My husband continues to use the ‘state of the art’ stereo system he put together in the late '70s & early '80s. He believes it has as good or better sound quality than what’s available today (not speaking to download/recording merits). Can this be true? Anyone have knowledge on pluses/minuses of older vs newer stereos?
I ask because the speakers are decor destroying.
Better is probably subjective here. The older ones have a different sound and it’s one that he prefers.
solid-state amplification hasn’t really advanced much in terms of “quality;” rather the changes have been more towards integration of components e.g. instead of building the output stage out of banks of discrete transistors, now many components use amplifier integrated circuits.
The one thing I’d be concerned about is the electrolytic capacitors in the equipment he has. Electrolytics do degrade (dry out) over time and if the stuff he’s using is 30 to 40 years old, the caps might be toast.
as far as the speakers go, assuming the materials aren’t breaking down (a big assumption) then they’re probably reasonably decent compared to the mass market stuff available today. The problem is that in order to cover the full range of audio reproduction with acceptable fidelity, you simply need a larger multi-element speaker. As far as audio quality goes, those little Bose (and similar) surround systems are utter trash, and only sell because they’re small and unobtrusive.
Even today, the top of the line speakers are bulky bookshelf or tower speakers. The little compact speakers that are in the boxed home theater setups can be decent, but I’d be surprised if they were superior or even equal to high quality old speakers. Still, 30 year old speakers have probably worn out to some degree, and don’t sound as good as they used to.
if older systems still sound good then they are good enough.
you do get listening to music and get to like how it is, its noise level and dynamic range become what you are used to. there is old 78 rpm recorded music and old radio shows that just wouldn’t sound right if they didn’t some noise and limited range.
speakers have gotten more efficient and smaller. newer amplifiers might consume less power, that’s an all depends on what the systems are.
if he likes building audio then have him build some electrostatic speakers (takes mechanical and electrical skill) and subwoofer, that could give a decor change.
I’m still using a set of Sansui 3 way floor speakers I bought in 1978. My AM/FM analog tuner is a Denon purchased in 1990.
I finally had to buy a new integrated Amp three years ago. My old kenwood had a channel go out.
I’m very happy with my sound. See no reason at all to update.
Two of your main issues with older speakers are the crossover capacitors, which are easy enough to replace, and also the cone surrounds.
Those cone surrounds are often made of a type of synthetic sponge like material and this just rots away, it can be replaced but is not all that easy to do for the inexperienced, just a matter of practice more than technical ability - there are companies that will do this work for you. It may seem costly to have those speaaker surrounds replaced when this is compared to the cost of new speakers, but you would very likely end up with speakers of much higher quality.
It’s all about harmonic distortion during amplification of the input signal overload.
You might want to read on what distortion harmonic is.
We used to do this oscilloscope exercises in high school - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(signal_processing))
that’s great and all, but I think we can assume he’s not driving the thing into clipping.
And he probably has a transistor amplifier, same as is available today.
[QUOTE=ballardfam;14503958
I ask because the speakers are decor destroying.[/QUOTE]
so recover the covers (the fabric part in the front) and strip/repaint or wall paper the boxes.
I got some fabric at a thrift store for the fronts on a set, most people dont even realize they are speakers now.
I have a set of I think Jensens my uncle gave me from the mid 70’s, out of 3 sets of speakers they are the only ones still running and the other 2 were newer by far. granted one set is blown (damn newbs never even heard of the word clipping) and the other set had the foam rot off.
they do sound great though.
While transistors do clip more harshly than tubes, under normal operation you shouldn’t be driving the stereo hard enough to cause signal distortion. That argument basically boils down to “if you crank the stereo up so loud it sounds like crap then tubes sound less crappy”. It’s not a valid comparison for normal listening levels.
The sound you get depends more on the design of the amplifier than what technology you use, though it is easier to design a less distorting amplifier using cheap parts with transistors than it is with tubes. The “tubes are better” snobs are usually talking about high end amplifiers where the signal distortion is so small either way that the tube vs. transistor argument is rather pointless. If you want a cheap stereo though, transistors tend to sound better. If you want a cheap guitar amplifier, tubes sound a LOT better.
As for the OPs stereo, if it’s a high end stereo from the 70s and the capacitors are still good (as has already been mentioned) then it probably will sound as good or possibly even better than a cheap modern stereo. Speaker technology has improved quite a bit since the 70s though. Tiny bookshelf speakers today sound significantly better than tiny bookshelf speakers from the 70s, and big high end speakers today sound better than big high end speakers from the 70s. Tiny bookshelf speakers of today do not however sound better than big high end speakers from the 70s, generally speaking. You may want to replace the speakers (or recover them, which I see on preview someone has mentioned while I’ve been typing and distracted).
A 70s stereo system will probably be less efficient, turning more electricity into waste heat instead of sound. The difference probably won’t be enough to be noticeable on your monthly electric bill though.
What is he playing through this vintage stereo system? Vinyl destroys more and more of the recording every time you play it, has rumble, wow, flutter, and occasionally static pops, and also has a poor overall dynamic range compared to a CD (a CD also does not suffer at all from rumble, wow, flutter, or pops). The only thing vinyl does better is very high frequencies, which most people can’t hear. If you are one of those people who can easily hear those annoying mosquito ring tones on cell phones and you have a thing for piccolos, then maybe you’ve got an argument for vinyl. Otherwise, go digital. MP3s though distort the sound, and depending on the sample rate, can be worse than vinyl. Any tape format is horrible, suffering from poor dynamic range and that ever present tape hiss. Tape is probably on par with the worst MP3s, and even then MP3s, while distorting the sound, won’t have that annoying hiss.
I still use most of the stereo components I acquired as an undergrad in the late 70s. The speakers didn’t survive the eons, but the amp, tuner, and turntable are all going strong. And I think they sound *much *better than the crappy little bookshelf systems widely available today.
I read an article (sorry, no cite) where they played the same music on a top end analog system and a top end digital one and asked people which they preferred. People over 45 or so preferred analog and those under 35 preferred digital. This indicates that it’s largely a matter of what people listened to when they first started listening to music.
Until you play it once:
“The RIAA has suggested the following acceptable losses: down to 20 kHz after one play, 18 kHz after three plays, 17 kHz after five, 16 kHz after eight, 14 kHz after fifteen, 13 kHz after twenty five, 10 kHz after thirty five, and 8 kHz after eighty plays. While this degradation is possible if the record is played on improperly set up equipment, many collectors of LPs report excellent sound quality on LPs played many more times when using care and high quality equipment. This rapid sound degradation is not usually typical on modern Hi-Fi equipment with a properly balanced tonearm and well balanced low-mass stylus.”
Possibly, though it might also mean that people who haven’t yet lost much of their high frequency hearing prefer digital.
This is helpful (though disappointing). If we’d have to go big to replicate quality of sound then there’s no point in replacing the system.
You might be able to find a setup that’s moderately smaller, more aesthetically pleasing, and sounds as good (or better) than his current setup. For example, I think something like this looks a lot better than something like this. (pulling selected examples from google image search). It won’t be cheap, however – expect to pay at least several thousand dollars.
A bookshelf speaker can’t produce as much bass as a decent vintage tower speaker, but $250-500 dollars today can buy you a pair of bookshelf speakers that will sound better than almost anything that existed in the 70’s, except for the aspects of bass and maximum volume.
if you add a subwoofer, and use a home-theater receiver to cross them over properly and remove the deep bass from the main speakers, you can get good bass, and the bookshelves will play louder because they (and their amps) aren’t burdened with the bass. There are limits though, because the bookshelf still has to handle the upper bass and some of the middle bass. Bookshelves might not be sufficient even with a sub if he wants it extremely loud and/or he has a very large room.
What equipment does he have now?
