by Gerard Rejskind
(Reprinted from issue 54 of UHF Magazine. To purchase the issue, click here.)
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Or even the garage sales?
There is no single answer to this, but it's true that not all innovations bring you better sound. Indeed, as we've frequently noted in the pages of UHF, the economics of competition, in audio as elsewhere, force most manufacturers to compete on the basis of ever-dropping prices, and the result is worse products, not better. And so many "hi-fi" products (the quotation marks are growing increasingly appropriate) get worse with each model change.
Of course, that is the rationale for what is called high end audio. It deliberately stands outside the realm of mass-market competition, selling products entirely on the basis of merit, or at least perceived merit. But can it be assumed that the research of the high end companies has truly advanced the state of the art, and that high end hi-fi has gotten better while mid-fi was getting worse?
When you look at amplifiers, you might well wonder. Why are so many bright designers going back to tubes? And can it be that the old tube amplifiers were as good as present-day amplifiers...or perhaps better?
In some cases, in fact, the answer is yes. Of course it's unwise to supposed that an amp is excellent just because it's old and it uses tubes. A lot of old tube amplifiers were awful, with high distortion and objectionable noise, and they would burn up if you stared at them too intently. Still, some classic amplifiers which seemed superb years ago still do today. That's true of certain models from McIntosh, Marantz, Dynaco, and even Heath, the company once known for its electronic kits. In some cases, classic amplifiers are being offered in new versions, albeit for far more money than the originals.
And in one important respect the modern incarnation may be superior to the classic version. In the 1960's and 70's, designers weren't aware of the impact parts quality could have on an amplifier's performance. An amplifier from three decades ago wouldn't have gold contacts on the tube sockets, or anywhere else. It wouldn't have polypropylene capacitors either, nor properly-designed input and output connectors. It might even have a skinny little power cord like the one on a night light.
But in other respects the older amp could well offer real advantages. When you take inflation into account, transformers were cheap back then, and so the better amplifiers could and did sport huge ones. Some even used chokes (large magnetic coils) in the power supply, which not only filtered the 60 Hz AC line frequency but also any high frequency noise coming down the line -- it was like having a built-in line conditioner. Some power amplifiers were even using swinging chokes, whose inductance actually varied with the current drawn from the power supply, and which acted as line voltage regulators. Their use seems to be a lost art, or perhaps no one is making swinging chokes anymore.
As for tubes themselves, not only were there outstanding quality tubes available at very low prices, but the tubes themselves were conservatively rated, with a long life expectancy. As for the designers, they too would design conservatively: they knew that if a tube was rated at 450 volts maximum, you didn't run it at 450 volts! The result: lower maximum power, but longer tube life, and in many cases better performance.
But let's not get too nostalgic. Power amplifiers often suffered from slew rate distortion, which didn't even have a name at the time. Preamplifiers prior to 1978 or so were relatively poor, because designers hadn't figured out how to prevent interaction between phono cartridges and preamp input stages. A top grade turntable 20 years ago probably meant a Linn Sondek, which was vastly inferior to today's Linn, or some other modern tables. As for CD players...well, remember those first players? Or would you rather forget?
The emergence of the high end as an alternative to the mass market has allowed designers to use radical means to solve old problems. That's why some modern gear is truly superior. But it doesn't mean those old designers didn't know what they were doing.