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Lately all I think about is what gear did I REALLY!!!! like and regret letting it go.
Now I find myself scheming ways to get some of it back. An example is I loved my Dynaco ST-70. So I built the VTA kit and WOW do I LOVE that amp to death.
One piece I've always regretted letting go was my McIntosh C38 preamplifier. I'm am NO Mac fan but I always felt they did make a great preamp and I always did like that one.
I went through a bad point in audio when I got frustrated and sold everything off. Stuff I will NEVER ever see again unless I win a lottery.
Maybe that C38 would pair up nicely with my NAD C275BEE or VTA ST-70???? But what to do with the CJ???
charles
Follow Ups:
I felt the same way. So I bought mine back & ultimately gave it to my son who still uses it. Way cool (in the vernacular sense) amp if you don't need more power. Wonderful sounding even by today's standards.
Jeremy
Very pertinent thread. Yesterday I hauled out my ancient Sanyo Plus C55 preamp from the closet. Dates from the 1970s and never had much audiophile cred. I mean, SANYO?
But it has replaced my Aesthetix Calypso linestage which will be heading back to California next week for some Tender Loving Care (after 8-10 years, it sounds "off") and has earned the trip..
So what's the deal with the Sanyo? I bought a new one when it came out, along with other Sanyo Plus gear sometime around 1978. Time passes on and my system went all-tube in the meantime, but I remembered that preamp so fondly that I bought another one in the early 2000s, for 75 bucks, more or less for the hell of it. Sure came in handy yesterday and sounds incredibly good for what it is.
Nostalgia sometime pays off.
Have owned and still own lots of equipment--Somehow my AMT 1b s have survived the years and My Cornwalls. Still have the Dynaco 70,pas, and FM 3 factory wired.Even have Tympani IIIs from college years----awaiting resto 40 years later.........But I had several SP3a-1s including a Black and Gold one-----Don't remember why I sold it----but it was the best pre amp I have ever owned and would love to have it back.
I can't say that I want them back today, but I should have kept them much longer than I did instead of their immediate successors.
I love the music of Dmitri Shostakovich ...
Interesting. I also had an Apt-Holman. It was my first decent preamp, and it was driving an amp pushing Ohm Walsh 4s.
I loved my OHM f with a Macintosh. but the driver unfastened after 5 years, and wound up buying a Cosmostatic hybrid omni electrostatic. Never fell out of love with the concept and the sound stage it created. The latter when I could hold it together was even better.
At the time I first picked up the Walsh 4s, I couldn't imagine wanting anything further - until I heard the hybrid stats. Then it was full-range stats. Once I augmented the full range stats with stereo subs I thought I was done. Until I downsized residences and the stats had to go. Now I run 2-way horns on 2A3 monos with the same stereo subs, and fortunately, I'm old enough now to realize the futility of the endless pursuit. ;-)
Couldn't keep the omni Cosmostatics. even after scrounging for parts all over the country. Forgot the nightmare that was. Am using some Magneplanar's 1.7's (without subs) and they do give a great deal pleasure with some trials. It is a city apt so it is probably for the better, but I am into organ music- so the loss of depth and space the omni design is extensive. Planers do fill them in some. Never owned horns or transmission line speakers. Cheers. UT
You aint kidding. My short list is older Arcam cd players,some older Creek cd players. Sonographe amp and pre amp. All super nice.
But my stuff now is very good.
I can get pretty obsessed with seller's remorse and buy again things I sold. I almost always regret selling equipment, but there is only so much room in the house!
For instance, I have owned two of each of these at various times: Magnepan 1.6, Altec Lansing Model 19 speakers and GAS Thalia preamps. It would take pages to list all the equipment I have owned over the years.
As another poster mentioned, most of what I buy is used, and I have frequently sold items for what I paid for them, sometimes for more.
I have sold a lot of stuff, mostly moving up in quality or in a different direction (PP to SET), but I've never thought about taking anything back. For me, the general direction has generally been up in terms of sound quality and price, no loops.
I've had several sales I regretted making, but probably the biggest one was a pair of Mike Elliott-built Aria custom 350 hybrid monoblocks. They were sweet amps, but, alas, the tax man came calling with a rather large tab, and they had to go. My current amp is a strikingly synergistic match with my speakers, so in the end it was all good, but I still have fond memories of those Arias. But I've heard that Elliott is retired and not servicing his old products anymore, so that would've been an issue had I kept the amps.
"Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony." --Lou Reed
...is you can always go back to something you sold, often for less money than you sold it for and then when you tire of it (again), its usually not that difficult to get your money back, assuming you buy and sell sharp.
I've owned many pieces of gear multiple times ...for example the Yamaha C2a preamp. I've always liked it since I first heard it, back in '76, I think. But, at a thousand bucks there was no way for me to afford one ...so I bought a used one years later.
I eventually sold it and bought an "upgrade".
I did that a few times and have had a Meitner PA6i, Audio Research SP-9 MKII and MKIII, Counterpoint SA-3.1 and others that escape my mind at the moment.
My current preamp ...you guessed it ...a Yamaha C2a. I think its my third or fourth one.
I don't think I lost a dime along the way and may well have made a few bucks.
I still want a Threshold FET-9 someday.
My advice, keep the CJ, buy the Mc, listen to both and keep the one that floats your boat.
Best of luck.
Dean.
reelsmith's axiom: Its going to be used equipment when I sell it, so it may as well be used equipment when I buy it.
I hadn't thought about my Yamaha C-2x preamp in years but it was an excellent preamp. It had separate power supplies for the line-stage and the phono-stage, and the phono-stage power supply remained powered on continuously. I had the matching B-2x power amp, which was also a honey. I'd love to own these brand new again. I wouldn't want them used, though. Come to think of it, I'm really happy with my new VTA SP14 tube preamp and PH16 phono-stage. I'm sure these new tube components sound better than Yamaha. However, it's nice to reminisce. ;-)
Best regards,
John Elison
...and I bet it sounds sweet too. Glad to hear you are happy with it. Nothing beats a satisfying change to the system.
I stopped "upgrading" a few years ago, when I realized "good enough" was good enough. That's when I slowly started "downgrading". I bought and sold a bunch of gear to get where I ended up. It was fun finding a system that cost little, yet was good enough for me to thoroughly enjoy music through. As you know, its all about synergy ...I was hunting for the right combination of gear. I even bought a CD player ! I hadn't had one in years.
As a side note, when I bought the C2a I have now, I purposely bought a dead, but cosmetically excellent unit ...in other words, it was cheap. I then gave it to a buddy of mine with his mission being to make it as good, or better, than new. I gave him carte blanche.
He installed upgraded caps in both power supplies and both phono stages, as well as in the moving coil head-amp. He calibrated the regulated power supply, DC balance of the phono stage, the DC balance of the line amp stage and the stage bias current. All Molex connectors for input and output connections to the main board were cleaned. Solder joints in critical paths were removed and replaced with silver solder. In total, 66 parts were replaced/upgraded.
It sounds nice ...listening to it is even more fun than reminiscing about it. ;-)
Dean.
reelsmith's axiom: Its going to be used equipment when I sell it, so it may as well be used equipment when I buy it.
- I bought the AES/Cary SixPac EL34 monoblocks twice. Finally had to let them go permanently as they're under powered with my current speakers and not suited for the small office listening room.- I bought the PS Audio GCPH phono preamp twice. Tried several phono preamps over the years then bought the GCPH again. I still have it.
Used gear is a cost effective way to experience variety that one would take huge financial losses on with new gear. Love it or hate it, Audiogon has forever changed the game.
Edits: 08/13/16
Remember those days ?
I'd anxiously await the arrival of that little list. No pictures, no PayPal ...just trusting a guy you talked to on the phone.
I miss those days.
Dean.
reelsmith's axiom: Its going to be used equipment when I sell it, so it may as well be used equipment when I buy it.
I've owned three BAT 300-Xse integrated amps and three Magnum Dynalab MD-208 receivers. If I had a true listening room, I would have kept at least one of each :)
Pic is from 2002 when I had both the MD-208 and a Rogue setup with Magnum 99 preamp and Model 88 power amp.
"When you find something you like, stick with it."
However I don't think she was really talking about electronic equipment...
still, good advice.
Spectron MK11
Von Scheikert 5HSE
Sonic Frontiers 3 Preamp (Parts Connexion full upgrades)
Sim Audio Eclipse CD player
By my observations: Nostalgia is 95% "Selective Memory"
There's no future in it.
Technology has improved over the years. Modern equipment is most
usually sonically superior to older pieces. That Mac C38 might have
been nice back in the day, but it's been improved upon - a lot.
We've all had some nice pieces we sold and wish we hadn't. So maybe we
shouldn't see equipment. Put it in the closet because maybe we'll want
to use it again in 20 years.
however! some pieces are worth living in the past for.
Example is my Sherwood S-5000. Built in 1958 and restored in 2015. And still today I would take it over A LOT of very expensive new stereos.
But you do make a good point in any case.
And one I am trying to rationalize and not give into the "itch" of wanting a Mac. Wow Mac does have that pull just on looks alone.
charles
Today I use 2 1960s Mc 275s each in mono (about 180 watts each on a good day). Don't know if they're "the best", but they are good enough to take "amps" off my "must improve" or even "might look for better" lists.
Jeremy
.
You know that is great advice.
I think what I am remembering is "the journey" of finding my sound and system.
Funny but I have it where I want it NOW.
The only thing I wish I could do now is purely cosmetic. Like KILLER matching components or killer McIntosh looks. A remote volume control sure would be nice too.
But sonically I have no desire to change things.
So back in ? 1985 or so I owned a Hafler DH110 I built from a kit. I liked it a lot.
For some insane mind fart I wanted a Sony new 'flagship' digital preamp. SO I traded in my Hafler and got the Sony. After a few months of playing with the bells and whistles, I quit listening to music.
After a few more months I wondered why.. And realized that Sony preamp was a total POS musically.
SO I got rid of it and bought a Counterpoint preamp. Nice but liked to die from power supply issues.. (too many times)
Anyway My greatest regret was trading in the Hafler.
I built a Hafler DH-101 kit in 1981 or thereabouts. I bought it just for kicks because I already owned a Harmon Kardon Citation 11 preamp that cost considerably more. My matching Citation 12 power amplifier had been lost in a move so I bought a couple of Hafler DH-200 amplifier kits to replace it and I decided to build the Hafler preamp just for fun. The thing that really surprised me was that the Hafler DH-101 preamp turned out to sound noticeably better than my much more expensive Citation 11. That little DH-101 was an excellent little preamp and very musical.
n
That is odd! Are you sure you had the Citation Eleven? It was a solid state preamp with a five band equalizer. It was great at reproducing square waves but it didn't sound as good as the Hafler DH-101 to me when reproducing music.
Did you actually compare the two?
.
.
Yes, the Citation 11 (though I do not have visual memory of the walnut case). To be fair, my "comparison" was separated by a time of perhaps weeks, maybe longer. On the other hand, the equipment and the music used were pretty much identical BUT FOR the amps -- the Hafler was played through a Hafler amp, but I do not recall which amps were used with the HK (I got to hear it with several different amps).
Further info of uncertain value: I am a tube-o-phile (note the Irish descent, like O'Bama) as you know, and I have been since my first personally owned system in the late 1960s. During the mid-1970s - early 1980s, I tried without success to move into the modern age, spurred by audio writers of the time, by engineer colleagues where I taught (who, along with audio salespersons, repeatedly told me, with deprecatingly snide giggles, that I had grown addicted to certain flavors of tube-design distortion), by the gradual decline in numbers and quality of vacuum-tubes on the market, by frequent assurances that ss designs were getting better every month, and so on. Perhaps sensing a mark, local retailers put a large amount of equipment at my disposal, and for a considerable time I became quite product-literate from 1st-hand experience -- much more so than I am today. I did not much like transistor sound, finding it generally flat or 2-dimensional, often hard, bright and/or metallic or edgy, though almost always better in the bass. Those words may seem exaggerated, and they are, a bit (for rhetorical effect), but the phenomena bothered me more strongly than they do today because, I suspect, my hearing was then more acute (in 1970, tests showed that I could hear a 25 kHz signal! -- today, probably not half that). Among the better-sounding ss pieces I heard long enough to form opinions were some by Meridian, Naim, Threshold, and, yes, the HK Citation 11 (though I would not say that about its partnering amp of the time, the Citation 12). I would not place the Hafler pre in that group; to me it sounded more like the general rest of the ss crowd.
Let me acknowledge that I speak for myself only, uncorroborated by and not relying on square-wave measurements or any others notwithstanding that unlike some I highly value scientific measurement (and find it, e.g., distressingly, idiotically and lazily absent from most common vinyl front-end assessments). Further, my evaluation of ss equipment over the years has doubtless been biased by my antipathy to those particular negatives mentioned above, so that were they not there, there's no telling what other differences among the pieces might have moved me to different conclusions.
So yeah, given my general sense that you are a serious and thoughtful listener not to mention someone with whom I often agree, I indeed find our very different rankings of the 2 pres in question quite odd.
But never doubt that I prize you much more highly than I do the Hafler.
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
I mentioned square waves only because the Harmon Kardon sales pitch included a square wave generator and an oscilloscope. I was an electronic technician at the time and when I went into the audio store and viewed their "square wave sales pitch," I was sold. ;-)
I played my Citation Eleven and Twelve for a couple of years until my Citation Twelve amplifier went missing during a move. I replace it with a pair of Hafler DH-200 power amplifiers configured as monoblocks. Therefore, when I made my comparison of the Citation Eleven with the Hafler DH-101, I owned both of them simultaneously and I compared them both through the bridged Hafler DH-200 monoblocks.
No matter, though. We all have our own preferences and opinions. The terms "better sounding" and "worse sounding" are subjective preferences and not objective facts.
Thanks,
John Elison
Interesting, John.
I think yours was the better comparison inasmuch as mine was separated in time, and the amps in mine were not identical -- a Hafler amp (100 watt/channel, ss, I've forgotten the model name) with the Hafler pre; a variety of amps (including the Citation 12) with the Citation 11. Now that you have me thinking about those auditions, I'd love to go back and do them again just to see if there was any variable that might have generated the differences I think I heard ASIDE from the intrinsic natures of the 2 pres.
Just to be clear, my reaction to the Citation 11 was that it sounded a bit darker -- less bright, edgy, hard -- than the Hafler and than many other ss pres of the time. I did not find it 3-d and palpable like my favorite tubed pres, but less irritating, less noxious than most of the ss alternatives. Could that have arisen from some kind of impedance-match peculiarity? I don't know. Judging from the fun you are having with your tubed kit, I'd have thought we were seeking the same sonic goodness in any event.
"Irregardless" (as my students used to say) I agree with your last para, but it is interesting to puzzle about the reasons why pieces sometimes sound different to different listeners (even as the impressions dim in memory). Maybe I've always been addicted to certain kinds of distortion, eh?
Jeremy
aa
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
Usually regret comes from selling something that isn't easily re-acquired. In my case regrets are selling Bohlender Graebener z1. Small cheap bookshelf with a real wood veneer and bg ribbon tweeter. For a couple hundred it is incredible and would make a killer desktop speaker today. Good luck finding one.
During the many years after it became fungible , I used to get nostalgic for my HW-19 III/ET-2/Virtuoso DTi, Muse One and Muse 100, Acoustat 1+1s set-up.
Being broke I had to learn about Crossovers, resistors, capacitors, voltage dividers, and where the Red HV Wires go.
Now, after 20 years of blowing shit up, my current system is far better. That makes me smile.
I wouldn't sell the CJ until you've fully confirmed the McIntosh is all you thought it was. I know, easier said than done, both financially and logistically.
I'm not selling anything. Been there and done that to death.
The C38 sells for around $1100. Well within my budget for keepers. However I always had my eye on the VTA SP preamp - hummmmm.
As you probably know, I just assembled the VTA SP14 preamp kit and I really really like it. My Pass Labs X1 is now history because the SP14 sounds better. If you're a kit builder, I highly recommend the SP14 with upgraded Sylvania chrome-dome tubes, Mundorf silver-oil output caps and a Khozmo remote volume control. You won't regret it. If you're not a kit builder, buy it assembled. It's really worth it.
.
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John, this is huge for you. I know you are not the type to change gear on a whim. And is a testimony that you don't have to spend 10,000 to get a superb performing preamp.....
Actually, it was kind of a whim to start building kits again. I was getting bored and I thought that building a kit might put some excitement back into my audio hobby. However, I didn't honestly expect the SP14 to sound better than my Pass Labs X1. Perhaps the X1 is slowing down in its old age. After all, it's been powered on for 13-years. I'm considering sending it back to Pass Labs for a checkup.
Best regards,
John Elison
My audio room and audio rack configuration would not easily accommodate the Cary SLP-05 linestage. It was the right decision to sell it at the time. Best sounding linestage I have ever owned.
My speakers changed for the better (but require more power) so I sold my AES/Cary SixPac EL34 based monoblocks. Those were wonderfully sweet sounding amps that replaced my CJ Premier 11a at a fraction of the cost, and handily beat it sonically. I would say the SixPacs were my all time favorite 'affordable' tube amps.
Aside from lateral moves/experiments in the garage system, changes in the main one (which usually occur infrequently) have always been in the right direction - an improved musical experience.
several cars and a few women from days gone past. But both of those were more expensive! ;^)
"The piano ain't got no wrong notes." Thelonious Monk
I miss my Citation V and my Klipsch (branded) moving coil cart with ruby cantilever, my TD 125 with Rabco SL 8E balsa wood arm and my little Audio Pro sub.
ET
"If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking till you do suck seed" - Curly Howard 1936
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