"Vintage" Amps Review

A couple of years ago, I thought it might be interesting to compare a bunch of late 70s / early 80s amps against the big "star" of the time, the NAD 3020.

So I collected some examples, over a 6 month period, from Hitachi, JVC, Pioneer and Technics.  All good working examples.

I tried them, they all worked and did a reasonably good job, but the idea of reviewing them and comparing them to the NAD really wasn't worth the effort of writing it all up.  It would've really just been a feature count of the shiny amps and ranking them in positions 6 to 10 for sound quality.  The NAD would've occupied positions 1 to 5.

At the time, when I bought my first amp (which was a NAD 3020), I listened to it against a Technics and a JVC (in one shop) and chose the NAD (auditioned and purchased from another shop). Because these were separate listening sessions, all I knew was that I liked the NAD better, but didn't really have the chance for a back to back comparison.  Collecting them now and listening just showed how big a gulf there was been the mainstream feature count amps of the time and the NAD.  OK, age may have affected them in various degrees, but its the consistency of the mainstream amps' peformances - polite, a little slow, ill-defined bass lines, rolled-off top end etc., contrasted to the bouncy, enjoyable, tuneful bass of the NAD that is so starkly better.

However, gotta say that I liked the trad VU meters on the Hitachi HA-3500, the sophisticated looking flourescent VU meters on the Technics SU-V3 and the brash blue VUs on the Pioneer SA-610. They're not much use, but they nearly swayed a naive 16 year old buyer, until they played music, when the NAD won the hard earned Saturday job money!  The NAD still looks dull and a bit cheap though.

So, some of the collection is up for sale in the next few posts.  They'll be good for the study, kitchen, garage, kids room etc., to provide background music, but not for really enjoying listening to music.  For that, choose a NAD - but it'll cost you 3x as much now, as NAD amps fetch more than they cost new...

ProJect MaiA Review – the shrunken integrated amp / DAC

I like to listen to music most of the time, sometimes its in the background, sometimes it makes a car journey more tolerable, sometimes I’m in the audience and sometimes I sit in front of the main hifi and just focus on listening.  Listening to the artists’ works, sometimes carried away, sometimes confused, sometimes just enjoying the flow, sometimes trying to “get” the message in the lyrics.

And sometimes, I’m away from home (quite frequently, actually).  When travelling by train or plane, I use an iPod or FiiO X3 and earbuds or phones and occasionally I have room in my suitcase for a Logitech Purefi Anywhere 2 for the hotel room.

But when travelling by car, I can take something a little more substantial to the hotel room, and have a large camera case that currently contains a pair of tiny but well made Tangent Evo speakers (no relationship to Evolution Audio, the dealer mentioned in this thread), a Trends TA 10.1 integrated t-amp and the necessary speaker and interconnects to fit to an old-style 30-pin 160GB iPod Classic or anything with a 3.5mm output (such as the FiiO or a phone).  I also carry a work laptop, sometimes used for iPlayer / other catch up services, but not currently for music.  It’s a decent listen and I prefer to listen to music through speakers rather than being tied to a device or location by a device and headphone cables.  Last thing at night, some chill tunes on a 30 minute timer on the iPod often help me get off to sleep in a strange location / room – speakers are far better for this than the need to take off headphones as I drop off to sleep.

Now that the laptop and the phone are part of the entertainment package, something with better connectivity would be useful.  In steps a HiFi Wigwam post from Evolution Audio announcing the Pro-Ject MaiA integrated amp, with analogue, digital (up to 24bit/192kHz), Bluetooth and phono (turntable) inputs.  It probably makes the toast too.  Given that Evo Audio offer a 10 day sale or return service, I thought I’d give it a go.

Now the Trends TA10.1 amp has done very well for me in this system for probably around 5 or 6 years.  Its small, runs cool, its light and has been very robust.  In the camera bag it nestles quite well wrapped in a soft wool scarf, nicely wedged between the speakers – keeping everything tightly packed but not scratching each other.  It does a decent enough job too – way better than most high street “midi” or “mini” systems.  Limitations?  Well, power, but that doesn’t matter in an hotel room when volume is necessarily limited.  Inputs? Yep – there’s only one pair of line level RCA sockets.  Remote control?  Nope.

Unboxing

Evo Audio had shipped the Pro-Ject box, wrapped in a couple of layers of bubble wrap, inside another cardboard box, along with the receipt and an Evo Audio branded pen.  Delivered in reasonable time, it even managed to survive the Hermes courier system undamaged.  Opening the Pro-Ject box revealed the amp, in a plastic bag, contained by “waffle” sponge padding on all 6 sides.  The mains cable, PSU with captive DC output lead and remote control were in a separate sub-box, with no padding around these components.  There is an 8 page instruction leaflet that’s low on content and quality, but is sufficient to get you up and running.  Clearly, the budget needed some corners to be cut, but this is a good place to do so.  The amp itself is very slim (only about 35mm high), around 200mm deep and 210mm wide,  It feels substantial though – the folded steel case and flat alu front panel are decent quality and its very well screwed together.  It gives a good first impression.  Four small rubber feet protect surfaces and help to keep the amp steady on that surface.

Around the back, there are a pair of phono sockets and a binding post for a turntable (yep, there’s and RIAA phono stage crammed in there), 2x pairs of phono sockets for line level inputs, 1x 3.5mm line level input, 1x coax RCA digital input, 2x optical digital inputs and a USB socket (for a PC, rather than an iPod or similar).  Outputs are volume controlled line level 3.5mm, and a pair of small combined binding posts and 4mm banana sockets (which are crammed close together at one end of the panel).  There’s an input for connecting the PSU’s DC cable too.  A lot going on, but clearly labelled, straight forward etc.  I used plastic shrouded 4mm bananas for speaker connections – it’s what I had already, but Paul from Evo advised this type of connection as metal bananas and bare wires are a bit risky with such closely packed connectors.  Generally, those who hoped to use in-your-face mega chunky interconnects / RCAs will be a bit disappointed, and needing to shell out for something more practical.  Bluetooth pairing was straightforward with my Android Samsung phone (Lollipop OS version).

image from ProJect Audio

image from custom-cable.co.uk

Control

Across the front there is a soft touch power on/off (tiny blue LED indicator), headphone socket, rotary volume control and a row of tiny blue LEDs indicating which source is selected – these are flanked left and right by cursor keys that move the source selection across the row of options.  Clear, simple.  The credit card sized remote gives volume control, source selection, power on/off and the ability to activate Bluetooth pairing.  Its responsive enough, but is necessarily light in weight and functional rather than a pleasure to use.  The main rotary volume control on the amp itself is a little stiff (maybe it will loosen slightly with use – hopefully not too much), but is very smooth and not so stiff that it causes the box to move on a desk.

System

For my first try with the amp (it was on 10 days sale or return remember), I used the following equipment which seems appropriate to the type of use I will put the amp to, and perhaps others will too:

• FiiO X3 (internal DAC line out and digital coax output)
• £8 3.5mm to 2x phono interconnect from Amazon (decent build quality, nice tight gold plated connections)
• 99.99 OFC copper pretty standard speaker cables from Maplin – roughly 42 strand and fitted with soldered on “Shark” 4mm gold plated banana plugs
• Tangent Evo bookshelf speakers (the ones I would intend to use the amp with) and Mission 773e floorstanders (to better expose differences between line and digital inputs)
• Music included “Tears Run Dry” by Malia and Boris Blank; “Gaia” by James Taylor; “King” by Tuung; “Rise” by Samantha James; “Doors Unlocked and Open” by Death Cab For Cutie

Listening

I left the amp playing to itself at low volume for about 2 hours – using the FiiO line out and the Evos, just to make sure it was at least warmed through, if not exactly “burnt in”, if that’s necessary at all – its not something I’ve tested so far and won’t be bothering as it seems a bit of an overkill for this kind of product.

Kicking off with the TA10.1 amp, I reminded myself of its capabilities.  Its fast, a touch on the bright side (but not excessively so), and its best listened to at medium volumes – it gets harsh quite quickly as the volume is cranked up, but is a rather dull affair at the lower volume levels.  So about right for the job really, and good value at £110 about 5 years ago.  It has been reviewed in some quarters as a “giant killer” and paired with very exotic speakers on some web sites.  It is astonishingly good for its size and price, but that’s all.  A healthy NAD 3120 from the 1980s shows it a clean pair of heels in terms of musical enjoyment and information extraction, if not exactly neutrality.  Lets just say the TA is great for what it is and is very neutral (with the exception of that slight uplift in the higher frequencies).  But its also rather “grey” to listen to – it doesn’t have much verve or life to it.

Swapping over to the MaiA and it was initially difficult to try and get a perceptually similar volume level.  And that’s because it has a greater perceived (or real, who knows?) dynamic range – the quieter bits are that much quieter than the Trends, but equally, the louder bits are that much louder too.  It better shows through the subtleties the artist has put into the emphasis or de-emphasis of a phrase.  Nice.  So a quick switch back and forth helps to work out where to position each volume control to get as close as I could to something like equality.  Next thing to notice is what appears to be a flatter response – its easy to note that it has less emphasis at the top end, but it is still a touch bright.  Its showing the splashy nature of the FiiO’s DAC well too – this is something I noted when working out which system to go with at Scalford this year – the FiiO’s top end is pretty unruly on the internal DAC.

The MaiA manages somewhat better separation of instruments too – its not epically etching them out, but they are easier to distinguish, as is the location in the image and the stability of that image.  A welcome improvement over the TA.  What of the bass – well, there seems to be a little more of that with the Pro-Ject, and its worth having with the tiny little Tangent speakers.  Music bounces along with a reasonable sense of pace and rhythm.  Its not the last word in refinement, but you can tell the intention is to provide a bit of fun with the music.

DAC

What of the internal DAC?  Well, in this appraisal, I only had the FiiO to hand to compare, but that’s OK, because that’s what I’ll be mostly listening to.  Comparing the FiiO’s internal DAC and line out to the MaiA’s internal DAC again gave some volume control setting challenges.  I didn’t use any equipment to sort this, just a number of back to back comparisons to get a feel for where the control needed to be set.  This comparison did reveal one thing very quickly indeed – the MaiA has a much better controlled and smoother sounding DAC in comparison with the X3.  But it doesn’t image or separate the instruments any better, and has a tendency to suppress female vocals a touch.  Rhythm and pace are still good, with bass perhaps a touch more fulsome than with the X3.  I think it’s a bit swings and roundabouts really, but with the Tangent Evos being a lightweight sounding speaker, the better controlled top end and weightier bottom notes won out for me.  You might come to a different conclusion, so it’s a preferences thing rather than anything clear cut.

Proper Speakers

And what of the performance with the Mission 773e?  These were used at Scalford to reasonably good effect in 2014 and whilst not the last word in lower end speaker technology, they’re effective and enjoyable to listen to.  Normally they are fed by an SBT / MF V-DAC1 / MF V-PSU2 and a Cyrus 6 integrated amp when they’re pretty fast, boogie well and deliver a good performance.  On the MaiA, however, it was quickly noted that all wasn’t what it could be.  That fuller lower end, which worked so well when working with the little Tangents, became somewhat unruly, fat and a bit woolly.  Not great.  The effect was the same with the FiiO’s DAC back in action – slightly less noticeable, but still not really something I’d want to spend a long time listening to.  And the splashiness was back too.

£400

So all this tech and connectivity, squeezed into a small box comes at a very reasonable price.  It would be good to compare this amp with a NAD D3020, and that might be on the agenda at some point in the future.  It fits my use case for it very well, brings a useful increase in sound quality and a massive step up in connectivity and usability.  When the 10 day trial is over, it won’t be going back to the helpful team at Evolution Audio – it already has its place in the camera bag.

So to use this in a kitchen / bedroom / study or as a semi-portable system with a small set of (not too good at lots of bass) budget bookshelf speakers, I would say this amp is a success.  For me, that’s where it does a great job, just don’t expect it to cope as a main system centre piece with a pair of full range speakers.

One final thought – if all that modern connectivity, compact size and sensible pricing gets it into a good number of student bedsits, perhaps a TT connected to some of them, it might well be the way to generate a new set of audio enthusiasts.  Lets just hope they don’t get underwhelmed and miss out on the capabilities of this amp by feeding it a load of compressed MP3 junk data!

NAD 1240 Pre-Amp and 2155 Power Amp FOR SALE

Good condition pre / power amp combo for sale on ebay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291352100827?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Tunes In The Garage

Assembling cheap but good secondhand stuff, listening for a while and selling on is part of how I keep my urgings to change kit in the main system at bay.

The main system stays relatively static, with the occaissional step forward when funds allow, but messing about with old stuff that was well respected in its day allows for the sampling of lots of kit whilst not breaking the bank.  Some of it sells for less than I paid, some for more and some for about the same.  Rough with the smooth and all that.

Then there are the bits that hang around for a bit longer.  They're still cheap, but are worth slotting into music somewhere about the house.

So here's the current system in the garage.  Listening to tunes when working on the car or the bikes or just tidying the place up makes the work seem less arduous.  Plus, during the winter, I'll plug the laptop into the system and watch some DVDs or cycling vids on YouTube whilst I try and become less unfit with the bike on the turbo trainer

So this £250 system consists of Squeezebox Touch (connected to QNAP NAS via Ethernet over mains), NAD 1240 pre-amp, NAD 2155 power amp and Mission 773e speakers (the earlier version with the leather look baffle trim.  Speakers hang from a shelf on the rafters, hence they're upside down.  This keeps them off the floor (which is good as that's a pretty in-hospitable environment - both for water when the car comes in wet and the danger of being kicked / damaged by box shifting etc).  They're upside down as they are floor standing speakers, so the theory is that the large shelf on the rafters is acting as though they were standing on a floor.

Lofty

Having kept the original Mission 700 speakers from my first real hifi system (bought new in 1982) and used them in the garage for a good number of years, I decided to see if it was possible to re-create that first system.

The NAD 3020 in good condition for a reasonable price was relatively easy to find, but the Technics RS-M8 cassette deck has taken much longer.

Anyway, its all together now.  Here they are up in the loft:

Ageing

I'm not sure what this tells me (or you), but excluding the components that are still in the system, here are the heros to zeros of how long stuff has stayed in the system.  Bear in mind that some are only in there for a short time as I upgraded them quickly as I was experimenting (typically this is the streaming / DAC stuff) others because they just were a disappointment (Cyrus power amps).

So here goes the ageist list, based on how long stuff stayed around in the system:

19 years:  Linn Keilidh speakers; Thorens TD160BC MkII turntable with Mayware Formula IV arm

16 years:  Linn Centre Channel Tunebox; Meridian 541 pre-amp/processor

14 years:  Rotel RB850 Power Amps for left and right channels; Linn Centrik Mk1 Centre Speaker; Meridian 508.20 CD Player

12 years:  Aiwa AD-F800 Cassette Deck; basic Sony FM Tuner (can't remember the model number)

8 years: Linn Tukan rear speakers; Linn Left and Right Tunebox with toroidal power supply

7 years: Nagaoka MP20 MM cartridge; Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Linn Ittok arm and Dynavector DV20HX MC cartridge

6 years: Pure DRX-701ES DAB tuner

5 years: Linn Rear Tunebox; Denon TU-660MkII FM tuner; Nagaoka MP11 MM Cartridge

4 years: Aiwa AD-F3500 cassette deck; Mission 771e rear speakers

3 years: Technics RS-M8 cassetted deck; Origin Live DC power supply for the LP12

2.5 years: Rotel RB970 centre channel power amp; Linn Left and Right Tunebox with Slimline power supply; Linn Valhalla power supply for LP12

2 years: Mission 760 rear speakers

1 year: NAD 9200 MM cartridge

10 months:  Cambridge Audio DACMagic; Cyrus DAC-X with PSX-R power supply

6 months:  Linn Kudos FM tuner

4 months: Linn AV5125 rear channel power amp; Linn AV5103 pre-amp/processors

4 weeks: Cyrus SmartPower rear channel power amps

1 week: Cyrus 8 power amps and PSX-R power supplies

Preparing for The Hifi Show at Scalford on 2nd March

I've been successful in the allocations of rooms at the Scalford Hifi Show again this year, so planning is underway.  This show is for enthusiasts' systems - its not commercial, its just for the sake of listening to lots of different systems (about 50 again this year) and lots of different music all in one place on the same day.  Some of it will be very esoteric, some prosaic, some weird and some DIY.  Variety is the spice of this particular show.

Having played the main system last year I'm doing something different this year, going for a 2.1 AV setup.  My intention is to play the "Touch Yello" DVD on repeat all day - each run takes about 45 minutes.  Yello tends to be popular at this type of event, but I don't think Scalford has seen an AV solution before, so it will be interesting to see how popular the room is.  Originally I was thinking of being very amitious and going with a 5.1 system.  But the Yello soundtrack is only in 2.0, so there's no point really.  Maybe another year.

The proposed kit is much more prosaic than the main Linn system and consists of:

Sony S480 blu-ray player
Linn Akurate Kontrol/0/D (mainly being used for its excellent internal DAC)
NAD 2155 or Rotel RB970BX power amp
Optional Q Acoustics 2070Si subwoofer
DELL M410HD projector and screen

As part of the planning I set up the various components in the kid's playroom (lots of space, but unfortunately 3 walls of windows) to decide on NAD vs Rotel power amps and to check the subwoofer's integration with the Missions.

Testing Time

 So with lots of power, HDMI and audio cables strewn across the room, Yello was spooled up on the Sony (its the extremely slim box bottom right of the picture).  The NAD amp was OK, but a bit sluggish and lightweight.  The Rotel beefed things up nicely and moved along at a better pace with somewhat smoother and more detailed treble.  So that decision was quick and easy.  The system still sounds pretty bright (but not harsh) and I'm hoping that's down to the nature of the room - all that glass is very reflective of high frequencies.
Next the subwoofer was unpacked and plugged in (not shown in the picture above).  It took a while to get it all working smoothly together, but, in this room, it worked well.  Using the "music" setting rather than "movies" and with the crossover point at around 70Hz a good amount of non-flappy weight was added to the sound, and the brightness was balanced somewhat too (but still not enough for my taste).
So we'll see how well the sub integrates in the room at Scalford, but its definitely coming along as I'd prefer to use it if I can.   Hopefully the lack of glass at Scalford will help somewhat too.

Cheapest Ever Linn Power Amplifier?

A Knekt Roomamp came up on ebay recently.  It was described as "in very good condition, but not tested".  So I put in a silly bid and left the software to its automated bidding process.

A few days later the amp was mine and just turned up yesterday.  Using the "audio out" sockets as the audio input (as described in a thread on here somewhere) I hooked it up to a source and gave it a whirl.  Well, it works fine and does a reasonably good job.

In a system consisting of:

Squeezebox Touch
Chord Prodac Pro Gold
Musical Fidelity V-DAC
Mission 773e

I used the volume control in the Touch and compared the Roomamp against the power amp sections of an original NAD 3020 and a much more recent Cyrus 6 integrated amp.  My conclusion is that the Roomamp power amp sits roughly mid-way between these products in terms of sound quality.  Sharper and more detailed than the warm NAD, not as solid, refined nor bass deep as either the NAD nor the Cyrus.  However, I did think that it is a touch bright and metallic with cymbals (at least into the Missions) compared to the other amps.  In fact, it was a rather sterile kind of sound - I really found it difficult to decide if it was more or less musical than the NAD - their presentations are very different, but I found myself more inclined to enjoy the NAD's warmth and musicality.  Overall, the Cyrus walked it, but then it should given how recent it is and how much it would cost new.

However, if you're looking for an office / study system driven by (for example) Spotify on your computer, or a bedroom system driven by a Squeezebox then the Roomamp does a pretty good job.

And if you're willing to take a bit of a risk on "untested" then you too can enjoy a Linn power amp for as little as £33.35!

On A Mission

Local Naim enthusiast R has a new job, which is great news.  Less great is that it involves staying away from his Naim system during the week, returning at weekends.

So that could be a real downer, but R decided that he needed something to listen to his music during the week in the digs.  We dug out my portable kit and had a long natter about the best approach to take.  Whilst we listened to some music via iPod Classic (320kbps AAC files) through the Trends Audio TA10.1 integrated amp and Tangent Evo speakers we agreed that it was a decent enough sound, given the size of the amp and speakers involved.  The discussion then moved on to the "use case" and it became clear that a compact permanent system would fit the bill better than a truly portable system - R's not moving from hotel to hotel on a regular basis.

We thought about cost effective options for amps / integrated systems.  We both have Denon DM compact systems (amp / CD / Tuner) for kitchen use and they're adequate for that role but not really something you'd want to sit in front of and do some actual listening.  R has also heard an Arcam solo and was unimpressed, given the coverage its had in the press.  Thoughts turn to eBay and what the options might be if we think about used kit. I really think the TA10.1 could do the job, but R obviously feels something more substantial is required.  With both budget (Denon) and supposedly mid-range (Arcam Solo) integrated systems discounted on grounds of poor performance we moved towards integrated amps and the options there.  Sources then come to mind and we soon agreed that CD isn't a good option (R would have to take them to and from home each week) and some kind of digital file playing source would be best.  iPod?  Well, files would be best re-rippped into lossless Apple format and storage would continue to be an issue.  We've been discussing streaming options for some time and R has started ripping CDs to FLAC in anticipation of making a decision in that direction fairly soon - he's heard the Logitech Touch in action in my system and sees (and hears!) the benefits.  Being a Naim advocate meant that the UnitiQute was a possible all-in-one option and it has sounded OK on the dealer's shop floor.  But £1300 with speakers to add is a big chunk of cash to sink into a possibly temporary system and detracts from investment in the main home system.

So back to the amp.  You can seem some stuff about Cyrus in the posts below - my brother runs all Cyrus electronics and my system is running a DAC-X / PSX-R with great results.  There's one thing that Cyrus is famous for and that's their pretty much unique approach to putting all their kit into the same shoe-box size cases - somewhat more compact than the usual integrateds from other companies.  I have a couple of Logitech Touches still in their boxes ready to go into the Dining Room and Kitchen.  So a temporary source is worked out - plug a USB memory stick loaded with FLAC files into the back of the Touch and away you go.  Of course, you won't get much music on a USB stick, but it would allow us to prove the point.

At the end of the first discussion, we have a plan - Touch, Cyrus amp and some speakers.  Off R went, armed with a Touch and his eBay account for another week away.

News comes through mid-week that a Cyrus 8 has been secured on eBay at a very very good price (the silver ones seem to sell for a little less than the black ones), leaving the way clear for a bit of speaker experimentation at the following weekend.

R arrives on Friday night with said Cyrus, he's had the Touch up and running from a USB stick and there's a 2TB portable desktop drive waiting to receive lots of ripped CDs. One day (actually it might be a few days effort) I'll put a whole page up on the blog about some experimentation I went through with pre-year 2000 Mission speakers a couple of years ago, but for the purposes of this post, it means that I've a small collection of their speakers in the garage - the ones that came out best in my experiments and I felt would be good to hang on to, plus, there's a pair of 771e on Atacama SE20 stands doing great service in our Dining room.  So we have some tiny Monitor Audios that R brings along, and then Mission 771e (turn of the millenium), 737R (late 1980s) and 773 (turn of the millenium) speakers to play with. The Cyrus 8 is placed on an Isolplat on top of a Quadraspire rack and my Logitech Touch (streaming FLAC from NAS over Ethernet) is hooked up using Linn Black analogue interconnects.  R has brought some solid core speaker cables (I can't remember which - I'll amend the post later with the correct info) and we start with the tiny Monitor Audios.  The set up isn't ideal - all the speakers are stood in my listening room in front of the Linn Keilidhs so its not the best way to listen.  They're well into the room but they'll all be put through the same circumstances so we'll be able to spot differences but won't be hearing any of them at their best.  We don't listen to the MAs for long - there's loads of detail, not much bass - but what is there is OK - and female vocals are very enjoyable. But its all rather bright / harsh and I don't think they sound as good as the Tangent Evos.  We quickly move on to the 771e on the Atacama stands (which are 2/3 sand filled) and there is a massive jump in quality.  There's a quite suprising amount of bass out of these boxes, the treble is smoothed out significantly and there's a good deal more drive to the music.  We listen to some of our "standard" listening tracks such as Eagle Eye Cherry's "Shooting Up In Vain", Steely Dan's "Babylon Sisters" in 24/96 format and FAC15's take on Judie Tzuke's classic "Stay With Me Til Dawn".  We enjoy them all and agree that the 771e are very acceptable. 

Mission 771e (identity info - 771 has a silver bass driver centre cap, the 771e has gold)

We carry them out (the stands are heavy!) and in come the floor standing 773 - they're no wider nor deeper than the 771 but they're 923mm tall so they sit the tweeter higher in the room.  The 773 and 771 share the same drivers - a 25mm silk dome tweeter and a 130mm Aerogel bass cone, but the 773 adds a second bass driver.  The results are astonishing.  R's reaction forces some choice language - he can't believe we're listening to a pair of speakers you can pick up for under £100.  They're great - bass is deep, extended and articulate, vocals clear and imaging is good, if not as good as Mission's best in this regard.  We listen to several more tracks just to make sure.  If you listen to them reasonably loud they do a great job, quieter they remain dynamic, but crank up the Cyrus too much (for the speakers, not the amp) they do harden up somewhat.  But that won't matter - the quiet to medium volume range is all that will be possible in R's digs.  We decide that this combination (even using the rather limited DAC built into the Logitech Touch) is a very acceptable system and one that would be easy to live with in terms of tonal qualities and information retrieval.

Mission 773

We move onto the last option we have available to us - the late 1980s Mission 737R. Read about them on the Internet and you'll see lots of references to the "legendary" 737 Renaissance (the R stands for Renaissance which is printed in large black letters on the old skool front baffle which is painted in a dark silver dimpled finish - think Hammerite!) which was an interesting re-positioning of the "legendary" original Mission 770.  Imagine the original Mission 770's thin chipboard cabinet and the translucent 200mm polypropylene base cone coupled with the cheaper tweeter from the 700 and you get the 737R - a kind of down-market version of the 770.  At that time, the 770 had moved onto a more sophisticated cabinet and bass driver so I'm guessing this was a good way for Mission to continue to re-coup its investment in the translucent bass cone.  Anyway, I digress.  The upshot is that, following on from the 15+ years younger 773, the 737R were are a major step backwards. Good to see that Mission did make good progress over those years.  In comparison to the 773 the 737R just sounds so crude.  Bass is lighter (they benefit from being back to a wall so are distincly disadvantaged here) but its also somewhat flappy, treble is vague, bright and splashy and vocals get buried somewhere in the mix.  Pretty disappointing - they are working fine, but they're really showing their age in terms of the sound they make.  I finally realise that I can let them go - they might have been quite something in their day, but they're heavily out classed now.  Its good to hear that progress has been made.

Mission 737 Renaissance (note there are 2 versions of this speaker, one with a matt black baffle and the other with the dimpled silver finish - not sure which came first, but pretty sure from listening to them that they're otherwise of identical spec)

So we have a result - the 773 are a suprisingly good speaker, and R is off back to eBay to see what the 773 action is like.  When buying the 77 series from this era secondhand you need to look for those that are in immaculate condition because the very attractive "leather look" black vinyl front baffle covering sometimes has given up gripping onto the heavily chamfered / countered front panel.

Post script:  Having got the result we did with the 773, the 771 on Atacamas didn't go back into the Dining Room - the 773 have taken their place.  With their backs closer to a wall the 773 are sounding better still, even when driven by a lowly NAD 7020e receiver (basically a NAD 3020e amp with a built-in tuner).  A Logitech Touch is now resident in the Dining Room system too - its finally climbed out of its box.  So the second system gets a boost out of this exercise too.  R has borrowed the 771e and stands for a few weeks until a suitable pair off 773s appear on eBay.  A useful couple of hours of experiment that's lead to 2 excellent results for R and for our Dining room.  R's also taken away some Linn K20 speaker cable to compare against the solid core stuff - will report his findings soon.

First Images Posted

Checkout the link to the Images page on the right - some vintage stuff in there!  Starting to build up the story over the past 4+ decades.