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  1. #1
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    Audiophiles: Amp for old bookshelf speakers?

    I have some old University RRL-12 three ways I like the looks of and need an amp. I think these are 40 watt max, in good shape, probably from the early 60s. Going to put them in the living room to watch movies and listen to music. What amp? I know the sky is the limit for pricing. Looking to keep it around a couple hundred or less.

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  2. #2
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    I have a Yamaha RXV-457 I could let go for $75 plus shipping? Like new condition. Missing the remote as I run logitech universal remotes.

  3. #3
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    I like the old Marantz, Luxman and Kenwood amps, that likely can be found for good deals. I have a 10 year old Yamaha amp I gave my daughter. I just did not have the same ooomff as the fore mentioned. I have old Klipcsh Forte speakers, driven by a Hafler 500 watt amp. Damn do those sound good when cranked up.
    Quote Originally Posted by leroy jenkins View Post
    I think you'd have an easier time understanding people if you remembered that 80% of them are fucking morons.
    That is why I like dogs, more than most people.

  4. #4
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    Vintage NAD 3020, only rated at 30 watts but will drive damn near anything and sweet sounding.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAD_3020

  5. #5
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    Tubes!

    - http://www.preservationsound.com/wp-...ty_1963_p1.pdf
    they are good quality vintage speakers, the company had something to do with Altec, tubes will be $$$ but well worth it.

    Two excellent integrated amps i just found f.s. on the web:

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Manley-Sting...item35dc5d28d7

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wavac-MD-811...22561417&rt=nc
    Last edited by neonorchid; 09-18-2014 at 01:22 AM.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by ratboy View Post
    Vintage NAD 3020, only rated at 30 watts but will drive damn near anything and sweet sounding.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAD_3020
    that's a destroyer, most conservative wattage rating by a mile, out-performs those of its era rated at 50, 60, 75 W. NAD's shit was killer during its first 7-8 years of operation & sales (after that I stopped following audio gear and don't know). ultra clean sound, can drive high-impedance speakers, tons of headroom for dynamic music

    Luxman mentioned above, I've got a Luxman R-115 bought new in 1986 that still sounds great

  7. #7
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    Gotta love TGR. Dude is asking for recommendations for under $200 and guys recommend $2700 amps.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2FUNKY View Post
    Gotta love TGR. Dude is asking for recommendations for under $200 and guys recommend $2700 amps.
    http://albuquerque.craigslist.org/ele/4626361858.html

    Just sayin'

    I've got one like this, love it:
    http://santafe.craigslist.org/ele/4631913112.html

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2FUNKY View Post
    Gotta love TGR. Dude is asking for recommendations for under $200 and guys recommend $2700 amps.
    well when your reality is either (a) trustafarian who's never known cheap/thrifty, or (b) overachieving born-to-blue-collar-parents insecure striver, all you know is expensive and status-worthy

    old used 2-channel won't be $2700, might be more like $27

  10. #10
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    Just browse some garage sales or pawn shops for a day and you're bound to come across a great "vintage" receiver that should do you well for minimal cost. Second the old Marantz or NAD. Also had an old 2-channel Pioneer from the 70s or 80s that seriously thumped. Some good options out there.

    Funny thing is I'll be tossing my newer Pioneer (my wife's from before we got hitched) for an old vintage stereo one of these days. Even with it's half-ass 5.1, hdmi support (sort of), and its supposedly 100w per channel, the sound is total weak sauce. The ratings are way more than optimistic, and I've just had it sitting in a box for the last 2 years. The NAD 3020 that ratboy mentioned would absolutely destroy it when it comes to 2-channel sound.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by ratboy View Post
    Vintage NAD 3020, only rated at 30 watts but will drive damn near anything and sweet sounding.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAD_3020
    I wish I hadn't left mine in the UK when I moved to the States. Great amp.
    Quote Originally Posted by Downbound Train View Post
    And there will come a day when our ancestors look back...........

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by AustinFromSA View Post
    Funny thing is I'll be tossing my newer Pioneer (my wife's from before we got hitched) for an old vintage stereo one of these days. Even with it's half-ass 5.1, hdmi support (sort of), and its supposedly 100w per channel, the sound is total weak sauce. The ratings are way more than optimistic, and I've just had it sitting in a box for the last 2 years. The NAD 3020 that ratboy mentioned would absolutely destroy it when it comes to 2-channel sound.
    Pioneer was a leader in the Marketing Watts sales technique back in the 70s and 80s, nominal watts always exceeded watts under load and don't even think of a high impedance pair of speakers, the Pioneer (and others in the Marketing Watts category) would be overwhelmed and perform more like 6 W/ch. To be fair, Pioneer stuff wasn't too expensive, but when you examine what you're paying for, it sorta was expensive. If I remember right, the NAD 3020 had an MSRP of somewhere around $300-350 when it was introduced, a Pioneer of that era at $300-350 probably would have been a nominal 200 W/ch but performed inferior to the NAD.

    Typical companies from the 70s, 80s and early 90s who made better quality: Marantz, Onkyo, Luxman, Nakamichi. Lower end "marketing watts" gear was occupied by Pioneer, Tecnics/Panasonic, Sanyo.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by creaky fossil View Post
    If I remember right, the NAD 3020 had an MSRP of somewhere around $300-350 when it was introduced, a Pioneer of that era at $300-350 probably would have been a nominal 200 W/ch but performed inferior to the NAD.
    And if you think the performance gap was bad back then, you should see how much that gap has widened today! Pioneers pretty much blow now. Sadly, even Onkyo quality seems to have gone down over the last few years. Probably going to go with a modular NAD for my next home theater setup.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by creaky fossil View Post
    well when your reality is either (a) trustafarian who's never known cheap/thrifty, or (b) overachieving born-to-blue-collar-parents insecure striver, all you know is expensive and status-worthy

    old used 2-channel won't be $2700, might be more like $27
    Wrong on all counts!

  15. #15
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    I inherited an NAD 3020 from my dad. God damn do I love that thing. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread, didn't expect such a consensus.

    EDIT: I actually have the 3020i.
    Last edited by The Tortoise; 09-18-2014 at 10:59 AM.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by neonorchid View Post
    Wrong on all counts!
    if you say so. gloat away!

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by creaky fossil View Post
    if you say so. gloat away!
    Ok i will.
    Fist of all you know nothing about me.
    I wouldn't dream of buying loudspeakers, 200X more cost effective, fun and rewarding to build them myself. I also would never buy audio gear new, the money could go to better places.
    I have a late 1950's - 1960 era HH Scott 222c int tube amp. A old lady would see me in the book store reading specs and looking at transfer functions of loudspeaker reviews and taking notes on the subscription card. She also saw me on the library computers looking at raw driver stats. I didn't own a computer. My first four were hand me downs. One a two year old MacBook that the dude spilled a cup of coffee on, it only required a cleaning and new key pad to get it going. Anyway the old woman had the HH Scott 222c in her attic under decades of dust. She was downsizing and gave it to me, a complete stranger, free for the taking because she thought i'd appreciate it. Mint condition just needed a good cleaning and the caps needed to be formed. At the time they were fetching $250 - 350 at garage sales thanks to the dudes you described wanting the latest and greatest multichannel solid state garbage and not knowing what they have sitting in their parents and grand parents attics. Good condition 222c's are now going for around $700 - $800. After listening to it i could no longer listen to my Solid State gear.
    My current favorite amp/speaker combo in my collection is a 1.5watt per channel single ended triode anp using a type 45 output tube driving a 6.5" full range driver in a back loaded horn cabinet. That amp was bought used for 1k, over the years i have spent more on tubes then the amp. I do have some old solid state 70's era Marantz gear rescued from thrift shops, garage sales etc. Also have one of those NAD's, Harmon Kardon citation and a few other solid state amps which i never use. If the OP lived near by i'd give him one of them.
    The Wavac i linked was only to show the guy a example of a single ended triode amp which would make those speakers sing. It's not a good value and i didn't expect him to buy it, although i don't think he'd regret it either. The Manley stingray at 1K - 1,500 would be a good investment piece. A old Sonic Frontiers anthem 1 tube int amp for ~ $400 - $500 would be a good budget but for him, just get the old one and not the hybird tube/solid state version. Jolida, Rogue Audio and Quicksilver are others to watch for in that $$$ range. A good amp will make cheep speakers sound much better then they should. A good front end is where it's at. Hey the OP asked for audiophile advice...

  18. #18
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    I didn't say anything about YOU, neonorchid.

    gloat away, and then when you're tank-filled with SMUG, please work on your reading comprehension

    I'm laughing at your commodity fetish, calling a piece of audio gear an "investment" as a way to justify the inaudible "benefits" of overpriced YupGear, but please -- keep bending over backward to suggest, passive-aggressively, that you're neither trustafarian nor over-achiever embarrassed by lower-caste origins

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by flowing alpy View Post
    they got a ups boat.
    It was either left, donated or sold with a big pile of other domestic products due to them needing metric electricity and my not wanting to have to convert/run converters for stuff.

    So (pretty much) anything that plugged into the mains got the heave ho in the very small window between selling our house there and getting onplane to Ellis Island.
    Quote Originally Posted by Downbound Train View Post
    And there will come a day when our ancestors look back...........

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by creaky fossil View Post
    I didn't say anything about YOU, neonorchid.

    gloat away, and then when you're tank-filled with SMUG, please work on your reading comprehension

    I'm laughing at your commodity fetish, calling a piece of audio gear an "investment" as a way to justify the inaudible "benefits" of overpriced YupGear, but please -- keep bending over backward to suggest, passive-aggressively, that you're neither trustafarian nor over-achiever embarrassed by lower-caste origins
    That's a unfair fight, i'm dyslexic. A investment in a amp he could grow with and likely not feel the need to replace any time soon, if ever. Sorry for my word choice, your spin on it was fair enough, not what i had in mind when writing it.
    Trustafarian to a point, am learning to trust my ears. I do take leaps of faith and am pretty d@ng guilty of turning money into shi#! Wish i was the "over-achiever embarrassed by lower-caste origins", would be able to afford to do allot more skiing if i were!

  21. #21
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    satire disconnect at work

    I paid around $385 for my Luxman R-115 in 1986, and it's still going. should I have spent much more, because the longevity argues for treating it as an "investment"?

    circa 2014, most consumer items are disposable, even the big-ticket ones like cars and houses. houses built in 2014 are pieces of shit, compared to 30 years ago, and laughable sub-fecal non-quality compared to 60 years ago. vehicles are both much more expensive, and much more likely to have issues if you hang onto them longer than 3 years. buying an audio receiver is not like land speculation!

  22. #22
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    I second (or is it third or fourth?) the NAD 3020 recommendation. Sonically, the original or 3020A was better than the B or subsequent variations. (I was already into that shit back then.) For those speakers, I HIGHLY recommend you also get a graphic equalizer, probably a 10-bander or so.
    Sometimes pride comes after a fall.

  23. #23
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    Sometimes pride comes after a fall.

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by creaky fossil View Post
    satire disconnect at work

    I paid around $385 for my Luxman R-115 in 1986, and it's still going. should I have spent much more, because the longevity argues for treating it as an "investment"?

    circa 2014, most consumer items are disposable, even the big-ticket ones like cars and houses. houses built in 2014 are pieces of shit, compared to 30 years ago, and laughable sub-fecal non-quality compared to 60 years ago. vehicles are both much more expensive, and much more likely to have issues if you hang onto them longer than 3 years. buying an audio receiver is not like land speculation!
    I don't know...back in 1995 6 or 7 i forget, at a Philadelphia Audio Society epic yearly function, matched pairs of "new production" Western Electric 300B vacuum tube sets were selling for $700 at the WE reps table in the "expo". Now they are once again out of production and those "new production" WE 300B's are fetching upwards of $2500 a pair! I didn't buy them because the two 8watt/channel 300B based "Single Ended Triode" amps i had for home demo both succeeded in turning my small room into the climate of a tropical rainforest! Then i got the 18watt/channel "Push-Pull" Scott 222c which didn't break a sweat, after which i went to a 2A3 SET, again no heat issues. Then i tried 45's @ 1.5watts/channel, all the magic of a 300B and then some provided speakers and room size matches. But no unreal monetary appreciation with those vacuum tubes as with the 300B...talk about blind investment in esoteric bullshi# worth as much as some fool is willing to pay for it and because of!
    And yes i agree 100%, new shi# is just that! Except when it comes to tech and safety improvements but that's a another topic.

  25. #25
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    esoterica is always ridiculously expensive, and whether the price is worth it to you will always depend on your interest in the thing that's esoteric, and what it does. consumerism lets people indulge all kinds of fetishes, niche interests, etc. it doesn't really matter to me if someone wants to buy a pair of speakers that cost $10,000 with their rare earth magnets, artisanal wire-windings, fine wood cabinetry, etc. I'm sure if I had assets in the billions or greater, $10,000 would seem to me as $10 does in my current situation. what I don't understand is having marginal income and a monk-like life while spending big coin on something esoteric, but I don't really care what someone else does with their money, it's not my money they're spending... I just don't understand it.

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