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Post by sandawa on Nov 28, 2006 10:13:00 GMT 7
Just got back from CDO and had a chat with an importer of Jap surplus here in Davao. Good vintage Jap hifi units (locally referred to as surplus) are no longer arriving here after Shanghai traders decided to buy all good ones at twice Philippine traders' quoted price (probably up to P10/watt consumption for amps). With that, I'd be lying low in this hobby (less active participation in the board) since my main interest is good-quality vintage Japanese solid state hifi. Those items in my opinion, as per what my ears hear like those of many American audio enthusiasts, are generally superior compared with US- or British-made audio gear. I'm happy to have acquired some good ones, which I do not intend to sell (except for those with two or three of the same kind such as Yamaha NS-10M studio monitors) The good and bad news are that Japanese hifi firms are resurrecting vintage hifi but at higher cost and price. The vintage-type gear would have the same innards as those made in the '70s and '80s but would be priced almost three times the original. For a Marantz Esotec PM-5, for instance that was quoted in 1980 at 100,000 yen, the likely new pricing would be 300,000 yen. American audiophiles are lobbying for special edition VFET amps but the Japanese (Sony and Yamaha) aren't biting -- too expensive to make, limited market. It's doubtful if the new heavy amps (same high quality transformers and transistors) would be sold here since an equivalent of a surplus amp sold now at the Pier at P5K would probably be P200K brand new if Makati's shops would be brave enough to import new vintage Jap hifi that would be available starting next year. Those who have made the announcement by the way were Victor/JVC, Kenwood, Pioneer and Mitsubishi/Diatone. Also, CDO seems to be running short of audio enthusiasts. I just bought 24 pieces of TDK MA-X metal tapes at P38 each from Gaisano CDO. this used to sell at close to P200 per piece in late '80s. The ongoing price for these items in UK is still about 8 British pounds per piece. I also found a Baby Advent for sale at American Surplus shop near Xavier U at P3K. (Photos below were culled from the web) The good-looking Baby Advents used to sell at about $400 per pair in early '80s in the US, about the same price as the original Wharf Diamond. But it's a big one, 8-inch woofer, about 18 inches tall, more of mid-scale model, but certainly a looker. For the newbies, Advent is a company that used to be under the legendary Henry Kloss. Also an interesting item I found here in Davao is a pair of Yamaha KA-20, which used to sell at 1,800 Brit pounds. These are speakers with built in amplifiers for upscale electronic organ units with 100wpc RMS at audiphile-grade specs. The Davao trader is selling the two at P20K. I'm still thinking if I'll get these, might be a good hybrid pair for a tube preamp.
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Lordfoo
Audionut
Listen to be heard.
Posts: 225
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Post by Lordfoo on Dec 8, 2006 8:19:20 GMT 7
Hi everybody,
I've been too busy lately to post in the forum. Last week, a friend texted me that there's a Yamaha CA1000 series 2 at the pier. It was there alright (2 units at chatty's and another unit in a store across the street.) However, i decided not to get the unit since I already have one unit. Besides, I've been comparing the Yamaha CA1000 i have with my Sansui Aud 707 xdecade and the sansui kicked more ASS. (It sports a higher wattage of course and costs a bit more.) I went home with a pair of black paint sprayed Victor SX3 III speaker i bought for 1,100 Php. I guess they painted it black because the original speaker boxes have been scratched and gouged too much. They still sounded fantastic though.
The same friend (also a member of this or the other forum) also said he bought a Marantz SM-7. Its gold and has VU meters.
Basically, there's not much going on at the pier...business is slack, good pieces are slow in coming in.
My house renovations are coming to a close and my pier surplus units are slowly being parcelled out to some of the rooms. (Three kids room, an HT room, an attic, and a covered terrace.) I will post pictures when everything is completed.
For example, one kid's room has two pairs of Victor SX3 speakers, a Sansui Au7500 amp, a Sony ES337 CDP and a Sansui T207 tuner, another kid's have a Luxman L3 amp, Luxman T1 tuner and a Sony ES502 CDP with a pair of AR speakers.
Well i am off to work.... more later.
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Post by sandawa on Dec 10, 2006 18:09:07 GMT 7
I don't know if you guys have the time for long readings, but I wrote the article below in late 1999 and published by Men's Zone magazine in its January 2000 issue. Take note that this was written before I discovered the joys of listening to upscale Japanese used hifi. I would be uploading my old audio articles, as well as add photos of my vintage audio collection, in my multiply.com website during Christmas break. Back in the ‘70s, an interesting graffiti goes like this: “He who dies with the most number of toys wins!” It came out at a time when microchips pushed consumer electronics development to its limits. Audio equipment technology moved fast. Audio gear got smaller but claimed superior sound quality compared with erstwhile transistor- or valve-loaded vintage equipment. In the US, James B. Lansing, Henry Kloss and Avery Fisher were replaced in the audio directories with names such as Robert Carver, David Hafler and Dan D’Agostino. For a while, even Steve Wozniak, the technical genius and partner of Steven Jobs in developing Apple computers, ventured into audio electronics research. Those were the years when I spent hard-earned money, in upgrading my audio system. It resulted in excess equipment that spawned a weekend buy-and-sell business. Those were the happy days when sold equipment meant new ones for testing. I got my basic interest in audio technology from my father who used to buy the latest radio model, from valve to transistor, every three months during the ‘60s. He eventually destroyed some of those machines by tweaking during his spare time. He was into music too. He played the violin and even experimented on reproducing violin-like sound from a carpenter’s saw. A huge wooden Electro Voice mono radio that looked like a jukebox played familiar tunes in our living room, from Tchaikowsky to Elvis to Sylvia La Torre. With an 15-inch full-range speaker, it was the best sounding radio in our neighborhood that time. Half of my first paycheck 23 years ago was spent on long-playing records. When Bancom Dev’t Corp. shut down in 1981, my separation pay went to an audio system: a 20-watt Technics amplifier, a Dual turntable and a pair of Acoustic Research 18 bookshelf speakers. My brothers were quite impressed with the sound of my system back then. Through the years, I have bought audio equipment from local search for the best units my meager bank deposit could afford. American and British audio brands, tube to solid state, came from Dau in Mabalacat as well as from Makati’s exclusive villages. Dau, of course, was the outlet for goods coming from Clark Air Base. Meanwhile, expatriates living in Makati’s enclaves moved fast, advertising their electronic toys weeks before leaving. For several years, I was a weekend audio trader dealing my excess equipment for profit. The brands that I bought, listened to, and sold in the ‘80s include Radford, Dynaco, Scott, Revox, Luxman, Hafler, Nad, Quad, Carver, Bose, B&W, Mission, McIntosh, Epos, Rogers, JBL, Electro Voice, Cambridge, Acoustic Research, Polk Audio, Infinity, Sansui, Nakamichi, and many others. Like my father, I tweaked and lost an equipment or two. But I believe improved the sound of several units by replacing chokes, capacitors and other electronic parts with spares for military equipment bought as low as P2 each in Dau. Unlike my Dad, I had training in basic electronics having attended night classes for about a year in a Cubao electronics school after I dropped out of graduate school in early ‘80s. The best sounding and the most expensive pieces of equipment I acquired were disposed of in late ‘80s when business journalism took me in. Today, I still maintain three audio systems: a Musical Fidelity/Celestion combination; an Accuphase amplifier driving a JBL home theater package fronted by a pair of old ElectroVoice speakers; and a very heavy 25-year old Kenwood amplifier that drives Wharfedale Diamonds and a Cambridge Ensemble five-speaker set. Accumulated in more than two decades, my music collection consists of about 1,400 vinyl records and 800 imported compact discs including some hard-to-find titles and audiophile pressings, both in vinyl and CD formats. The audiophile materials were bought mostly abroad while attending courses in Japan and the US. Among high fidelity components, I consider the speaker and the amplifier as most critical. One doesn’t need to have golden ears, or be an audiophile, to notice improvements in sound when any of these two pieces of equipment is upgraded. The speakers, of course, generally come in pairs although there are surround systems used by video enthusiasts that are installed in fives to sevens. Decades ago, the belief is that the bigger the speaker boxes were, the better they reproduced sound. In the US, this myth was shattered in the ‘60s when Acoustic Research developed small speakers that sounded better compared with the competition’s bigger and more expensive models. In England, the BBC reference speaker was small and sounded neutral, with negligible coloration, both from the measuring instruments as well as from the audiophiles’ ears. Japan’s Yamaha NS-10M later became the world’s most popular near-field studio monitor. By and large, even until today, the best speakers come in big boxes but there are exceptional designs loaded with superior speaker components that perform better than units 20 times their size. In most audiophiles’ homes, small speakers are displayed and subwoofer boxes are hidden. The subwoofer is an electronically tuned reproducer of low bass noted. It compensates a small speaker’s falling low-frequency response. Good subwoofers don’t assault the ears with thumping sounds. Instead they soothe the listener with deep, rolling bass which most speaker units can’t reproduce. British speakers are noted for balanced sound and work best on real music, or those that use extended audio frequency such as chamber pieces. A British-made speaker rated 50 watts average continuous, in RMS (root mean square) terms, would sound much better than Asian-made speakers that had 300-watt numbers at their back. RMS is the international electronics standard used in measuring average continuous output in watt unit. American brands are also good but many tend to highlight certain audio frequencies fit for popular music reproduction and Asians’ listening preference. The best sounding speaker I ever owned was a JBL Century back in the early ‘80s. It was excellent for all types of music. But it had an Asian character, one that’s a bit biased at high end of the audio frequency when played loud thus losing the transparency some audiophile recordings offer. Japanese speakers sold here tend to have that tinny sound, muddled at worst, and can hardly reproduce clean highs and lows. There are local speakers that look good but are actually years behind the imports in sound quality. Like the Japanese models, they get lost on the critical audio frequencies. The amplifier is another piece of equipment that could provide dramatic results in a home audio system. Again, the British and the Americans produce the best commercially available amplifiers sold in this part of the world. There are some Japanese units, though, that sound good but these are mostly hit-or-miss cases. Sansui and Luxman are highly regarded brands, while Ongaku and Accuphase, also Japan-based, compete head-on with the western world’s most expensive gear. But there are exceptions. A 25-year old Kenwood receiver rated 65 watts RMS that has been with me for the past 20 years sounds as powerful and as clean as a NAD 100-watt amplifier. It even beat 160-watt amplifiers in a measured test in Greenhills, a few years back. It lost to a heavy 100-watt Krell, though. The Greenhills technician admitted my unit was indeed an exception, apparently an aberration in the production line. In general, a 20-watt amplifier is enough to drive any good speaker although the less efficient ones from Europe would need at least 50 watts RMS to reproduce loud passages with less distortion, such as those in Mahler’s massive symphonies or the cannon bursts in Tchaikowsky’s 1812 Overture. Those rated 100 watts could reproduce faithfully any piece of music but these could also drive your neighbors out when you turn the volume up on a Led Zeppelin, or a Van Halen, number. New materials recorded on digital technology demand higher peaks and thus would require powerful amplifiers of at least 250 watts per channel. But such materials come only in classical or new music compositions that generally test equipment limits. By the way, rated power of amplifiers should always be in RMS watts, or the average continuous power the equipment produces without breaching the distortion limit submitted by the manufacturer to the regulating agency. The correct rating is always printed in the equipment user’s manual. The RMS norm was set during the ‘60s to prevent manufacturers from deceiving the consumers with varying formulas in computing rated power output. Such form of deception is currently happening here. Asian-manufactured low-fidelity music systems are rated hundreds even thousands of watts of peak music power output. Such equipment, in reality, could produce, at allowable distortion level, only about 10% of the claimed output. A well-known Japanese brand mini-system I bought five years ago for its Pro Logic system, BBE high-frequency boost and Karaoke functions had a 1,200-watts power sticker on its front. It’s manual, however, indicated 50 watts per channel rating at total harmonic distortion level of 0.1%. Such distortion figure puts that equipment on the low-fidelity category and should not attract interest from serious audio enthusiasts. For beginners, it’s better to use an amplifier with a power rating higher than the speaker since such match up tests the potential and normally drives the best output from the speaker units. It also saves the tweeter from possible busts, which happen when the distortion level at high frequency goes beyond what the tweeter units could take. It’s not true that higher rated amplifiers would burn the speakers. This of course assumes that the ratings of the equipment are correct and are in RMS figures, not on peak power output. These days, the most popular music reproducer is the CD player. It is convenient, compact and noise-free. Digital filters could be used to improve the output of these equipment but many might be disappointed to find the effect hardly audible. The same is true for esoteric connectors and speaker wires that are not much better than those sold cheap in hardware or electronics shops. There are other digital media available but their distribution has remained limited. Your computer’s MP3 is still a low-fidelity medium although there are recent improvements, such as higher sampling rate and higher speed, that boosts its output quality. The most common music source in the audio system is the FM tuner. It delivers clean and balanced sound even as it provides free and up-to-date music from dozens of stations round the clock. However, you don’t control which songs you want played in your FM tuner unlike in other sources. Nowadays, the weakest link in an audio system is the tape deck. Except on expensive and reliable brands such as Nakamichi, other cassette tape equipment can’t compete with digital audio sources. An alternative to a cassette tape machine is a hi-fi VHS deck that plays wider frequency range. It’s also more efficient. An average VHS tape can record several hours of continuous music with playback quality superior than the smaller cassette tape. Ask anyone and he’ll likely describe the turntable as a Jurassic piece of equipment. But there are loyal audiophiles in advanced countries whose audio systems are still based on vinyl, or long-playing, records. There are specialized markets out there which still buy expensive vinyl records produced in limited quantity by audiophile firms in the US and Europe. For so many years, I haven’t touched my record collection. I lost interest in vinyl after I sold my vintage Thorens turntable, which was fitted by a classic 12-inch SME arm and Shure’s best pick-up. It sounded good but an audiophile from Hong Kong bought that turntable package at a price equivalent to my two months’ salary in the late ‘80s. I was happy with that deal until I realized five years later that the same model was selling fives times more than what I got in a Hong Kong audiophile shop. Last summer, a friendly computer repairman thought I had MP3 copies of my files he simply wiped out from my hard disk a Napster collection of over a thousand oldies. That forced me to go back to my record collection and play the best tunes I lost. Since I had nothing much to do on weekends, I cleaned some of my records and revived my two turntables: an old Technics SL1200 with an Audio Technica 155LC cartridge and a newer Thorens TD 320 with a Shure V15 Type 3 cartridge. I was expecting the usually annoying record surface noise but what I got was a breathing, more vibrant music reproduction compared with their CD format versions. The difference was simply awesome. It was like listening to music in a spacious living room, with the ambient noise, compared with the clinical sound one gets from listening to CD. The comparisons I made involved audiophile vinyl and CDs of Sheffield Labs, specifically those of Lincoln Mayorga and Amanda McBroom, as well as the JVC vinyl pressings of GRP records and the original US-pressed CDs of the same tiles. The drawback of going back to vinyl is significant. You’re not just required to clean records regularly, you also face the possibility of destroying those old diamond-edged styli that are now available only in selected audiophile shops in the US. I checked out Hong Kong’s upscale hi-fi dealers last year but I couldn’t find stylus replacements for my Audio Technica and Shure cartridges. These days getting into serious hi-fi hobby would be quite expensive. With the peso value sliding down against other currencies, even used equipment would be inaccessible to middle income earners. A high-fidelity equipment priced $1,000 in the US would have to be sold at least a hundred thousand pesos to cover the current exchange rate, the freight and the customs duty paid. For good sounding budget gear that costs about $300 each at dealer’s price, a local retailer wouldn’t start below a P30,000 quote. This is expensive considering you can buy Japanese mini-systems at less than half that price. In the early ‘80s, my wife was so happy she married someone who spent most of his time listening to beautiful noises created by the likes of Beethoven and the Rolling Stones. Then, she found out that my obsession robbed her of her rightful share during payday. That started the fights. Oops! I messed up, that's personal.
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Post by bukra on Dec 11, 2006 6:42:34 GMT 7
win lose or draw? obviously you won! happy holidays bro.
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Post by parasmi on Jan 31, 2007 9:45:15 GMT 7
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Post by sandawa on Feb 12, 2007 6:41:46 GMT 7
It's been over a month when I got frustrated with the absence of vintage Jap hifi coming in. These past days, I was lucky with my vintage hifi hobby. A month ago, I got hold of Phase Techology PC-80 made by an innovative Florida-based firm (it holds the patent for the dome tweeter and the flat woofer.) Not a Japanese vintage but it sounds good after I replaced the pair's busted tweeters. I bought it brand new from a local shop at giveaway price because of busted tweeters and rotten woofer edges. Diego gave me his Polk tweeters whose voice coils went to the busted ones. Sound is definitely high-end, (their PC series is supposed to be the "audiophile line".) Just yesterday, I saw and immediately bought an NEC A-10 Type IV distributed in 1987. It was rated 60wpc@8 ohms, 120wpc@4 ohms, and 240wpc@2 ohms. Its story is interesting: NEC engineers wanted to show other electronic giants it could produce a good amp at low cost. Thus, it developed the A-10 which was sold at less than 100,000 yen despite its fully packed box. One website said NEC sacrificed cost for this unit and should have priced it twice or roughly at par with the AU-X series of Sansui. The A-10, despite its modest rating, weighs 27kgs., with two separate transformers, and power caps totalling over 90,000uF. No tone controls but not lacking in good clean bass. I bet this could drive my pair of JBL 4430s. Very good sound and comparable with the alpha907 units after 6 hours of testing with Epos 14 and Mordaunt Short 3.40. A-10 still sells at roughly $400 used in Japan. Last week, I got hold of Pioneer A-UK3II, the Japanese version of A-400. No tone controls, no headphone jack, "simple and straight" as the front panel says. BTW, I also saw a big Pioneer A-900 in one of the shops here. The price at P7.5K is a bit high in my appraisal (current resale value in Japan is about $150.) Here's an A-400 link for reference: www.gbaudio.co.uk/data/a400.htm POSTSCRIPT: Among the discs I tested the A-10 with last night was Dixie Chicks' "Taking the Long Way." It was so nice to see those three angels on cable dominating the 49th Grammy.
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Post by parasmi on Feb 15, 2007 6:21:52 GMT 7
thanks for the info of the pioneer a-3ukII saw the same model also at the manila pier and and immediately search for some info about it on the net. unfortunately, i onlycame across with the a-3uk which i think is the predecessor of the a-3ukII. what's your impression of the amp, sir sandawa? how much did you get it? thanks
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Post by sandawa on Feb 15, 2007 7:48:14 GMT 7
It sounds the usual low-power British amp. Clean within a limited volume level without much headroom for loud dynamic music or even demanding chamber music.
When I first listened to it, I was reminded of my early British SS amps in the '80s -- Musical Fidelity A1, Mission Cyrus II and even Quad 34/303. The A-UK3II sounds different and would require a matching pair of speakers. I connected it to 6 efficient bookshelf speaker pairs and liked Wharf Diamond IV best.
I think the A-UK3II is the replacement of the original A-400. That means it could be UK's A-400X. The net says audiophiles like the A-400 better than its revised model. But then, A-400 has a headphone jack, a form of signal diversion, while there is none here. "Simple and straight" as the front panel goes.
Anyway, if it's the A-400X, not the A-400, it's still a steal. I have here with me Hifi Choice Aprill 1994 issue that reviewed 8 amps valued from 300 to 600 British pounds. The group also included Arcam Alpha 6, Audiolab 8000A, HK 1400, Linn Majik and Rotel RA-980BX.
Guess which one got number 1 ranking from the Hifi Choice panel review: A-400X followed closely by Alpha 6. Rotel's 980, a favorite of some local audio enthusiasts, was at the tailend of the review. Got this amp at P2.5K.
My current winner, however, is NEC A-10 Type IV. If you can find this at the Pier, buy it quick even at five figures. (Right now I'm even willing to buy a mint unit at P20K). It's a sleeper amp, comparable with my huge Sansui AU-X!!, just slightly lower in performance than my Sansui Alpha 907s. No tone controls but tight bass, clean high and seductive mid frequency. To my ears it sounds better than my Accuphase and even Yamaha B3 VFET.
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Post by parasmi on Feb 15, 2007 10:05:13 GMT 7
thanks for your inputs sir. you're correct, the a-uk3II (not the a-u3k which i originally assumed) is the jap equivalent of the a-400. aside for the mark "Simple and straight" on the front panel, the a-400 has only a single pair of speaker terminal as seen on these pix www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photography/Home-audio/Amplifiers-tuners/photos/a-87656843/p-35655370.htm. the amp that i saw at the pier has also a single pair of terminal post. mukhang mapapabalik ako sa pier nito ;D i'll see if i can get below 2.5k. malinis na malinis pa man din condition
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narayan
Audionut
I am a peaceful soul
Posts: 234
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Post by narayan on Feb 17, 2007 18:37:26 GMT 7
sandawa, congrats on your great find-the nec a10 type IV pa. pakikalampag ako bro when you bump into another good unit. dream vintage amp ko din yan ;D
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Post by Superman on Feb 17, 2007 18:38:10 GMT 7
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Post by sandawa on Mar 19, 2007 17:01:04 GMT 7
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Post by Superman on Mar 20, 2007 17:44:26 GMT 7
congrats! kaya pala tahimik, hehehe! just arrived in CDO...will check your "sources" here
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Post by Superman on Mar 20, 2007 17:45:52 GMT 7
PS: yung next batch ng listening massage chair naka-linya na ako, hehe!
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