Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6
Steve, what's your opinion on the quality of high end audio today vs. say 10 or even 20 years ago, which is odd to say, the 90s. What would one be looking for on Craig's List to put together an older high end system for pennies on today's dollar?
I have a Hafler power amp, Rotel preamp and Rotel tuner and a pair of midrange B&W speakers. Very happy with all of it for well under $1K but I always wonder what I should swap out to get to the next level.
|
I've been an audio enthusiast / hifi guy for over 2/3rds of my life. The term audiophile has taken a bit of a sour connotation in the last several years, so its not my favorite term.
Anyways, depending on your definition of high end: used/Heavily depreciated is the only sensible way to buy. Class AB amps, turntables, preamps, and to a large degree speakers havent improved much in the last few decades. Speakers probably have at the very high end due to improvement in computer modeling and test equipment. Also DSP controlled active speakers are really the state of the art but arnt heavily adopted for home use.
I have 15 year old dynaudio confidence speakers, 22 year old audio research tube preamp, a new bryston amp but it replaced a 12 year old one only to get more power, etc. I bought all this stuff at less than half of MSRP which puts you closer to 1/4 of new MSRP for comparable items since prices inflation. This stuff is still pretty close to state of the art.
One caveat with 20+ year old components is that you are at the point where Caps and sometimes potentiometers can fail and/or get noisy. In most cases these items with go 30+ years, but its not uncommon to have to recap power amps in this range. This can be expensive for big daddy hi current biased amps. I also advocate for new or at least more modern digital equipment.
Really the best bang for buck would be to leave your components alone (if functioning correctly and of sufficient power) and buy the best/baddest/your most preferred speakers from the discussed era.
Speakers, speaker placement, room acoustics and optimization are by far and away the most important elements.