! The store where I worked at the time carried their line. Even though they paid the highest commissions in the store, none of us sold Sansui because too many came back defective. In fact, almost ALL of them did! One customer insisted on buying the top of the line Sansui receiver even with the salesman discouraging him. He went through FIVE of them before finally giving up. I don't remember the model numbers involved, but if it has enough flashing lights to qualify for a disco dance floor, that's the ones to avoid.

Good point Joe_b. The last time I used the Advent in a system was in the mid 80's. I also did not use CD's as a source. When I jumped back into this hobby 3-4 months ago I pulled some old Quad solid state gear out of storage and thought I had it made. While properly stored for 15+ years it had developed an intermitent ffssssst sound at all volume levels. It sounded like some one was lighting one match after another across the room. I was told that the repair (rebuilding it with new parts) would cost more than I paid for the equipment. I traded the old gear (with full disclosure) for a painting and came out ahead, I think. I went with new gear for both reliability and sound, also to stay within my budget (repairs can be very costly). I purchased new Musical Fidelity X gear which with the right cable sounds a little like my old tube stuff, especialy in the midrange, but without the expense of maintenance. It is so odd looking that it will most likely become a classic in time. The integrated amp was only $500.00 (now discontinued but there is a new higher powered replacement) and I just located a pair of 50 watt monoblocks in Canada for around $800.00 shipped and taxed. The MF gear has a very distinctive sound Carter that is not for everyone, but if you are also looking for style, and are interested, you can view it at Audoadvisor.com. The new integrated is model X-A2 and is within your budget granted that you keep your current and highly praised tuner. Also, maybe start a thread on integrated amps for $600.00.

As the owner of several near mint Japanese receivers from the late '60s -mid '70s (I can't resist a very clean piece of old gear, even if I don't prefer it), I must respectfully disagree with comments asserting that they are sonically good equipment. I happen to have a mint SX1250 and it is beautifully built with a substantial power supply, a very good tuner, and excellent flexibility. But, sonically it is strident with a pervasive glare which makes listening for extended periods of time unpleasant. For passive listening it is fine. But I like sound reproduction to be relatively natural in effect and most receivers of that era just don't cut it. In fact, the earlier tubed receivers were sonically superior. Do some AB comparisons and I think that you'll agree.