Dynaco A25 -Hard to Believe

I just had one of those special listening sessions that seem to occur all too rarely, and it's kind of surprising as you will see.  I'm moving later in the summer, so I boxed up my large, heavy and excellent Alta Audio speakers over the weekend.  In their place went a very old pair of Dynaco A25's that I had in my very first stereo system back in the 70's (I did recap these ten or so years ago).  I wasn't expecting much, but I love music and so what if they paled in comparison to my usual speakers.  They could play music and probably only cost a few hundred bucks, although I don't remember as they were a gift.

I have not yet boxed up my components, so the Dynacos were set up on some Sound Anchor stands and treated to pretty good Conrad Johnson tubed separates and the current reference Marantz CD player, in addition to Shunyata power conditioning and cables.

I didn't put on an audiophile recording or one that I particularly even like, but my daughter wanted me to listen to a few songs on Taylor Swift's latest album "Reputation".  OK I can do that, I thought, as I like sharing music with her, and she does with me occasionally as well.

An hour later I ran to my computer wanting to share my experience on Agon.  I'm absolutely stunned by how much I enjoyed listening to the Dynacos.  They just sounded really good, far better than I anticipated, and made listening to that album enjoyable (I listened to the whole damn album actually and there are some really catchy songs on it).

I won't compare the Dynacos directly to anything else, but I will say they "brought" the music home in an eminently satisfying way, with surprisingly deep bass, and large images defined in space with warm, realistic tone.  Honestly, I've had several other more modern and expensive monitor speakers in my room over the past several years that just didn't make listening to music fun, be it for a bright (or dull) top end, or weak, wimpy bass.

I remember many years ago a local Linn dealer telling me that you can't fix a crummy source, that the loudspeaker was the least important component in a system.  He'd demo a great Epos loudspeaker on a crappy receiver and turntable and then compare that to the cheapest Epos running on top of the line Linn/Exposure/Naim gear .  No contest, the latter combo always won out.  By a lot.  Perhaps that's what is going on here - the Dynacos should sound great on thousands of dollars worth of electronics.

Or perhaps the Dynacos are just really damn good and can hold their own as music making devices.  After all, they sold thousands of these speakers, and it must have been for some reason.  I guess I'm just stunned that a 40+ year old component still sounds great even in comparison with some far more expensive modern stuff.  I know they don't image as well, the cabinet probably vibrates too much and the large tweeter rounds off the highs, but damn they brought that album to life and isn't that what great components are supposed to do?