Vintage systems- anyone else?

Having been in this hobby for over 30 years, and having owned a lot of vintage gear (when it was new), I kind of have a soft spot in my heart for nice vintage systems. And I still have a fair amount of vintage gear (that I can't bear to part with) floating around the house.

Resently, I set up a nice, simple retro system consisting of a Sony turntable with Grado cartridge, an Onkyo solid-state receiver, and a pair of Altec bookshelf speakers (the size of AR 3A's).

I just plunked it down at one end of a large room and hooked up the speakers with 14-gauge zip cord. The darn thing sounds TOO GOOD! If I compare it with my bigger, more costly modern gear, in terms of sheer bang-for-the-buck, I think the expensive gear will be blushing.

Both the FM stereo and the cheapo turntable sound way-better than they have any right to. Although I think that a lot of the excellent performance is related to the very good room acoustics of where I set it up.

Steve, I just took a look at your system and I like it. I like it a lot, and I bet those Mac tube amps do work great with the Altec horns. :)

time IS the final judge of any component's character. my ar classic 30's out perform any loudspeaker i've had in my home....and cost almost nothing. my gradient revolutions are nice, but compare to the older ar's, chapmans, or hales i've come to realize that high fidelity and hi end are no longer joined at the hip.

How old must an item be to be considered "vintage"?

unsound, I am not going to set an age on what would be considered vintage. It would probably be different for many people. When I mentioned my vintage system, it all consists of 60-70's gear, except for the cartridges.

If you feel you have something that qualifies for vintage, tell us about it and how you feel about it.

Plato, it sounds like you and I are experiencing the same thing with vintage.

To make sure no one here will misread my intentions, I have absolutely nothing against new gear and would never bash anyones system. I mostly see folks here who are enjoying the newer stuff and don't see many talking about vintage. Hence my question.

Steve

Most of my vintage gear has worked it's way downstairs to my gym. There I have a Dynaco preamp feeding 2 Dynaco mark 3 mono amps, going to an original set of Bose 901's. I use an old Mcintosh tube tuner and a Kinergetics cd 40 as my source. It still rocks even when I'm to tired to.