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Post by ChrisB on Aug 20, 2015 7:01:44 GMT
I was visiting a friend recently, who has an old Sansui AU-101, that 15 wpc stalwart of budget hifi systems from around 1973-4ish. My Dad had one, which my sister still uses, and I was always struck by the rock solid build quality of the things. It really brought home to me how much cost cutting has been done in the budget end of modern hifi.
It also led me to wonder if any of the modern stuff even comes close to this type of build.
Any thoughts?
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Post by Clive on Aug 20, 2015 8:05:09 GMT
Whilst such products as the Sansui were entry level I don't recall them as being budget, I don't believe the concepy of budget hifi existed. Nowadays you can buy an amp for what what, £80? That's today's budget end of the market The Sansui I'd have thought would equate more to a current day £400 amp. Even so it will still be better built...that down today's value engineering and improved production techniques which allow us to more easily build case work which is lightweight. The same applies to white goods. I doubt much modern gear is built like the brick out-houses of old.
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Post by AlanS on Aug 20, 2015 10:15:44 GMT
Compare the metal thickness on an 1960s Austin A35 and a 2015 Nissan Micra.
World moves on, changes, evolves, honest gov why should HiFi differ?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2015 11:12:04 GMT
Chris:
The whole reason pretty much that i bought vintage gear was the build quality & character.
These days i still have my vintage Hi-Fi but the studio Equipment i buy im past caring nor get attached to it, it breaks down, i bin it & buy something else.
However if my vintage Hi-Fi ever gave up {Slim chance that happening} it would be something new im sorry to say.
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Post by Chris on Aug 20, 2015 15:23:54 GMT
I think it does but not really in the budget end of things. I think you have to pay quite heavily now for exceptional build quality.
Having said that today's budget amps at say £80 will sit quite happily on a rack and make music,maintenance free for 20 years plus!! Can't say fairer than that.
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Post by ChrisB on Aug 20, 2015 15:56:24 GMT
The AU-101 was the bottom model in Sansui's range, therefore I called it budget. I think it cost 40 quid in 1974, which would be about £290 or £300.
Of course things change and cost cutting takes place. It would be nice to know that some companies still place build quality high on the list of design parameters for budget gear though, don't you think?
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Post by roxbrough on Aug 20, 2015 16:52:30 GMT
My two penneth is, it only needs to be strong enough!
I look on vintage gear in the same way I look on vintage cars, they look quaint, but the modern stuff is more reliable.
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Post by ChrisB on Aug 20, 2015 17:19:12 GMT
More reliable?
Come back in 50 years time and tell me the stuff you can buy today is still working like my 1965 G99 turntable and Radford amp and 1963 Leak tuner is!
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Post by roxbrough on Aug 21, 2015 8:04:25 GMT
More reliable? Come back in 50 years time and tell me the stuff you can buy today is still working like my 1965 G99 turntable and Radford amp and 1963 Leak tuner is! I will not be alive in 50 years. |
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Post by ChrisB on Aug 21, 2015 8:08:16 GMT
Nor will your reliable modern gear!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2015 10:59:41 GMT
Reliable! you must be joking. Like Chris says no way on earth will the moden gear i have still be working in 20 years or less. Even when it breaks it will be irrapairable.
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Post by dvh on Aug 21, 2015 16:43:41 GMT
To put the opposite side of the case: I started off with a bottom-of-the-range Rotel amp, way back in 1976 or so. It was, to put it politely, a bag of shite, which went to and fro the shop i bought it from numerous times because one channel or the other kept failing. Eventually the shop admitted defeat and gave me a refund.
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Post by MartinT on Aug 22, 2015 7:04:57 GMT
The transition from pressed steel with possibly a cast chassis to moulded plastic has made the biggest change at the budget end. Combine this with extremely cheap machine inserted and solder bathed circuit boards, power supplies built down to a price, large scale integration (LSI - look at how small circuit boards are these days) and you end up with the impression of cheap. In those days, the circuit boards were hand inserted and soldered (my mother worked on a circuit board production line for a while in the early 1970s).
Thing move on. My current phone (Lumia 930) is made of a tough injection plastic, but seems as solid and unbendable as its predecessors.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2015 15:48:34 GMT
To paraphrase others, cheap back in the day was not so cheap when converted into modern money (the mars bar inflation test....).
Even the entry level amp from many manufacturers was maybe a months wages in real terms back then!
Another aspect to take into account was that many of the techniques thought of as "cheap and cheerful" nowadays hadn't been invented back then and so things had to be "made properly".
It is all market led in the end. People choose purchases largely based on "what's the cheapest that will do the job ok" and so have only themselves to blame for the state of the market. The flip side is we have electronic equipment of the commodity variety available so cheaply it is disposable (unfortunately some think the cost of repair should reflect the purchase cost of an article and so I get calls asking about repairing things that they bought for £29.99 in the first place!!). It still amazes me when I'm in a large supermarket and notice that a DVD player can be bought for less than a joint of lamb!!!
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Post by Tim on Aug 22, 2015 17:20:52 GMT
Nor will your reliable modern gear!  |
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Post by roxbrough on Aug 29, 2015 20:32:47 GMT
At £60:00 I'd call the Nobsound low cost and the build quality looks pretty good to me?
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Post by ChrisB on Aug 29, 2015 21:42:24 GMT
Well, it's all good then!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2015 6:02:15 GMT
I still have one of my old Trio 'KA2000a' amps from the early 70's this were cheap back then. The build quality is superb for a buget amp, more than i can say for far east buget amps these days
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