Anyone that knows me well also knows about my passions for anything vintage. The reason isn't really nostalgic, but is more or less quality based. History plays some part, of course, as exemplified in my affinity for military firearms. Nearly everything vintage and/or built by Americans (before it became cost effective to manufacture and import everything from China and Taiwan) was built with care and attention to detail. This is why my favorite watch is a 1962 Bulova automatic (Swiss), and my current vehicular passion is a 1982 Jeep CJ-7/. This vintage quality isn't true for everything, but "Made in China" is most often found on things that are disposable and designed to last only a few years at best. Nearly every manufacturer of anything today outsources in one way or another. The problem is that quality control generally takes a turn for the worse when it comes to things manufactured out of country where labor is cheap.
This brings me to my latest infatuation. I've always been a fan of music, and since I got my first receiver and eight track as a hand-me-down from my stepfather, I've always had music readily available. I've accumulated a small collection of music that includes both vinyl and compact discs. With moving into a new house comes disarray of sorts, and the time consuming process of finding the magic place to put speakers and audio equipment. Of course, I had my amplifier hooked up to the LCD flatscreen and good Yamaha speakers, but my CD changer took a crap on me right before we moved into our wonderful new home. I can play anything I want to hear in the DVD player or Playstation, but this isn't optimal, so I'm looking for a good 5-disc DVD/CD player.
The wedding reception we're having at the house next Saturday also kickstarted a move toward finally getting good sound in our home. I spent a few days getting things organized to play the digital audio files I have on my computer, but I had to relocate my amp right next to my computer because the 25ft RCA cables I purchased brought about horribly muffled sound because of the resistance accumulated in the wire over that excessive distance. The voltage output from the computer was way too low to produce quality sound. Anyway, the shorter cable fixed the problem, but showed me I had to get a separate receiver/amp for the office. I had been planning to do this anyway, but have spent the last couple of months shopping for a vintage receiver or amplifier.
Any audiophile will tell you that unless you're willing to spend big money on audio equipment, you're wasting your time trying to get good sound. I'm talking receivers and amps starting in the THOUSANDS of dollars, not hundreds. This is mostly true for new equipment manufactured after about 1980 or so. Yes, some people spend this on home audio, especially for vintage tube amplifiers, but that's a discussion for another time. Now, it's absolutely ludicrous for me to spend thousands on new audio equipment to get good sound, simply because I'm not financially independent yet, and don't plan on achieving it anytime soon.
My best option, of course, brings me to vintage audio equipment. Nearly from the outset, I settled on something from Marantz.
Click the link to learn about it. I'm in the middle of negotiating with a guy from Portland that has a 2238B he put up on Craig's List. I've been looking at this model or possibly a model 1060 on Ebay for several weeks now, but have come up short. I either get outbid, they want too much, or they are sadly neglected pieces of equipment. Anyway, I'm hoping the guy from Portland can hook me up with some good sound. The 2238B was released in 1977 and went on sale for about $370 in most stereo shops. These stores are almost completely gone now, since audio equipment sales have been taken over by the big box stores like Best Buy, WalMart, and various vendors on the internet. That price in dollars today, accounting for inflation, would make that 2238B cost about $1250. Of course, the joy of vintage audio is that I can get one for about 10% of that since everyone wants new, prettier, louder, faster. I'll get awesome sound with high quality analog electronic components for what a low end brand new piece would cost. Any low end piece would last five or ten years and be made out of fragile plastic (like my CD changer that crapped out on me), but I like the fact that the Marantz has already been going strong for 30 years, and I can replace any transistor or capacitor in it for a few bucks instead of trashing the whole thing. We'll see what happens, but I hope to have wonderful, warm and clean vintage sound in my home very soon.
CZ
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