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Amps from the 1980's -- What gear holds up sonically? Reliably?

Hi Everyone,

For me, the 1980s were a real "golden age" of amplifiers. Dr. Leach’s paper on building a low TIM amplifier had been widely distributed and relied on by budding designers, and lots of boutique brands came. It was also the era of the biggest of the Conrad Johsnon tube amps as well and the invention of the MOSFET.

For me, brands I cared about:

  • Threshold
  • Sumo
  • Perreaux (New Zealand, very pretty)
  • Tandberg
  • Hitachi
  • Kyocera
  • Nikko
  • Krell (of course)
  • CJ
  • ARC
  • Yamaha (professional)
  • Carver
  • Mark Levinson
  • Amber 
  • Tandberg
This was also the speaker era of Snell and Apogee and Martin Logan. I am not sure there would be a Krell today if it wasn't for Apogee's 1 ohm speakers.

I’m curious who is still listening to these vintage pieces, and which brands you think have stood up both in terms of reliability and / or sonics ?
erik_squires
sufentanil's avatar
sufentanil
782 posts
 
Erik,

You're not the only one who's going to get murdered in your sleep, as I have yet to find a McIntosh component that I liked the sound of.  And I find them hideously ugly.  

My intro into audio was as a young college student in the early 90's.  I liked electronics but the only thing I could afford were things at the local Pawn Shop.  I came home one day with an 80's vintage Sony amp that I found curiously had the letters "ES" printed on one corner.  I didn't know at the time exactly what that meant, but it sounded much better than anything else I had heard.

And the rest is history...

Michael
jafant's avatar
jafant
20,534 posts
 

Threshold

Krell

lenmc2964's avatar
lenmc2964
242 posts
 
A couple of 80's speakers I had Clarke System and JSE both were very good.
aolmrd1241
1,046 posts
 
sfall said..."Not if you had a coke problem."

New Coke,Classic or Diet ?   ;)

   
kennythekey
593 posts
 
What got me interested in many of the amps mentioned above, was GAS (Great American Sound) of the mid to late seventies. It was their Ampzilla that moved me from Sansui over to the higher end, where I would later discover Threshold and Mark Levinson. I could not afford either of these brands and wound up with that Carver cube. I paired that with a Counterpoint preamp (SA-?) and SOTA distributed Audioplan Kontrapunkt mini monitors. That really put me on the merry-go-round.
Kenny
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