It’s the time of year for saving money!
You watch Chasing Classic Cars with Wayne Carini on Velocity Channel, right? If not, you are missing out. The elevator speil is a Baby Boomer car freak stalks the most exotic and obscure automobiles, often buys them, restores them, shows them in concourse d’elegance, and then sells them. It’s a fun show. Sometime Wayne finds a 1930’s Bugatti dormant in a garage for 50 years or a Lamborghini from the mid-1960s looking for a new life and a new home. Sometimes it’s a beach-tastic VW bug or a Porsche “bathtub” that needs some love and a new home. In short – it’s totally DVR worthy.
This brings me to my question for you – “What are your own garage find audiophile products? I once got a call from a friend who found a McIntosh 225 tube amp in a basement in Connecticut. It was from 1964 and had the original box, packing, manual and receipt. I had Audio Classics restore the amp the best we could and took a new look at the product. Ultimately I sold the amp (as Wayne often does with his finds) but I had a good time with the project overall and someone in Asia got a very cool, classic McIntosh amp for their collection.
So what products do you want to find the next time you stumble into an old record store selling vintage audio gear or some random estate sale? Below, I have created my list and some justifications to go along with each component.
MartinLogan CLS Electrostatic Speakers (circa: early 1980s)
These speakers were the start of many audiophiles’ time of being an audiophiles including both Andrew Robinson and Dennis Burger. These impossibly hard to drive electrostatic speakers had little if any serious bass. And to optimize their imaging took hours of micro-adjustments. Also, you need TONS of current to make these speakers get up and even speak to you. So, you need to factor in the investment in high-current amps (think: Pass Labs Class-A amps) to get started. And even with a stupidly large investment in power, you’ll need subwoofers to get any level of impact, let alone the impact you can get from a $1,000 Paradigm or GoldenEar speaker. But, how do these speakers perform today, 30 years after their game-changing launch? Stick with me – I might have a follow up article that goes down this rabbit hole. (estimated price in today’s used market: $3,000 to $5,000 per pair).
Nakamichi Dragon Tape Deck (circa: late 1980s)
While other Nakamichi tape decks could flip a cassette tape at the end of a side like a teppanyaki chef loaded on sake hunting for tips, the Nakamichi Dragon tape deck was the ultimate in personal recording in the analog domain in the 1980s. Endless controls. Japanese precision. What is not to like? Cue up a Journey record and record it for your non-removable-head-unit car stereo and you are to old-school audiophile bliss. If you see one of these suckers in the wild – don’t forget to add in the cost of a refurb job before you plunk your Platinum card. (estimated price: $1,250 to $2,500).
Cello Audio Palette Program Equalizer (circa: mid-1980s)
Not long after Mark Levinson’s fabled departure from Madrigal, he started his next uber-high-end venture, Cello. Cello’s products like the Audio Palette, which I sold as a college kid back in the early-to-mid-1990s sold for $26,000 per component and it wasn’t even a preamp, just an analog equalizer. 30 plus years later this lust-worthy audiophile component is still used in the best mastering labs in the world. If you have one, call me. 310.860.9988. I want it. (estimated price: $10,000 to $20,000).
Mark Levinson No. 40 AV Preamp (Circa: 1990s)
This was the first true audiophile AV preamp to ever hit the market. Yes, the Meridian 861 was great, and I owned both, a No. 40 and the Meridian 861at the same time, the Mark Levinson is more rare to this day. A two-chassis AV preamp with no HDMI input and a price tag north of $20,000 is stupid-defined but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t swipe one up if you ever see one on the junk heap. This is one hell of a collectable AV product; (estimated price: $2,000 to $3,000).
Sony Qualia 006 Rear Projection Rear Projection Television (circa: mid-1990s)
Man, did Sony mess up by bailing on their Qualia line of products after only a short time on the market. Qualia meant “screw ES (elevated standards) – this is the highest end stuff we can make at any level and for any price” and within a year or so after Qualia’s launch Sony reverted. But before pulling the plug Sony made a camcorder, a video projector, headphones and this sexy-ass rear-projection TV. HDTV? No, not really as you are kinda missing the point. The Sony Qualia 006was the best projector in the world flopped upside down and made to sing for you in an rear projection format. By today’s standards, this TV is outdated even when compared with a $699 TCL (which is quite good BTW). By historical standards, this TV is the kitsch you want to own as a collector; (estimated price: free to $500).
Apogee Grand Loudspeakers (Circa: Early 1980s)
Jason Bloom has been long gone but his ribbon speakers live a quiet legacy that some audiophiles in the know, know are worthy of leveraging some debt. Not easy to amplify, Apogee Grands took some of the hardest falls ever in the Northridge, California earthquake in 1994 thus many pairs sold in my old stomping grounds of Christopher Hansen Ltd. are now dead. If you see this audiophile ghost and get the itch – take action as you may never see them again. Explain to your children that their Ivy League education has been sold out for legacy speakers in a different but equally difficult conversation. Krell founder Dan D’agostino, a total Apogee fan boy says the real pick is the more simple (no active crossover) Apogee Centaurs. Other industry insiders say the Apogee Scintilla’s were the real amp-killing stars of the Apogee line, but I’ve never seen a pair of these in the wild, so you are on your own there. (estimated price: $2,500 to $5,000 plus and God-help-you on shipping/transportation and-or a potential repair someday).
Krell KSA-250 Power Amplifier (Circa: very-early 1980s)
Speaking of Dan D’Agostino’s, one of Krell’s most famous amps, other than perhaps the Aragon 4004, is the Krell KSA-250. Aged by today’s standards, this monster could power any number of the day’s beyond-demanding speaker designs. With perhaps the best bass performance of a decade, the KSA-250 also has that mean edge that could be softened a little bit by matching it with something like an Audio Research SP-9 tube preamp which was a hot setup from the era. (estimated price: $2,000 to $3,000).
Honorable Mentions
I could make this list really, really, long but I want you guys to chime in with your picks but others that come to mind include: Wilson WATT-Puppy 3.2 speakers, Marantz 9 amplifiers, Audio Alchemy DDE-1 DAC, Meridian MCD CD player, vintage JBL L-100s (think: Maxell ad) and Quad ESL-63s. There’s so much more we could get into here.
Now, it’s your turn. What audiophile garage find would cause you to do something stupid to own, and why? What would you pay for it? Have you ever done anything silly like actually buying one of these products as I did with the McIntosh 225? Chime in below in the comments…
Tannoy Dreadnaught. Fell in love with big Tannoy’s in Japan in the early 80’s.
Dunlavy SC-IV, IV/A, V, VI. Still amazing speakers to this day and used in some mastering studios.
Steven Stone sold off all of his old Dunlavy stuff.
It was HUGE and I am not sure you can fix them very easily. You CAN HOWEVER bury dead bodies in them very nicely.
If my current digs had had the room for the SC-VI (535 lbs) I would have kept them. And I had planned for a Viking funeral in Hawaii using a lava flow with one of them, but plans change… 🙂
The college radio station was broadcasting in this new-fangled thing called “FM”. All I had was a plastic beach-style AM radio. So I went to the local used HiFi store. They had a Fisher FM Tuner (maybe a 200) for $50. But, the sales guy explained that I’d need a preamp/amp, too. That was $50 more. As I hesitated (that was big money then), he said it would be $25 less if I didn’t take the mahogany cabinets. The units looked nice with the brass faceplates and the mahogany, so I spent the extra money. Used them for years. I see what they go for now on eBay. Sigh!
I still miss my Great American Sound stuff.
What I wish I still had was my JBL monitors from the mid-80’s. I bought them when I was in Germany at the Army PX for somewhere around $550.
JLB is coming out with L-100s again soon. Stay tuned.
interesting you mention the m/l cls’. while i haven’t heard their most recent offering, the cls’ were the only ones i ever liked. and boy, are they nice. (tho your pricing seems about double what you can get nice ones for..) already having an excellent active stereo x-over/subwoofer system, i was close to pulling the trigger on a mint pair some years back, but i queried martin logan directly regarding the max spl’s these were able to put out, because i’d read this was their main shortcoming. i felt that crossing them to subs would alleviate this issue. but m/l told me directly that, even with subs relieving the cls’ of having to see anythg over 80hz, and unlimited power, you would never get more than ~87db out of them in a decent sized listening room. that was the deal breaker for me.
re: the arc sp9 preamp, i owned a used sp9 mkii with nos vintage tubes – for a week. it totally sucked, and i was glad i bought it from a used equipment dealer that allowed me to return it. (again, i think your price estimates are about double the going rate, tho i would have one for free.) with my thiel 3.5 speakers and my adcom gfa555 amp, my adcom gfp1a preamp crushed the arc preamp. everything sounded completely dull, lifeless, flat. it was like molasses. it was my first foray into tubes; fortunately it did not deter me. now, a tube preamp is a req for my main rig.
and, speaking of tube preamps, imo the melos preamps are still competitive with the latest offerings. and now that their original designer mark porzilli is back in the biz of refurbing and renovating them, they’re a great choice, imo. the only preamp i’ve ever heard that i think might outperform my updated ma333r is the $30k audio purity preamp, from bill baker. but, i’d need to hear it in my system, and it’s just a wee bit above my pay scale…
as far as seeking out and buying vintage gear, for me, it’s been pretty-much limited to fm tuners, but i think i am all done there, and actually need to now “thin the school of tuna” by a dozen or three… ;~)
ymmv,
doug s.,
lover of used gear – audio and vehicular
ps – don’t forget the vintage empire turntables – competitive w/anything new up to $2.5k, imo – even w/the original tonearms.
I’ve got an Adcom GFA 555 amp and GFP 555 probably circa early 1990’s and a set of Thiel CS 2.2 speakers. I still think that the best value of anything I have ever bought is my set of Thiel’s. I find them a joy to listen to and still have friends come over with vinyl or cd and want to play their stuff and listen critically. The Adcom set was bought after an exhaustive search for good equipment at a palatable price (three young kids and a wife who is not into music as much as me will do that). Bare bones. no fancy remote but delivers what the Thiel’s need to shine. (I always thought of the GFA and GFP to mean Great effin’ amp and preamp.) BTW, I kept my Pioneer PL-55X direct drive turntable, vintage 1976, from college days, anticipating, even then, a resurgence of vinyl at some point in the then future and could not wait for the deliverance from that wretched bridging technology known as cassettes. It looks showroom new, the dust cover has no scratches.
At least once a year I think of buying some circa-1980’s Carver amps with the big VU meters on them. I don’t even know how they sound, it’s more of a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off fantasy. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet; first I need to pay off the Denon AVR-X8500H.
This is such a cool and creative article. It is great to have some fun. I would look for anything vintage designed by John Curl. The JC-1 could be interesting.
I wonder how that sucker would sound today.
REL Studio III for dedicated LFE use. I wish REL still made subs that could reach all the way down to single-digit Hertz specs. This thing will throw out insanely low LFE effects that most new high-end subs can’t even attempt to reproduce.
I’ve got the slightly smaller (110 pounds) Stadium III, which is good down to 12Hz. Even with my Eggelstonworks Andra IIs, it adds noticeably to the musical foundation.
Very nice! I’ve heard that bad boy do wonders to both a pair of B&W 803’s and a pair of Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy 7’s. I’d probably be trying to find a good deal on a second one on eBay if I were you!
I miss my Marantz 10b.. best FM tuner ever.. and my 7C preamp.. sold them and one of my original Accuphase P300″s during a divorce thing.. I have since replaced the P300 with 3 more to go with my remaining original unit but the Marantz components are just not floating around.. The 7c is the easier of the pair to find (or replicate) but the 10b is nearly impossible to find.
i have never heard the 10b, but i have heard literally dozens and dozens of tuners. in fact, if i could pare my collection down to a dozen today, it would be a good thing! or even two dozen! ;~)
anyway, the 10b is relatively easy to find if you want to shell out $3k or so. but, if you really liked the sound, i’d recommend the s/s marantz 20 or 20b. many marantz fans who are bigger tuna fans than marantz fans say the 20/20b sounds better than the 10b. i have heard two 20’s (hidden inside the 18 receiver is a 20 tuner, almost identical to the stand-alone iteration. i still have one of the 18’s; never used it as a receiver; just the outs of the tuna into my preamp. they *do* sound remarkably nice, if not the last word in reception ability.
but, based on the fact that i have heard quite as few tuna that sound even nicer, (imo), i’d recommend looking for something else; less scarce and less spendy. a few that come to mind are the hk citation 18, 14 & 15, sansui tu9900, tux1, or one of the lesser sansui’s like the 517/717 or 719, which will get very close to the best there is, after refurb and mods. the rotel rht10 and rt990bx are also about as good as it gets after refurb/mods, but you might actually be able to find a 10b more easily. and, if you’re wanting the tube sound, there’s nothing that will sound better (imo, of course) then a refurb’d modded sherwood s3000lll, iv or v (or the s2100 am/fm iterations); either w/built-in stereo mpx, or w/an outboard more modern s/s mpx decoder. seriously, the sherwoods will equal or better anything available at any price imo. and they’re very common. (i can’t speak for the new $9k accuphase t1200, but it might take the prize – the other accuphase tuna are very nice indeed, but don’t best the sherwoods.)
doug s.
My vote would definitely go to the Harman Kardon Citation 1 preamp and Citation 2 power amp. These two 1958 classics pretty much rewrote design theory on tube amplifiers. They were both very wide band, the Citation 2 having output Transformers that were flat out to 60,000 Hz! In those days, that was three times further, or more, then other amplifiers could reach, and many audiofiles swore they could hear the difference immediately. These two were designed by Stewart Hageman, and as recently as just a few years ago Bob Carver was offering a complete rebuild and update service for at least the Citation one. If I don’t miss-remember, he commented that he considered them to be two of the finest tube products ever built, and while I still have one of each, I haven’t turned it on in quite some time. I bought them used in 1975 when they were traded in to a high-end audio store in Austin Texas, and I used the amp as recently as the 90s or early 2000s with my Martin Logan CLS 2 Z’s. Truly a spectacular sounding amplifier, I wish I had the time or money to completely rebuild and refurbish both.
One reason it’s hard to find CItation II amps – their transformers were looted by a manufacturer for their tube amps. Also their weight was all at one side due to the three transformers, so when shipped they had a strong tendency to roll to that side…and often the trannys ripped off the chassis when dropped.
“….and often the tranny’s ripped off the chassis when dropped.” Is there any audio gear that performs well when dropped?
Hello, Doug Blackwell here. My ultimate find was a matched pair of pre-stereo original Quad electrostatic speakers.
During the 80s I was one of the writers of the Orion Blue Book which got me many phone calls from audio lovers wanting to know how much their special components were worth.
A gentleman in The Dalles, Oregon had these amazing speakers. Before stereo was available, he purchased two: one for his living room and the second for his study.
I owned and enjoyed them for over twenty years then let someone else enjoy them.
They were powered by an original Linn turntable, Marantz 10B & 7C, Mac 275. I purchased all of them from people who called me because of my work for Orion and due to my own audio salon in Berkeley, db audio. Yikes! I enjoyed many hours of beautiful music.
I still remember hearing these by the lake.
You have them listed as a near-impossible find, but there is a pair of Apogee Scintilla’s for sale right now! They are the most iconic 80’s color – Taupe, and the seller says “No buzz whatsoever despite the bass panels original foam” – which obviously means they will buzz like a bunch of angry bees. Listing: https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649306390-apogee-scintilla/
Good luck getting any Martin Logan electrostats from the 80’s that have not been sitting in a damp warehouse or basement for 2 decades, and even better luck trying to get them to work. Moisture and electrostats are a very bad combination. You can make a small fortune selling a working pair of Martin Logan electrostats from the 80’s – after you invest a large fortune in them.