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Joined 2009
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thx - v interesting to hear about this, you say ‘much’ preferred so it wasn’t as if it were a marginal thing with the group split on their opinion.
I think that many times the modifications are heresy that do not give good results and damage the device.
If something works fine, leave it as it is. I bet those electrolytes from the source were changed by the fashionable advice: "Upgrade it and the amplifier will sound like new or better" And well, it is one more practice (unnecessary in my opinion) that gives income to many repairmen in the world ..... you have to live on something .....😉
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Most people simply don't have a clue whats inside the gear and how to see differences in parts and their technology so they ended up with an "upgraded" unit completely get lost of original parts but now changed to cheap, new technology parts that cost only some cents and they are told that this is better, because its newer. Its not out of the blue that Marantz based its legend on those early gears and its BECAUSE they have build inside whats original condition must be in the box and no fancy boutique parts or cheap Mouser parts.
Just try to fetch any of those old parts on ebay as NOS and most people will be shocked about their prices now. Good income for any repairmen who does an "overhaul" with those cheap parts. No real Mercedes collector would accept a restoration with cheap, no name parts because the quality will be no longer Mercedes like. With electronics, people accept that because they are mostly incompetent.
Just try to fetch any of those old parts on ebay as NOS and most people will be shocked about their prices now. Good income for any repairmen who does an "overhaul" with those cheap parts. No real Mercedes collector would accept a restoration with cheap, no name parts because the quality will be no longer Mercedes like. With electronics, people accept that because they are mostly incompetent.
Of course they do, because Marantz engineers were not dumb but simply clever engineers which outperform most garage companies by far.
And after the mod, the gear is worth nearly nothing to any serious collector.
Marantz 7 followers are always talking about authenticity of the Clarostat pot and Bumble Bees (must be dead by now). I guess some kind of coloration due to those old parts are the big part of it. It seems most of them don't like reissue ones.
But then again, would a Mercedes collector be bothered by having proper modern hardened valve seats installed so that unleaded gasoline doesn't ruin the engine?
Middle of the road Mouser parts are impossibly excellent compared to what was available 50+ years ago.
All that talk about the "value" of original components (like bumblebee capacitors) is just some internet-driven nonsense without merit.
I don't know where people get these silly notions, but I wished they'd just stop it, and get a life.
Even some manufacturer has gotten into the arena by producing these bumblebee caps to attract these clueless souls.
And those faked capacitors are nothing but modern caps (poly) encased in a new suit, with some rediculous price.
I think there's some youtube video of a guy cracking one open to reveal the truth.
More Snake Oil...
I don't know where people get these silly notions, but I wished they'd just stop it, and get a life.
Even some manufacturer has gotten into the arena by producing these bumblebee caps to attract these clueless souls.
And those faked capacitors are nothing but modern caps (poly) encased in a new suit, with some rediculous price.
I think there's some youtube video of a guy cracking one open to reveal the truth.
More Snake Oil...
For unleaded gasoline, just put a very small amount of lead into the gas tank and your done. Why change the motor for that?
Middle of the road Mouser parts suck. They are technically superior, no question, but your ear doesn't hear the technical way measurements do.
Are you happy by telling others that those parts have very low fraction of distortions compared to the old ones? Thats what they do in the equipment. They alter the sound in the direction of ->new sounding gear.
Do you want to drive an oldtimer Mercedes with a complete, last generation engine from W213? If so, your no real oldtimer fan. Any Mercedes oldtimer fanboy would love to drive an original car with an original motor.
And thats what the Marantz isn't anymore with "middle of the road Mouser parts". Believe it or not.
If you don't hear the difference, why not being so tolerant instead of intollerance, to let others believe they sound good?
I'm not talking about faked old parts, I'm talking the real stuff.
And it has nothing to do with snake oil, which means some obscure and woodoo things to do in hifi for a better sound.
Its the technology of the parts that has changed a lot, look at the parts descriptions how they are internally were build and what materials were used.
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Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
the more people who mod their Marantz, the more valuable those left unmolested. If I owned an original I should encourage the misguided upgraders !!
A late friend of mine, a prominent Virginia lawyer, who was very knowledgeable about vintage audio equipment, wrote me a letter more than forty years ago. He toured many factories here, in the States, and the UK.
He said that "The Glory Days - the true golden age of hi-fi - was this period, the late forties through the late sixties, and tubes illuminated the scene. What remains from this era, is surprisingly, not usually sought out of reverence for the old but for quality of construction and sonics. It's hard to say if our knowledge and technology of the last 30 years have actually improved anything".
"Sweaty Yankee ironworkers no longer purify the iron as they once did - Japanese x-ray investigations revealed more transformer-saturating impurities. Wonderful PCB-capacitor dielectric material is now banned as carcinogenic. Cobalt [a constituent of the metal-magnet alloy Alnico] is now a strategic and costly element. These are but a few examples of the degradations in economics and materials affecting sonics of modern gear for which good replacements have yet to be found and used".
Here's a good example: because of labor costs, mainly, speaker cones these days are usually formed by stamping a grained material over a die - and that's it. The grained material started life as a rolled sheet. Since it's got a grain to it, when under stress, it bends along the line of grain, causing cone distortions much earlier than cones made the old way, in which a watery cotton, paper, glue and dye goop was vacuum-drawn through a fine ceramic sleeve and baked - naturally grainless!.
Remember this was written more than forty years ago.
Cheers,
He said that "The Glory Days - the true golden age of hi-fi - was this period, the late forties through the late sixties, and tubes illuminated the scene. What remains from this era, is surprisingly, not usually sought out of reverence for the old but for quality of construction and sonics. It's hard to say if our knowledge and technology of the last 30 years have actually improved anything".
"Sweaty Yankee ironworkers no longer purify the iron as they once did - Japanese x-ray investigations revealed more transformer-saturating impurities. Wonderful PCB-capacitor dielectric material is now banned as carcinogenic. Cobalt [a constituent of the metal-magnet alloy Alnico] is now a strategic and costly element. These are but a few examples of the degradations in economics and materials affecting sonics of modern gear for which good replacements have yet to be found and used".
Here's a good example: because of labor costs, mainly, speaker cones these days are usually formed by stamping a grained material over a die - and that's it. The grained material started life as a rolled sheet. Since it's got a grain to it, when under stress, it bends along the line of grain, causing cone distortions much earlier than cones made the old way, in which a watery cotton, paper, glue and dye goop was vacuum-drawn through a fine ceramic sleeve and baked - naturally grainless!.
Remember this was written more than forty years ago.
Cheers,
Ops, we have an Argentine emigrated to the USA here ? ......😉
Ops, tenemos un Argentino emigrado a Usa aquí ? .....😉
You made my day. Not much more to add. The evolution in audio towards enhanced and automated industrial production methods led to cheaper gear for a mass market production.
Btw, without those cheap production methods and materials, we wouldn't have seen all those goods in a warehouse store we see since the early20th century. Today, mostly came from asian manufacturers, because they beat everything in cheapness. But the production methods towards mass markets for all goods were once developed in the western world.
We benefitted from them mostly, but should be aware that cheap products could not have the same quality standards than old, mostly handmade products. If an audio transformer is handmade with high quality cores and enhanced winding techniques, it beats every automated produced transformer easily. And it was much parts and goods handmade those days. From speaker cones to hardwired tube amp chassis, from transformers to electron tubes. It wasn't cheap products, but they often lasted a lifetime. Of course, that couldn't be the goal of an economy that constantly strives for growth. Those products can kill the whole company easily. Bought once in a lifetime, never serviced, never seen this customer again for profit. Not the way our economy works.
The more the transformation went towards a mass market, this quality has been all gone.
Today we enjoy computer like build audio gear, feed it with digital, computer generated signals. Thats what makes the difference to an original Marantz unit. It came from a different time and age and therefore sounds incomparable to anything modern in audio.
Thats what it was designed for, never for competing with modern gear.
Btw, without those cheap production methods and materials, we wouldn't have seen all those goods in a warehouse store we see since the early20th century. Today, mostly came from asian manufacturers, because they beat everything in cheapness. But the production methods towards mass markets for all goods were once developed in the western world.
We benefitted from them mostly, but should be aware that cheap products could not have the same quality standards than old, mostly handmade products. If an audio transformer is handmade with high quality cores and enhanced winding techniques, it beats every automated produced transformer easily. And it was much parts and goods handmade those days. From speaker cones to hardwired tube amp chassis, from transformers to electron tubes. It wasn't cheap products, but they often lasted a lifetime. Of course, that couldn't be the goal of an economy that constantly strives for growth. Those products can kill the whole company easily. Bought once in a lifetime, never serviced, never seen this customer again for profit. Not the way our economy works.
The more the transformation went towards a mass market, this quality has been all gone.
Today we enjoy computer like build audio gear, feed it with digital, computer generated signals. Thats what makes the difference to an original Marantz unit. It came from a different time and age and therefore sounds incomparable to anything modern in audio.
Thats what it was designed for, never for competing with modern gear.
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You wrote that part, not your late friend, right?
Well, I think that it is not so, the treatment with various materials for "doping" of the cones (some really exotic) of the current speakers has introduced tangible improvements with respect to the speakers of those years.
I had the opportunity to see for myself, with an old "combined" that was in perfect condition but not working (valves were missing) in a summer home of my in-laws in the province of Córdoba. Had artificial field magnet! I think I remember it was 12 inches. I borrowed it, and made it work, but it didn't make any good impression on me at all ..... so the next year it returned to its place, as appropriate.
Computer-aided design has made major improvements in speaker technology, especially in cones. They do not introduce tones of the cone material as before.
So I insist that that Marantz 7 preamp may sound great with a tube amp to complement it and high-impedance, good-sensitivity speakers, but plug it into a modern SS amp and current speakers and it won't be anything great.
In that example, the whole equation changes, such as input impedance and sensitivity mismatches between the Marantz 7 and the modern SS amplifier. But it is just my opinion, I can be wrong, I leave a link of a similar "experiment" that I never knew if it came to fruition because the author did not continue to post .....
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Esa parte la has escrito tú, no tu fallecido amigo, no es cierto ?
Pues yo pienso que no es tan así, el tratamiento con materiales varios para " dopaje " de los conos ( algunos realmente exóticos ) actuales de los parlantes ha introducido mejoras tangibles con respecto a los parlantes de esos años.
Tuve la oportunidad de comprobarlo por mi mismo, con un viejo " combinado " que estaba en perfecto estado pero sin funcionar ( faltaban válvulas ) en una casa de veraneo de mis suegros en la provincia de Córdoba. Tenía imán artificial de campo ! Creo recordar que era 12 pulgadas. Lo tomé prestado, y lo hice funcionar , pero no me causó en absoluto ninguna buena impresión..... asi que al año próximo volvió a su lugar, como corresponde.
El diseño asistido por computadoras ha hecho mejoras importantes en la tecnología de los parlantes, sobre todo en los conos. No introducen tonos propios del material del cono como antes.
Por eso, insisto en que ese preamplificador Marantz 7 puede sonar estupendo con un amplificador valvular que lo complemente y parlantes de alta impedancia y buena sensibilidad, pero conéctalo a un amplificador SS moderno y parlantes actuales y no será nada extraordinario.
En ese ejemplo, cambia toda la ecuación, como ser las incompatibilidades de impedancias y sensibilidades de entradas entre el Marantz 7 y el amplificador SS moderno. Pero es sólo mi opinión, puedo estar equivocado, dejo un link de un " experimento " parecido que no supe nunca si llegó a buen término porque el autor no siguió posteando.....
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- to arrive at a close approximation of C7's "sound" - - study its power supply.
Half wave rectification, daisy chained RC filtering. Relatively "high" output impedance vs modern concerns of low Z and tight regulation.
Modern capacitors with low ESR may need a small inductance added in series to replicate the sonic characteristics of capacitors of that time.
Try to use coupling caps similar to originals. Silver mica caps in the RIAA and high level stages' feedback loops are more appropriate than polystyrene.
Conrad - Johnson did several spinoffs , using Zener referenced cap multipliers in the PS vs old school unregulated , starting with their "PV1". imo, later variations were just variations and no real improvement over PV1 when driving tube amp input Z.
I had an old Fisher KX200 integrated amp (great output transformers) - very funky coupling caps - sounded "ethereal" on a Joe Pass CD vs a hard sound with other amps - maybe not "correct" but very relaxing and musical.
Power Supply Section
Half wave rectification, daisy chained RC filtering. Relatively "high" output impedance vs modern concerns of low Z and tight regulation.
Modern capacitors with low ESR may need a small inductance added in series to replicate the sonic characteristics of capacitors of that time.
Try to use coupling caps similar to originals. Silver mica caps in the RIAA and high level stages' feedback loops are more appropriate than polystyrene.
Conrad - Johnson did several spinoffs , using Zener referenced cap multipliers in the PS vs old school unregulated , starting with their "PV1". imo, later variations were just variations and no real improvement over PV1 when driving tube amp input Z.
I had an old Fisher KX200 integrated amp (great output transformers) - very funky coupling caps - sounded "ethereal" on a Joe Pass CD vs a hard sound with other amps - maybe not "correct" but very relaxing and musical.
Power Supply Section