VINTAGE GEAR

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Vintage Gear
Sennheiser HD414
Steve Guttenberg  |  Sep 11, 2012  | 
The Sennheiser HD414 was a game changer in 1968. In those days hi-fi headphones were all big and bulky, closed-back designs, and the compact HD414 was the industry’s first “open aire,” on-ear (supra-aural) headphone. It looked, felt and sounded like nothing else and forecast the future direction of headphone sound.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
Shure V-15 Phono Cartridge
Steve Guttenberg  |  Jul 10, 2012  | 
The original Shure V-15 phono cartridge debuted in 1964 as a "statement" design. The engineering team was headed by Jim Kogen, who later became a Vice President of Engineering, and after that the CEO. The V-15 Type II arrived six years later and it was the first computer-designed cartridge. The Type III was the best selling model in the series, it came along three years later, long before the CD changed the course of audio history.

Shure was huge in the mainstream market, but by the late 1970s and through the 1980s most analog-loving audiophiles had graduated to moving-coil cartridges (the V-15 was a moving-magnet design). I preferred the sound of moving coil cartridges, but conceded the V-15's tracking abilities were well ahead of most of the expensive Japanese moving coil designs of the time.

Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
SkyFi’s ‘To-Die-For’ Vintage Setup Spans the Decades
SV Staff  |  Dec 26, 2019  | 
SkyFi Audio does more than just sell cool vintage gear. The New Jersey-based hi-fi specialist offers a “Stereo Concierge” service for audiophiles who crave a unique system but don’t have the time or inclination to research and find “the right” gear.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
Sony D-5 Portable CD Player
Steve Guttenberg  |  May 17, 2012  | 
Sony introduced the world’s first portable CD player, the D-5, in late 1984, just a year after its first home player, the CDP-101, revolutionized the audio market. In the 1970s, Sony Walkman cassette players were as ubiquitous as iPods are now, and the new Discman players were poised to be the next big thing.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
Sony Trinitron Television
Steve Guttenberg  |  Jul 18, 2012  | 
On April 15, 1968 Sony held a press conference in Japan to announce a new type of television, the Trinitron. The research team had just finished hand building ten prototypes, so they were shocked to hear Sony executives promising the TV would be in full production in less than six months! The very first Trinitron, the KV-1310, was in stores in October. A year later Trinitron came to the United States.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The 800-B Receiver: An Avery Fisher Masterpiece
Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 03, 2022  | 
We jump into the audio time machine and head back to 1961 to revisit an early stereo receiver designed by hi-fi pioneer Avery Fisher.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The Advent VideoBeam 1000 Projection System
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 08, 2012  | 
In the early 1970s, the biggest consumer TVs were 27-inch direct-view CRT sets, so people must have been blown away the first time they saw TV projected on an Advent VideoBeam 1000’s 7-foot screen. The first Betamax videocassette recorders were still a couple of years away in 1972, and broadcast and cable TV were the only viewing options.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The Grado Phono Cartridge: A Classic Lives On
Steve Guttenberg  |  Mar 26, 2013  |  First Published: Mar 20, 2013  | 
In the days before the CD arrived in 1982, LPs were the format of choice for music lovers. While the turntable played a significant role in determining sound quality, you also needed a great phono cartridge to get the music out of the grooves.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The KLH Model Nine Rides Again
Bob Ankosko  |  Jun 17, 2021  | 
KLH, the iconic audio brand co-founded by audio visionary Henry Kloss in 1957, is well known for the great sounding two-and three-way acoustic-suspension speakers it designed and built in the 1960s and ’70s. All had simple names — Model Four, Model Five, etc. — and featured unassuming but nicely finished wood-veneer cabinets. What you may not know is that KLH also introduced the first full-range electrostatic speaker — the legendary Model Nine.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The Klipschorn Speaker
Steve Guttenberg  |  Oct 22, 2012  | 
The Klipschorn was such a revolutionary speaker, it can still hold its own with some of the best of today’s home theater speakers. Paul W. Klipsch founded his company in 1946 in Hope, Arkansas, and built his first 12 Klipschorn speakers in 1947. They were fitted with Western Electric 713A compression tweeters and 12-inch JBL or Jensen woofers. The Klipschorn was designed to fit into the corner of a room, using the walls and floor as extensions of the speaker’s bass horn.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The Mighty Marantz 2500: A Commanding Presence
Bob Ankosko  |  Nov 11, 2021  | 
In this edition of Sound & Vision’s Audio Time Machine, we highlight the Marantz Model 2500, one of the most powerful receivers of the late 1970s.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The Mighty Technics SL-1200
Bob Ankosko  |  Feb 18, 2021  | 

Coveted by audiophiles and DJs, the iconic turntable is still going strong half a century later.

It’s rare for any piece of audio gear to remain in production for more than a few years, let alone a turntable that not only survives but continues to evolve for the better part of five decades. The Technics SL-1200 turntable and its many iterations have been in production for 43 of the last 49 years, an extraordinary feat by any measure.

Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The Model Eighteen: The First Marantz Receiver
Bob Ankosko  |  Sep 10, 2020  | 
Image: audioscope.net

In this edition of Sound & Vision’s Audio Time Machine, we highlight the Marantz Model Eighteen, the iconic brand’s original stereo receiver.

Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The NHT SuperZero Speaker
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 28, 2012  | 
Over-performing little speakers were always part of the high-end scene, but NHT’s SuperZero was the one that broke the mold. I recently spoke with NHT founder and president Chris Byrne to learn more about this classic speaker. The model that preceded it was, naturally enough, the Zero, but it didn’t take off, so it was redesigned with a different tweeter, a Japanese 1-inch soft dome made by Tonnegen. The woofer was a 4.5-inch treated paper cone driver, made in San Diego. The SuperZero sold for $230 per pair in 1993.
Continue Reading »
Vintage Gear
The Sansui 9090DB: A Receiver for the Ages
Bob Ankosko  |  Aug 19, 2021  | 
We go back to the Bicentennial year of 1976 to revisit a top receiver from a largely forgotten hi-fi brand.
Continue Reading »

Pages

X