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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
bobandtorey
7 posts
 
Wow! the NAD  Amp where my choice for sure back then i had a 2600 and a 7600 bridged 

 i still have them but now I've moved up to the S 100 pre/amp and a pair of S200 running my  Polk audio SDA1.2 Flagships 
hiici's avatar
hiici
4 posts
 
I'm surprised I only see one reference to Hafler.  I bought the 220 kit model I believe for $400 and for the day, it was an amazing amp.   I doubt anything came close to it in quality for that price.  Not sure how it would hold up today but back then, I loved them with my ADS 810's and M&K subwoooofer
timlub
1,649 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
1,649 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
5,165 posts
 
Wow thats a tough one ill get back to you on that.
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