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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
timlub
2,039 posts
 
I have to say, that my old Sumo Nine took on all comers in my system,  I've had some very well respected amps in there... to be fair,  my old Sumo was hardly a Sumo any more,  it had a radically superior part upgrades throughout...  from the power supply to the boards to the wiring.. So probably not fair... It is getting upgraded again this minute with Newer, higher voltage, higher mfd and lower esr supply caps now as well as a minor circuit change with all new Higher quality output transistors.  I'm excited to get it back.  I've always been told that the 2SC1831 could not be replaced.
timlub
2,039 posts
 
I just came across an old PS Audio 200C,  I immediately thought of this thread,  wondered why I didn't think of it sooner,  then the PS Delta series came to mind,  the Delta 100, Delta 200 and 250 Delta mono blocks.
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Wow thats a tough one ill get back to you on that.
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rokacafe2007
2 posts
 
Berning amp with Keith Herron preamp, still working strong for many years..
lou_setriodes's avatar
lou_setriodes
681 posts
 
Great thread Erik! I was 20 years old in 1980, so the 80s gear was my intro into high end gear having owned a Mitsubishi DA-R8 rec’r & B&O RX tt in the early 80s to owning a B&K ST-140,  Music Reference RM5 pre & Rega Planar 3 by the end of the 80s.

i also had a TAS & Stereophile subscription back then and several issues of HiFi Heretic & other defunct magazines as well, so I ended up reading about a whole lot of gear that I never got a chance to hear.

Currently, I’m thoroughly enjoying a Tandberg TIA 3012 integrated, (and Erik, as you mentioned earlier in a post), it is a deep, rich sound as compared to my aural memory of the B&K ST-140 sound, more like the higher powered EX442 Sonata that I owned back in the day too.

I’ve owned several other 80s products as well but a few that really stood out were the B&K amps, the Onix OA-21s & Onix OA 20/2 integrateds, cj MV50, Mac MC225,  Music Reference RM9 & RM5 pre. I also auditioned a VSP Labs TransMos 150 & an Acoustat TNT120 that were both very memorable as well.

I always wanted to hear/own a Perreaux amp, PS Audio 200C, Forte 1a, Spectral DMA50 or Motif amp as I thought they were amongst the coolest looking pieces back in the 80s.
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