Discussion
This thread is tempting me to get up into the loft and dig out our 80s vintage hi-fi to see if it still works. Should be a two decks - a Rega Planar 3 with the RB 300 arm and a Dual 603 (DD), NAD3020 amp, Mission speakers, Rotel receiver, Tecnics cassette machine, an EQ and a CD player. Trouble is, it all takes up so much space compare to an IPhone and a BOSE !! Where’s th3 market for any of this old stuff ?
This is my setup.
Technics SL-DL1 with an Audio Technica AT85EP Cartridge.
Technics SU-V4X
Both bought by my dad in 1983 which is the year I was born. I famously attacked the whole stereo with sandpaper when I was very very young.
B&W 602 S3.... OK... non vintage :-)
Not ideally located but it is what it is. It sounds beautiful with a decent LP in it.
Technics SL-DL1 with an Audio Technica AT85EP Cartridge.
Technics SU-V4X
Both bought by my dad in 1983 which is the year I was born. I famously attacked the whole stereo with sandpaper when I was very very young.
B&W 602 S3.... OK... non vintage :-)
Not ideally located but it is what it is. It sounds beautiful with a decent LP in it.
Edited by thebraketester on Wednesday 10th February 14:49
Edited by thebraketester on Wednesday 10th February 14:51
Update
I have recapped the amp but don't know if it will work as I havent put it together again as I found these
They are the emitter resistors for the right channel that will answer why the right channel wasn't working too well!
Any way some more on order and some new trimpots do I can set the voltage going to them so they dont do that again!
Seems someone has been playing around in here before as their soldering is worse than mine
I have recapped the amp but don't know if it will work as I havent put it together again as I found these
They are the emitter resistors for the right channel that will answer why the right channel wasn't working too well!
Any way some more on order and some new trimpots do I can set the voltage going to them so they dont do that again!
Seems someone has been playing around in here before as their soldering is worse than mine
bungz said:
Be aware a lot of stuff from the 80's etc if it isn't been refurbed will likely greatly benefit from it.
I have a NAD 320BEE which isn't that old and had to recap that, sound was night and day afterwards.
I enjoyed my NAD 3020 for decades, and then the inevitable happened. Took it to a ‘bloke in his shed’ and he repaired and updated some of the internals. Cost me £100, bargain and the NAD performed brilliantly. I have a NAD 320BEE which isn't that old and had to recap that, sound was night and day afterwards.
Meanwhile I sought advise in here about a replacement for my NAD thinking that maybe the repair wouldn’t be up to scratch.It was.
However, enough posters in here convinced me I could do much better, so I sold my NAD, basically got my repair money back, and found a ROTEL RA 1062. For my ears a superb sound and a used bargain at £140.
Mars said:
I hope this isn't cheating but I have always fancied a Quad 405 amp so when I saw the Chinese eBayers selling recreations of the circuit boards AND that iconic case, I had to have a go at building one myself. The original Quads underwent significant development throughout their production, and development even continued by some well-educated owners. Strangely enough, the most developed versions have fewer and fewer components. The very latest designs I found whilst researching these seem to have fewer than half of the original components. The theory was that components introduce noise. For sure, mine isn't totally silent when there is no signal, but it's as good as any production amp I've ever owned.
The boards available on-line are about a mid-age design. I couldn't find any actual boards for sale from the ultimate design and I don't have the capability to design or etch my own.
I had a set of Mission 751s from about 1991 but about 15 years ago I gave them to my brother whose children poked the tweeters, picked at the bass cones, and generally knocked them off their stands. Eventually he went for Sonos and gave them back to me, a little embarrassed at their distress but I didn't care because I had also gone for Sonos. I relegated the Missions to entertaining me when I was working in the garage.
Anyway, having completed the Quad amp in lockdown, I bought a Sonos Connect and found a well preserved pair of Mission 751s on eBay, so one thing led to another...
I am truly impressed with this little set-up. I've lived with Sonos for 15 years which I like for the capability to fill a room with music "conveniently" but their speakers lack the depth and "life" that the Quad and Missions bring. The Sonos Connect does a good job though. I also have a couple of Google Chromecast Audio "pucks" which are arguably better still but projecting your music to them is made tricky by Google's insistence that you must upload your music to Google Play. I have all my music on a NAS which the Sonos is able to reference just fine.
There's a unidirectional auto-reverse (seriously) Nakamichi cassette desk for sale on eBay at the moment. It'd be £1300 by the time it is delivered to my door which I cannot afford but I have lay awake the past few nights just looking at it on my phone... it's only a matter of time.
I'm not sure who to blame for this but I have definitely been influenced by this thread.The boards available on-line are about a mid-age design. I couldn't find any actual boards for sale from the ultimate design and I don't have the capability to design or etch my own.
I had a set of Mission 751s from about 1991 but about 15 years ago I gave them to my brother whose children poked the tweeters, picked at the bass cones, and generally knocked them off their stands. Eventually he went for Sonos and gave them back to me, a little embarrassed at their distress but I didn't care because I had also gone for Sonos. I relegated the Missions to entertaining me when I was working in the garage.
Anyway, having completed the Quad amp in lockdown, I bought a Sonos Connect and found a well preserved pair of Mission 751s on eBay, so one thing led to another...
I am truly impressed with this little set-up. I've lived with Sonos for 15 years which I like for the capability to fill a room with music "conveniently" but their speakers lack the depth and "life" that the Quad and Missions bring. The Sonos Connect does a good job though. I also have a couple of Google Chromecast Audio "pucks" which are arguably better still but projecting your music to them is made tricky by Google's insistence that you must upload your music to Google Play. I have all my music on a NAS which the Sonos is able to reference just fine.
There's a unidirectional auto-reverse (seriously) Nakamichi cassette desk for sale on eBay at the moment. It'd be £1300 by the time it is delivered to my door which I cannot afford but I have lay awake the past few nights just looking at it on my phone... it's only a matter of time.
I felt the Missions needed some extra whoomph at higher volumes so I put the old knackered Missions underneath the new ones and tried to drive them all in parallel using the Quad clone, however the Missions alone are 6 Ohms so in parallel presented only 3 Ohms to the Quad which it couldn't handle at those higher volumes. It started to shout, and left behind the bass.
Eager to try something new, I priced-up building another Quad clone thinking to drive each speaker with its own channel but since I bought the components for my original Quad clone (some years ago) the delivery prices from China have rocketed, making it less economical now.
eBay occasionally has Quad clone components and often at better prices than AliExpress but while I was searching, I came across a pair of Linn LK100s for a bargain price, and snapped them up.
They turned up today.
Now I have four channels of amplification and they are spectacular. The bottom Missions have knackered tweeters but the sheer grunt of these Linns is incredible, so much so that I will buy another pair of decent Missions now. At low volumes they just sing, and project tight but deep and resonant bass. Turn it all up and it absolutely quakes the house. It's like I have connected-up some truly enormous speakers.
Bowie's "You've Been Around" and "Nite Flights" from Black Tie White Noise, and "Dance Of The Loomie" from Ozric Tentacles Arborescence, and some of Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart... oh and that Ibiza Chill album... all of them are suddenly room-filling. No - HOUSE filling.
I'm having some custom speaker wall mounts made up next month so I can position two pairs of Missions at eye height when standing and when sitting.
The little Scandynas are waiting for me to finish rebuilding a subwoofer I originally built to partner them a few years ago. It needs a new mono amplifier inside. That's on another slow boat from China. They will serve my kitchen eventually, again with another Sonos Connect and that Denon amp you can see in the pics. It has a subwoofer line-out so is perfect for them.
The Quad clone and the knackered Missions will serve the garage. Whilst the tweeters are knackered, the garage requires only volume really, not fidelity.
And I still have my eye on a Nakamichi RX-505, as well as a couple of reel-to-reels. The R2Rs are between £2500 and £3000 so I will likely save for those and buy them for my Christmas present.
Digger said:
Are the 751 tweeters repairable?
They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
The driver/magnet part is fine but the coil is part of the metal dome and they are just not available. I do keep an eye open for good 2nd hand ones but, failing that, I have found new silk domes, so that's an option even if it's not the best option.They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
Digger said:
Are the 751 tweeters repairable?
They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
I've always liked them.They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
Definitely one of those speakers that sounds bigger than they actually are (something 731 which is only a little smaller could not manage)
tonyg58 said:
AndrewGP said:
We got my 14 year old son an old JVC A-X400 in silver for £40 from eBay. It's delightfully retro with a graphic equaliser and horizontal level meters. Although we did our research and the on-line reviews are very good, I wasn't expecting much....however, I was pretty stunned at how good it sounded.
Not surpised it is good.Most of the Japanese hifi from this era are excellent - what people forget is that they were expensive not cheap and nasty.
Most of the Pioneer etc amps of the 1970s were £500+ back then, that's over £4000 in today's money according to the B of E convertor.
NGRhodes said:
Digger said:
Are the 751 tweeters repairable?
They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
I've always liked them.They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
Definitely one of those speakers that sounds bigger than they actually are (something 731 which is only a little smaller could not manage)
Mars said:
NGRhodes said:
Digger said:
Are the 751 tweeters repairable?
They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
I've always liked them.They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
Definitely one of those speakers that sounds bigger than they actually are (something 731 which is only a little smaller could not manage)
NGRhodes said:
Mars said:
NGRhodes said:
Digger said:
Are the 751 tweeters repairable?
They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
I've always liked them.They are easily my favourite speakers of many that I have owned including those that were twice the price!
Get them repaired!
Definitely one of those speakers that sounds bigger than they actually are (something 731 which is only a little smaller could not manage)
The terminals on the back groups all four of the main drivers together which means you can't even share the amplification of the mid-bass and sub-bass. I suspect if you could tri-amp them, with the two sub-bass on one amp, the two mid-bass on one amp, and the tweeters on a third, then they might really sing.
Having two pairs of 751s at my disposal and four channels of Linn amplification is providing me with earthquaking bass but it's not floppy or uncontrolled. I was never one of those religious nuts who went on and on about Linn stuff but now I've got a pair to play with, I'm quickly becoming converted. However, it's what they are doing to the 751s that I'm most impressed with so am I most impressed with the 751s or the Linns? The combination is pretty amazing.
The Linns have also tamed the slight sibilance of the metal domed tweeters too. I know Mission's "Freedom" range was intended to do that by replacing them with silk domed tweeters but I have always had my doubts about those because the metal domes, when they're on form, work really well, and I like them. With the Linns, they work really well ALL the time.
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