Vintage Gear

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Stewart Wolpin  |  Jun 17, 2019  |  5 comments
Lemoyne Martin was unhappy. He’d just bought a Sony big screen TV, but now found the quality of his local cable TV service severely lacking.
Stewart Wolpin  |  Dec 30, 2018  |  2 comments
The RCA CT-100 and Admiral C1617A were the first color TVs offer for sale on December 30, 1953. Both had a 15-inch screen.

Even though 4K TVs have been on the market for less than five years, numerous companies will announce they’ll start selling 8K TVs at CES next week. This despite the fact that less than half of U.S. homes own a 4K TV, and there’s no 4K programming available yet on U.S. broadcast TV networ

Steve Guttenberg  |  May 04, 2012  |  5 comments
Edgar Villchur didn’t set out to start a speaker company; he just wanted to license his acoustic suspension designs to other speaker companies. In the early ’50s, he shopped the concept to the biggest names in the business, but not a single one was interested. So Villchur started Acoustic Research in 1952, and his very first speaker, the AR-1, was an immediate hit. Villchur’s design strategy used the elasticity of air within a sealed cabinet to provide the restoring force for the driver, which allowed his relatively small speakers to produce deep, low-distortion bass.
Bob Ankosko  |  Apr 21, 2022  |  9 comments
KLH is well known for the amazing acoustic-suspension speakers it sold in the 1950s and ’60s, but did you know audio legend and company co-founder Henry Kloss also designed a series of music systems?
SV Staff  |  May 23, 2019  |  0 comments
With its latest audio offering, New Jersey-based vintage audio specialist SkyFi Audio steps back in time but adds a modern twist.
SV Staff  |  May 09, 2019  |  0 comments
Hearkening back to the late ’70s , this gleaming Pioneer SPEC 1 preamp is one of the more striking stereo specimens from New Jersey-based vintage audio specialist SkyFi Audio.
Bob Ankosko  |  Apr 09, 2020  |  1 comments
The Fisher SA-1000 tube amplifier is a sight to behold with its stately gold faceplate and signature tube cage. The amp also happens to be a legendary piece of audio gear that dates back to the early days of hi-fi.
Steve Guttenberg  |  Dec 12, 2012  |  0 comments
The AVR-5800 may be the most iconic Denon AV receiver of all time. It debuted in 2000 to commemorate Denon's 90th anniversary and was the world's first 7.1 channel receiver, the first with DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, and THX Surround EX (the forerunner of Dolby Digital Surround EX). Before the AVR-5800 arrived AV receivers, including the biggest flagship models, were all strictly 5.1 channel affairs.

Bob Ankosko  |  Mar 06, 2020  |  4 comments
It’s always interesting to see what new treasures turn up at New Jersey-based vintage hi-fi specialist SkyFi Audio. There’s certainly no shortage of gear to drool over — like the 1963 Fisher SA-1000 tube amp. Or the Nakamichi Dragon we spotted on the “just arrived” list.
Rob Sabin  |  Apr 26, 2018  |  5 comments
Julian Hirsch’s review of the Bose 901 in 1968 helped set off one of the greatest and longest-lasting audiophile debates.

There may be no singular product in modern audio history that has generated more accolades, derision, or pure controversy than the Bose 901 loudspeaker. Introduced in 1968 by a then four-year-old concern named after its MIT-educated founder, the 901 neither looked, nor sounded, like any speaker that had come before it. With its pentagonal cabinet that faced eight of its nine identical 4-inch, full-range drivers at the reflecting wall behind the speaker, its designer Amar Bose sought to have it mimic the way we hear in concert halls and imbue its sound with a giant soundstage and spatial realism that was unsurpassed.

Stewart Wolpin  |  Jul 01, 2019  |  4 comments
Forty years ago today Sony introduced a portable cassette player that would forever change the way the world experienced music on-the-go.
SV Staff  |  Jun 27, 2019  |  3 comments
New Jersey-based vintage audio specialist Skyfi Audio has something special for AV collectors: a vintage Akai 8-track player/recorder.
SV Staff  |  Mar 28, 2019  |  0 comments
Skyfi Audio thinks so. The New Jersey-based vintage audio specialist recently showcased this wonderfully nostalgic rack of classic Marantz components.
Steve Guttenberg  |  Oct 10, 2012  |  5 comments
Even before I heard the JBL L100 Century I knew it was going to be great. It was 1970, when hi-fi speakers all had drab cloth grilles, the L100 sported a brilliant orange "waffle" pattern grille, and when every other speaker had grey or black woofers, the L100's was white. I'll never forget the first time I heard a pair, and the big JBLs lit up my Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix LPs, it really was the ultimate "rock" speaker of the day. The L100 sold for $273 each, way too pricey for me.
Steve Guttenberg  |  Mar 14, 2013  |  1 comments
Life before the first VCRs arrived in the late 1970s was pretty boring. TV watching was limited to whatever meager offerings were available at that moment from broadcast and cable TV stations. VCRs and time shifting changed all that.

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