Vintage Power Amp vs new age power amp

don't know about vintage Marantz, but accuphase e202 is no contest to the modern models that substantially more expensive. also same can tell about hh scott tube amps.

i suspect in most of cases budget oriented componets are built with less complexity and expense for better profits and certainly less performance. having all these factors reversed for the modern amp will bring retail price to quite large numbers(consider accuphase, pass, bryston examples of all advanced amplification design). going vintage in this case will get you the most advanced engineering audio amplification technologies for less money. you need to know how to service vintage components though.

IMO, the difference between the Emotiva and Marantz may be a toss-up, provided the latter has been recapped, bias and DC offset checked and adjusted, etc., so that the amp is operating at original specs. Vintage Marantz amps are not cheap to acquire, and you have to factor in the additional cost of refurbishing the amp into your decision, particularly when you are not doing the job yourself. I have owned a collection of vintage and modern amps. The vintage amps have all held their own pretty well versus my modern amps, but to my ears, the modern amps had the edge in transparency and more natural presentation.