Reviving an Old System?

[admin_exported]

I am about to get a Hi-Fi listening room back after 10yrs! all my Hi-Fi comes from the 90's and i'm just wondering if things have moved on significantly to bin my old stuff and just go for new? My old equipment comprised of Audiolab Pre/power (original) amps, Teac VDRS T1 Cd transport and Audio Alchemy " Dac in the Box" Dac and mission 735 floorstanding speakers. Cables are of varying quality but i will change those for new as will the speaker wire which was expensive Monster Cable. The speakers are probably too big for my new room, and will prob go for new ones of some desciption.

Are The Amps still upto scratch? has CD technology and sound moved on?

Many thanks and any help would be greatly appriciated as i have been in the hi-fi wilderness for too long.

 

[the record spot]

Hi DR, some good stuff sitting in there. I'd update your speakers, or look into that anyway; I used to thave the Mission 733i which was a rather good floorstander for the price paid (£330), but a move up to the Mission 752 a couple of years ago (used pair) showed me what could be achieved. I take it the 735s just have more bass drivers - two or three and the tweeter? Probably do bass very well I'd imagine!

I'd definitely KEEP the amps and especially the transport. The Teac range of the mid-90s was a bit good. The VRDS-7 and -10 players were high quality players and add to the this the T-1, which you can still pay a good £300 in mint nick in some dealers (when I was buying my current Marantz player, the T-1 was on the shortlist in a local shop, but then I snagged the Marantz for £300 half-price and went with that).

Your previous cables and speaker wire will probably be fine, but I'm not one who advocates spending silly money, or anything remotely like it on that area of audio gear. My current interconnect cost £7, my speaker cable is the excellent Audioquest Type IV which I picked up in 1997 as it was single strand copper core. Construction being more important than brand name IMO.

You could hang on to your DAC, but some new models out in the last few years have added more options. Depending on your budget, see the likes of the Musical Fidelity V-DAC at about £150 (don't be put off by price, this has a solid following and well rated widely), Cambridge Audio's DACMagic 2 for about £230 and upping the ante a bit, Stello's SA100 from April Music at £650 or so.

 

[Anonymous]

yeah, thanks for your answer and help. record spot. it good to know i didnt spend badly in the "OLD" days. I was always happy with the CD and DAC, and iKnow the amps where top stuff for the money. Probably going to get new speakers and stands. new cabling is on the cards too. I have a newish Sony reciver/surround system with Q Acoustics speakers linked to my CD / Dac. and i can see the quality is still in the source. the only problem is that the old hi-fi shops have closed down!!

 

[the record spot]

Pleasure mate, no worries. By coincidence, I'd heard an Audiolab 8000A when I picked up the Philips CD850 earlier this week. The guy was selling both for £125 - I've chanced my arm way too much this year with used kit, so agreed with Mrs. R_S that I'd go for one or the other. The Philips won out, but the 8000A (and the Philips for that matter) were absolutely mint. Not a single flaw, mark or whatever. Somebody snagged a good deal with the amp, as it's gone from Gumtree as well now.

Like I say, try out some cables on demo if you can (some places will do a sale or return thing with loan stock that reduces the risk somewhat), but there's a pretty solid body of opinion that questions the whole branded and expensive cable theory. Roger Russell, ex-McIntosh Audio, has a good site dedicated in part to some of this and it's worth a read.

I've just ordered 10m of twin 2.5mm speaker cable to try out with the Missions (a mighty £5.49 off Ebay, new!), and compare to the Audioquest stuff I use. It'll be interesting as I like the sound of the kit, but it's a cheap tweak and an easy test to do. It'll also let me see if there's much of a difference bi-wiring or not and bridging the speaker terminals at the back.

Truth is, it'd be easier for me as the Sansui amp is of the vintage when the spring-clip terminal ruled the roost on the back of an amplifer and the Type IV just fits in.

Either way, it's your thoughts which are important, but whatever you end up with, I hope you enjoy it. Nice time to be checking out new speakers as there's some nice models out there. The used market can be pretty good too and I'd point you towards the Audio Emotion and Jordan Acoustics websites; they both do higher end gear in the main, but have a good set of used kit to go with it.

Big benefit with Audio Emotion is the 5 year warranty they throw in for most of their used kit. Both companies are based up here in Scotland (AE in Leven and JA up in Glenrothes), but will mail order as you'd expect. Oh, another worth thinking about is Retro Reproduction in Edinburgh who has a good range of used kit, less stellar and no warranty, but Graeme's a decent guy to work with (bought my Linn Mimik there a few years back).