A new 'I told ya so' from Fleabay. See who's Number One

deepee99 wrote:http://www.ebay.com/gds/Top-5-Vintage-Tube-Amps-/10000000177677995/g.html

Amen.

Have never had a Mac but always thought they were over-hyped and over priced. If I have the $$ it's the Citation II. For performance and price it's the Dynas. One man's opinion...

Interesting, thanks for posting: I can't even imagine how much a Marantz 8B would be anymore......

Although Frank McIntosh and Saul Marantz did bring out some beautiful gear in their days, by the 1970s when I got seriously into hi-fi it struck me as more a cosmetic battle. The Big Blue Meters on the Macs versus that cool oscilloscope on the brushed-stainless Marantz tuners. Both were cool looking but I think by then they had already lost the technological edge to the Hafler gang and were just going for market share.
I owned a Mac C-28 preamp with an MC-2125 power amp (all solid state), beautiful looking rack, but they always sounded a bit muddy, even with the Power-Guard feature turned off, and hooked up to their ML-1C speakers with the optional but required equalizer, and that was when my hearing was very good. The experience pushed me into the path of a swerving truck marked Dynaco ...

Yes, I had a Marantz Model 19 receiver a few years back:L got it for an unbelievable 100 British Pounds in the UK and brought it with me when I moved to the USA. It had the 'scope on the tuner and is now lauded as one of their great solid-state receivers. Honestly I never liked it much: thought it was muddy and boring. Sold it for a ridiculous $1200 on eBay. The buyer was even pleased. Maybe I was missing something!

Doctor Hugocat wrote:Yes, I had a Marantz Model 19 receiver a few years back:L got it for an unbelievable 100 British Pounds in the UK and brought it with me when I moved to the USA. It had the 'scope on the tuner and is now lauded as one of their great solid-state receivers. Honestly I never liked it much: thought it was muddy and boring. Sold it for a ridiculous $1200 on eBay. The buyer was even pleased. Maybe I was missing something!

No, he was. Surprised the scope even still works. Those CRTs were usually the first to go. I think the popularity of Macs and Marantzs had a lot to do with the fact that all of us wanted something looking like the front panel display of a B-747 because it looked cool to chicks that we could operate all those buttons and dials and stuff.
Music is for the most part to be listened to, not watch, unless maybe it's a live Procul Harum concert in Denmark or you're in Leonard Bernstein's or Von Karajan's front row. Watching the glow of tubes in the darkness of a winter evening is all the visual I need.