“Vintage Audio, Continued”
(a random pagemonkey rant)

I recall that I related some of my recent experiences capturing ulitmate-fidelity digital copies of old LP albums in a rant about Liberace. I’m starting on another branch of that project, which I find entertaining although many of you may not.

But, if you’re old enough to remember hi-fi from the 1970s, you might get a kick out of this.

Currently sitting precariously on the corner of my far-too-messy desk is a Sanusi 2000A receiver, born back in 1972 in a land far away and very different from ours.

This model was never a favorite of true audiophiles back in the day - no true audiophile would be caught dead using a mere receiver for serious listening, as we all knew that separate components were the way to go.

But a number of those golden-eared wonders were quite fond of this model for use as the heart of their 2nd systems.

And at some point in the near future, this sweet old girl is going to become the center of my main system, although I’ll be using a pair of much more powerful amplifiers along with her because I’m really, truly, very fond of loud music without a hint of unhappy-amp distortion sneaking in to ruin the sonic picture for me. Her perfectly fine sounding internal 40 watt per channel amplifiers will be used to drive computer speakers for those few times when I don’t need the total of 400 watts per channel I’m planning…

I’m very sure that when all is said and done, I will be able to look at the odd collection of old components I’m assembling and realize I could have bought a complete system of reasonable quality and performance brand new for the same money.

Unfortunately for me, I’m not the least bit fond of any of the new stuff I’ve seen, at least not the new stuff I can justify in my toy budget. I’m easily disappointed because I have a long history of owning incredible audio equipment.

I like lots of power, I like the feeling of thick brushed aluminum front panels, and I like the sound of things designed by engineers who felt that only twice as good as something needed to be was barely acceptable and three times was a little better.

The tragedy to your right is another phase of my project, a fairly well abused Bose 501 Series 1 speaker. I have the mate, too, and they’re both going through an extreme makeover at the moment.

The cabinets are stellar from an engineering point of view; they’re double-walled and absolutely non-resonant, and they’ll prove accomodating for the rather high-tech components which will be installed in them. An aluminum dome tweeter with a machined dome for lightness and stiffness, a carbon fibre midrange which uses carbon fibre in the cone as well as the frame, and a wool-cone woofer from Ireland.

Yes, seriously - wool.

Wool fibres are a natural tubular microfibre, one which is very stiff and strong and long-lasting until beaten into submission for weaving into socks and sweaters. Although, I suppose I’ll have to have my woofers dry cleaned whenever I get them dirty somehow…

(For you specification freaks… The “end of the road” specs on this project will look something like so - from the source to your ears: 21 Hz ~ 38k Hz +/- 3dB, with less than 0.8% THD thanks to machined aluminum tweets + wool-cone woofs + 1:21 cabinet dimensions, and less than 0.03% IMD thanks to minimum negative feedback designs in the signal path, with a maximum sound pressure level of 101dB and hum+noise -93dB thanks to some component replacements in the San 2000A, and headroom of ~ 3db thanks to large amps and clean signal paths. Other pluses: Bass will be phase-accurate and location-accurate; stereo imaging will outperform anything available in home theatre systems.)

I’ve always loved having the best of both worlds. But I guess at this point I’ll have to admit to having something of a fetish for the best - the best of the old days, and the best of what is around me now.

And here’s something I’ll make no secret of - I love being in the kitchen when the soup is made. I don’t believe in magic, merely technology, skill and honesty.

~ pagemonkey