Comparing Older gear with modern stuff

[admin_exported]

I wondered if theres anywhere you can go to get a rating of older gear compared to the newer stuff

I mean, how would one find out how an old Marantz CD50 would compare against a Cambridge Audio Azur 640C ? - What about putting a Cyrus 3 Amplifier up against a Rotel RA-05 ?

Wouldn't it be nice if there was somewhere that rated out of 100 the quality of these older components when compared to modern ones so we could know just how much difference upgrading our gear might help us.

I would love to know what sounds best, a record deck or a CD player costing the same amount, but on the What Hifiequipment listings theres only like for like comparisons, which makes sense I guess, however, it would be very nice to have an article which challenged these problems and gave us some answers!

Graham

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting post. The design of amps for example is basically the same as it was 20 years ago; there are newer lower noise transistors around, some and components with tighter tolerance but the base design remains the same. CD players have benefited from lower noise DACs and decoders but again the basic principle remains. In thoery newer kit should be better due to the new compoment technology. That said a good design can compensate. I guess the cost also comes into play when making any comparison. A cost of £500 today is very different from £500 10 years ago so you need to compare like for like. I think the record vs CD debate will never be decided.....it's all down to personal taste. Interested to hear other peoples views.

 

[Anonymous]

My post above I guess is asking the same question - how does older 2nd hand stuff weigh up against good budget gear. No answers here, obviously, but would be very interested to hear form someone who'd listened to all this gear.

Cheers

 

[Thaiman]

If you treat buying Hi-End hifi as you would buy a car then you half way there. You may know that they are a lot a dodgy car dealers about and you also know that certain car's brands have a reputation for break down. In Hifi, We know that Densen and Krell are build to last forever and Micromega are not!
So how would the 2nd hand hifi sound compare to the new one? Off course It's depend on what they are but generally buying 2nd hand wisely can bring you a lot closer to hifi nirvana. For example

£1,000 will buy you a 2nd hand MF Nu-vista cdp or Cyrus cd8X (no contest there!)

£750 will buy you a 2nd hand Krell 300i amp or a brand new Cambridge Audio 740A (closed call, it will depend on would you prefer Tyson's right hook or Ali's left jab)

£400 will buy you a 2nd hand Linn Genki or brand new Rotel Rotel RCD02 (Genki for me on this one)

The higher you go, it's make more sense to buy 2nd Hands All IMHO