restorer-john
Grand Contributor
From Restorer John's archive, here's a high res scan of the original brochure (Aug/1978)
The power supply capacitors are top-brand japanese Nichicon. They did not look very fresh to me though even though they were supposed to have been replaced two years ago. Wonder if they used older parts.
Damn! This review is going to drive hipsters to buy more vintage gear. I'll never pick up the old Kenwood receiver I had as a kid at a decent price now.
For the most part:That's it? Are they working for that price?
Speaking of beefy, the A-1 is massively heavy on the left side, sporting two independent transformers, one for each channel.
That's it? Are they working for that price?
Amir, you need to be smart about this. Insider trading and all. When a vintage item tests really well, you can buy up all the cheap ones before you write the review, sit back for a while, then list them one at a time and reap the enormous profit...
Yes. Or... a 42 year old unit stored in a damp shed and sporting its original filter capacitors has a measured SINAD performance comparable to that of a new Crown XLS 1502.
Makes one laugh...
And should make Crown cry. But what does shame even mean to companies in the modern day if anything beyond PR backlash?
Off topic a Swedish magazine did an interesting thing in the early nineties they measured some amps with a real speaker.
They purpose built the speaker with extremely robust components and it was never intended for listening, but it had a “typical” impedance curve and was ported to exhibit those aspects to , port resonance etc. .
Those are very good prices. The last one is especially good since he addressed the main failing I found in binding posts:
I don't care if they don't work, as long as some idiot hasn't been in there with a bag of random components, a plumber's soldering iron and instructions he found on the internet.
For you younger members who have never seen a plumber's soldering iron, here's an old one...
View attachment 37077
This is NAD T777:
View attachment 37066
This is Yamaha A-1:
View attachment 37067
The Yamaha is far cleaner when it comes to distortion products.
Amir, you need to be smart about this. Insider trading and all. When a vintage item tests really well, you can buy up all the cheap ones before you write the review, sit back for a while, then list them one at a time and reap the enormous profit...
Must we revisit this across every review thread? And how am I supposed to answer your statistical question?What would be far more useful is taking two products with different profiles like this and doing some empirical tests.
1. Can people reliably differentiate between the two in a controlled test?
2. If so, do people prefer one over the other in a statistically significant way?
Until the outcomes of such studies are available, the relevance of these measurements to audibility experience is an open question and largely academic.