Question Amplifiers...are the new ones better than the old?

robnet77

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Hello,
I'm looking to replace my basic Marantz amp with a better model.
After some research and input from this forum, my understanding is that there are good deals available for old amplifiers which are still holding their ground against the new generations.

My doubts are the following:
1) looking at WhatHiFi and other magazines, they often replace the best products with newer models: does this mean that a new amp will be much better than one built 10 years ago in the same price range?
2) if I bought an amp which used to cost 1.600 pounds 10 years ago, will it sound better than an amp that costs 800 pounds today?
3) old amps don't come with warranty and can easily cost 2-3 hundred pounds to get repaired
4) new amps might lose some value as soon as you buy them, whereas old amps tend to retain their value better over time

Thanks.
 
Very quickly.. 1) no
2) not necessarily, but often yes (remembering that "better" is subjective too)
3) correct, but exceptionally rare for solid state gear to fail
4) depreciation occurs essentially between new price and out-of-warranty used price. From that point on a good brand item will not depreciate further. A cheap brand will continue to drop until it's essentially worthless. Much like cars!

Ultimately the technology has not changed for a lot of years (except the advent of "class D" amplification which was very rare), so there's really no massive leaps happening out there. More like small reliability improvement, small improvements to component design, small improvements to material consistency, /evolution/ in other words.

You have to go back a long way to find a radically poorer performance.
 
I agree with drdocmatt.
To expand on 2). It all depends what £1600 10 year old amp you're talking abiut and what £800 brand new amp you're talking about. It also might depend on the suitability of the amp to the speakers - eg SET valve amplifier for midrange only amplification or for high efficiency speakers. Solid state amp for low efficiency speakers with a relatively low impedance.

4) there is further depreciation after the warranty expires, but it is genereally more gradual than for newer kit. The main thing that determines price amongst used kit is how many people want to buy it and how badly they want to buy it. The best bargains tend to be items that are good and are under the radar. The sort of kit that wasn't hyped to high heaven when new, nor in recent times on hi-fi forums.
 
I was reading the November 2016 edition of What Hi-fi yesterday. The thing that struck me is that their buying guide does not include 99.9% of the (new and used) audio equipment available for anyone to buy today. Amongst that 99.9% there are lots of items that I would prefer for both cost and sound quality over the items listed in their guide.
 
As good as an old amp may have been components, particularly valves, capacitors and potentiometers, degrade over time and need replacing or bias settings drift so need adjusting to restore the amps original performance, which may not be cost effective compared to the performance/cost of a modern amp.
 
larkone, anyone buying a valve amplifier should be well aware that the valves will need replacing every c5000 to c20000 hours. This will apply to a brand new valve amplifier as much as a vintage one. The wise buyer will mentally add on the price of a lifetime's supply of valves to the initial cost of a valve amplifier to decide if it is worth buying or not.

Some types of capacitors will not degrade over a lifetime's use. It all depends what type of capacitors are in any amp, and also things like the heat that they are exposed to if they are of a type that does degrade.
Some potentiometers will be good for a lifetime. Some won't. It all depends. Some amplifiers don't have any potentiometers in them.
Some amplifiers may have bias that drifts out of spec over a lifetime. Some won't. Some amplifiers are auto biasing.
 
I would say that three to five year old transistor gear does not need attention, unless it was faulty when it shipped..

When you reach a decade or two, that is when you might factor in a refurb but even then I doubt it would stand up to a double blind test in most cases. The comfort factor will be improved of course.. :)
 
larkone, anyone buying a valve amplifier should be well aware that the valves will need replacing every c5000 to c20000 hours. This will apply to a brand new valve amplifier as much as a vintage one. The wise buyer will mentally add on the price of a lifetime's supply of valves to the initial cost of a valve amplifier to decide if it is worth buying or not.

Some types of capacitors will not degrade over a lifetime's use. It all depends what type of capacitors are in any amp, and also things like the heat that they are exposed to if they are of a type that does degrade.
Some potentiometers will be good for a lifetime. Some won't. It all depends. Some amplifiers don't have any potentiometers in them.
Some amplifiers may have bias that drifts out of spec over a lifetime. Some won't. Some amplifiers are auto biasing.


Which is why I said 'may have' not 'will have'.
 
I think some of the responses here are off the mark. One thing to bear in mind too is the economics of the situation. A new amp is very likely to be better than one ten years ago at the same price, since these firms grow in size as their market will increase. This means they can offer more for less, having better economies or scale. The cost of production becomes less.

If I compare what I had speaker wise 20 years ago and adjusting inflation, you can get infinently more for your money now than then. Also when you look at what some manufacturers offer in amps over time, some newer models are much better value for the price against what they can now do. This striving to keep up and constant drive of competition keeps most amps better than previous models. If it doesn't happen these firms won't sell and they will go out of business.

I'd doubt a £1600 amp 10 years ago would sound as good as an £800 therefore. There will be exceptions of course, as with anything.

The best amps to get if you want to buy used are those quite young but still keeping up with the tech, as you get a significant discount and they less likely need servicing. The point is if a10 year old amp needs servicing and could likely go wrong again due to age, is it worth getting it serviced now. No. On depreciation most hi-fi depreciates rapidly anyway, used prices might be kept high due to desirability for so long as age isn't limiting in this, but hi fi tends to be a long term purchase anyway and once bought doesn't hold much value. So it's not really a consideration against the sums you are talking about, as most of value will be lost and quickly. So you could buy a £1000 amp and keep it for 5 years and then it's worth £250. If you upgrade after a year or two then hi fi will tend to keep better value obviously, but still it's on a very fast downward trajectory.
 
I don't think so, because we're not talking about speakers, we're talking about amplifiers - solid state electronics. The rate of change is glacial compared to speaker engineering where they are generally so poor anything is an improvement..

The rapid depreciation is exactly why buying second hand makes sense. Well known small volume manufactured gear tend to lose about 50% through warranty to its second or third birthday, but then you can pretty much stay at that level until it's obsoleted by a couple of new generations of product. If you're talking about a thousand quid item saving half that and putting it towards some possible repair work (rarely more than a couple of hundred quid, and frankly I've never had to have anything repaired, ever) and then still having a five hundred quid asset at the end makes a lot of sense to me, financially. If nothing else it's a way to stretch your budget to kit you wouldn't otherwise afford. :)

Of course the best investment in the hifi world is the Cyrus psx-r. I bought one used for about £200 a decade and a half ago, owned it during three successive price hikes by Cyrus and sold it for £350 a decade later..! Lots of demand and overpriced new. Very easy to sell on..
 
Agree what you say that speakers are probably improving more so than amps but I think it's easy to forget how amps have improved too.

I agree with you on used and stretching your budget but in hi fi I think it only makes sense on young kit say up to a year or two. Also I agree on depreciation and why it makes sense to buy used and young kit, but your position re upgrades is not common to many who buy hi fi who unlike me as well as you it seems, tend to keep it 6 plus years.

Quite obviously if buying amps 10 years old it's a different proposition with the likelihood of major faults and repairs and degradation of sq as to whether it's worth it economically. Like owning a £300 car and paying £300 each year on things that can regularly go wrong due to age and wear in addition to servicing.

Your analogy with the psx-r I don't think holds true since most people wouldn't have paid £350 even five years ago. I bought a 2 year old brushed black one for £180 4 years ago. They are £500 new 5 years ago and now would likely still be £500 assuming the new £750 psx-r2 hadn't come out a few years back. Most psx-rs go for £200 -£250 now even before new model came out and going back 5 years too.

Economically it's not worth £350 to the buyer if it goes wrong it will be £250 repair which I think is the standard cyrus repair price (used to be £225). Also smooth black finish if 10 year old ones then not brushed black etc. But I accept the market prices can be distorted if not knowing age, as common with eBay etc. But say I paid £250 for a 10 year old used one and it has a £250 repair, which can happen, I've basically bought a new one i.e. £250 plus £250. Not to mention likely higher service price in future. However if you bought a one year old one for £400 a few years back when not an obsolete model (replaced by psx-r2) which would easily have been achievable, you've saved £100 as opportunity cost over the 10 years. I've had things go wrong in hi fi outside the warranty, as have many.
 
The magic of eBay. Everything sells for more than you would expect if you do a good auction..
But honestly I've had fifteen and twenty year old kit that's never needed work. I wouldn't worry about repairs, these are really not cars with moving parts, they just don't go wrong in general.
 
Or sells for less I guess.Some things do go wrong, I've had problems with cyrus on new kit with a power amp (they just gave me a new one) and display problems on two seperate new sources, both sources replaced too. Whilst they are good sounding, reliability is sometimes not great. Touch wood. Cyrus had loads of issues with CD players not reading properly about 7 years ago and still some such issues on new players too a year or two ago.

Not having had issues you've been lucky, but I would say I've only had one thing go wrong with mass produced stuff of which I've had lots of such gear. That was a Sony blu Ray player I had to take back to an authorised repairer for a new laser. It was only 3 months old. I've never had TVs go for example. With hi fi audiophile makes that arent made in such volumes, you'd expect higher failure rates Id say because they aren't made in the numbers to the extent where reasons can be analysed and built back into future reliability, plus less resources of a Sony, Panasonic etc.
 
I have heard they've had issues with LCD displays and seen a few dodgy ones on eBay that's true. I never had a Cyrus with one of those displays though, just good old fashioned little LEDs and, well otherwise maybe I've been lucky..

I do also recall issues reading some CDs, but when I asked about it Cyrus kept pointing back to the CD company for shipping non-redbook compliant media. And they were correct. But it was still annoying when everything else could read it just fine..! Not a fault as such, more a bug. Them taking on more design work than they needed to (writing their own drive firmware.. what were they thinking?).
 
I know the cyrus cd xt signature cd transport had issues with reading discs last year when cyrus did the half price upgrades, but I think that was sorted by a firmware update. Oh well hopefully we can both enjoy reliable hi fi!
 
I've read that the quality of the actual basic components - the resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, transistors - that go into an amplifier have got worse since the 1960's / 1970's.

That these items used to have a certain amount of over-engineering that over time has been eroded in the push to lower and lower manufacturing costs.

When it comes to valves the NOS ones from the 1920's to the 1960's are sought after for their sound quality when compared to modern equivalents.


We can use a site like this to estimate inflation: U.K. Retail Price Index


I think that a £99 new Creek CAS4040 from 1983 would compare very well to modern £320 integrated amps.

Likewise Heybrook HB1 speakers at £127 in 1983 sound better (less worse) than every sub £500 modern speaker I've come across.

The Linn LP12 without arm was £373 in 1983. The modern Majik LP12 costs rather more than £1100.


There was a lot more competition and turnover in the world of new hi-fi equipment in 1983 than there is in 2017.
 
I agree components are probably similar, but what I think is different is all the hi fi boffins and electrical engineers and circuit designers which have brought hi fi on in audiophile brands e.g. that concentrated belt around Cambridge with all the manufacturers making hi fi kit, no doubt due to the university and other industries there etc. It can't be easy to design, tune and tweak an amp circuit from a blank canvass. Also probably lots of testing advances too.

You are forgetting inflation in your comparisons I think. £100 in 1983 is about £310 now, so about 3 fold change, so all your comparisons are like for like, at least in relation to similar price or cost. I doubt the market for audiophile makes is much bigger now compared to 1983 and we've always seen a drive for mass production mass market audio when the tech is there, certainly from the 80s.
 
I don't know about the differences in sound, but I personally just love the looks of the late 70s Sansui, Yamaha and Onkyo amps. The big chunky switches and dials....

They all look infinitely better than my battleship grey NAD amp
 
I don't think so, because we're not talking about speakers, we're talking about amplifiers - solid state electronics. The rate of change is glacial compared to speaker engineering where they are generally so poor anything is an improvement..

.

Electrolytic capacitor lifetime halves for every 10C temperature rise and they are spec'd for a given lifetime at their max rated temperature. If you have never replaced these then how would you know that yours are working as originally intended when the item was built?

These are the cause of many TVs failing recently - Samsung had a real problem with some poorly spec'd capacitors in their power supplies as did SKY in their Thomson boxes some years ago. So only glacial if they were of a good spec in the first place and were kept well within their operating limits.

I recently replaced the main output caps on a 10 year old amp and the improvement in sound was an order of magnitude better.
 
Thanks for all your replies, however I'm still unable to determine whether it's best to buy an old Arcam A85 or a newer A19, both for a similar price (400£) now.

Also, is there a used amp for 700£ which you would choose over a Rega Elex-R, which I saw on Amaz... for that price yesterday (funny, it's no longer listed on either of those two sites which were both selling it at 671£ yesterday).
 
I'm not sure why you don't try a few amps over mail order. Do you have concerns with this?

The cyrus 8dac I recommended would easily beat the arcam a19 I reckon (a £650 amp new) whereas the 8dac was £1500 new (as is current 8 2 dac) and I saw one sold on eBay for £640. Why pay £400 when the cyrus for a few hundred quid would get your more, and cyrus work lovely with your tannoy speakers which I too once owned. It's sound is also upgradeable by adding a psx-r power supply.

The current 8 2 dac potentially could be borrowed and then returned no obligation. Then look at used - 8xp or preferably 8dac. The dealer too might be able to source you a used one. You shouldn't buy without trialling.
 
So only glacial if they were of a good spec in the first place and were kept well

"Glacial" was referring to the pace of design change, not the pace of degradation of old products.

But whilst on that topic, I don't think the Samsung/dell issues are the same at all. The dodgy PSU caps we all know about on numerous products were *faulty*, and were a critical component operating close to design capacity all the time when powered on. The caps in most hifi amps are so over specified they are barely ticking over and under very low stress. I'm not implying this to mean they don't degrade but it seems likely they won't do anything suddenly or in a few years or so.
 
Thanks for all your replies, however I'm still unable to determine whether it's best to buy an old Arcam A85 or a newer A19, both for a similar price (400£) now.

Also, is there a used amp for 700£ which you would choose over a Rega Elex-R, which I saw on Amaz... for that price yesterday (funny, it's no longer listed on either of those two sites which were both selling it at 671£ yesterday).

Hehe, get a dice. Sorted. :)
 
Hehe, get a dice. Sorted. :)

I wouldn't. There are always means and ways to trial in the post and borrow stuff. As I say an option is always to trial and then buy a used unit. There is nothing wrong doing that and often the dealer will have used stuff for that make, so good for them to let you try anyway so they can let you know what a make / amp sounds like. They might also just trial out used amps too anyway.

Buying hi fi without trialling is like going to a supermarket blindfolded and pulling stuff from the shelf and expecting to get it back and make a good meal out of it. Tinned peaches and coffee granules.....lol
 
Buy and sell on eBay is the ultimate "trial in the post".. Dealers charge you for demo gear anyway so the only difference is a small amount of extra work and a tiny risk of losing a little money when you sell on. But if you have read reviews and forums and come to the conclusion that a particular product is probably about the right sound balance for you, then you've removed most of the random factors already.
Assuming you can afford it and you're confident you can sell on you don't like it, why not?

Life is full of risks, at least this one is not life threatening..
 

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