PA-1 amps

[leonski]

In '89 only ONE question.
WHY in the world would you buy a Cassette Deck? Sony was big in the CD Player space and made some OK stuff.

Even the Nakamichi Dragon or whatever Tandberg was making at the time was clearly on the way out.

Even on my Cheap-o Sony Cassette player, tapes made from CD sounded 10x better than ANY factory tape.

www.soundandvision.com/content/nakamichi-dragon-cassette-deck

I had converted from vinyl to CD within weeks of it being a viable option. When I bought my first CDs, you had your choice of about 3000 titles.

[leonski]

When I first went to College I had one of THESE from GE.

picclick.com/Vintage-GENERAL-ELECTRIC-Portable-Suitcase-WILDCAT-RECORD-PLAYER-222862944023.html

Or similar, but still a fold-out record player with the speakers detachable and all the rest.

I took some of my summer earnings and bought a Lafayette receiver and pair of speakers along with ONE piece of value, a Dual 1229 TT which I kept for a long time.

The best bang-4-buck speakers I heard in the dorms were Radio Shack 4" full range. Very nice sound for a dorm, easily packed and moved while still being very affordable for students.
RS model numbers and naming didn't even make any sense to me THAN so I have no idea what they were called. You could also buy the bare driver and DIY an enclosure from the cookbook.

[siggie]

Jul 18, 2018 17:05:08 GMT -5 leonski said:

In '89 only ONE question.
WHY in the world would you buy a Cassette Deck?

Grateful Dead tapes?

[leonski]

That MUST be it.

[lcheetec]

Jul 3, 2018 19:34:12 GMT -5 wvs007 said:

Hi guys, it's not totally clear what the fuss is about. I am not 100% Emotivan as my systems are mostly Peachtree but I have a lot of Emotiva gear, so I immediately ordered a set when it was released.
As usual is this a bargain if you compare to Wyred4Sound and Nuprime, so for me it was an easy decision as I have the DC1 DAC already.
I bought through a friend in the US as I am living in Singapore at the moment, so will have to wait until August before I am able to comment on the sound quality.

View Attachment

Looks like there will be a couple of pairs of the PA-1's in Singapore. Mine arrived Tues this week, and I've swapped out my Yaqin Tube integrated for them.

Listening now, re-adjusting back to solid state after almost a year of KT-88's.

[Bonzo]

Jul 18, 2018 17:05:08 GMT -5 leonski said:

In '89 only ONE question.
WHY in the world would you buy a Cassette Deck?

I don't want to derail this thread entirely so I'll just bullet point the answer (IN NO PARTICULAR PRIORITY ORDER) and leave it alone from here.

- Cassettes were still a major player in the audio world in general in 1989. Maybe for you they were an obvious out of date tech, but if you go looking at cassette sales stats, you will see that in 1989 they sold nearly as many as they ever did. It is only after 1989 that sales declined. But even in 1995 sales were still at about half. It took until 2000 for them to go away totally. 1989 is around the time cassette sales and CD sales were equal. So it's absolutely wrong to say cassettes were dead.

- Even when they on their way out, do you expect everyone to go out and replace all their old cassettes with CD's on the same day? Or as you say, weeks? Or just because Blu-ray came out, to replace all one's DVD's nearly immediately? Especially a kid like me who had about 300 cassettes when I was 18? No kid I knew had nearly as many. So come on, give me a break.

- Cassettes were a real deal part of my life until about 2000-2001 when I got my CD burner. Until then, tapes WERE basically the ONLY way to make mixes for yourself and friends. I used to love making mix tapes for girls especially.

- Even after I got my CD burner, I still played cassettes. I converted a lot of them to CD, but not all. And you know what, that very same cassette player I got in 1989 is still working and in my rack today.

- When I was a teen I used to record a lot of stuff off the radio. Whether it was songs or funny commercials or other things, it used to be one of the most fun things I did. And I collected a lot of stuff. That's the stuff I've converted when I get time. I still have more to go.

- Cars still came with cassette decks as late as 2004. I know this because my old 2004 Nissan Murano had one, and I think they made that model until around 2008 or 2009 or so. In 1989, cars did not typically come with CD players. Mainly only after market players had them. The first car I had that came with a stock CD player was my 1997 Chevy Tahoe.

- It's not ALWAYS about sound quality. Not everything deserves or needs to be upgraded to the new tech.

- There are more reasons, but that's all I'm going to take the time to answer right now.

I had converted from vinyl to CD within weeks of it being a viable option. When I bought my first CDs, you had your choice of about 3000 titles.

I'd say this makes you highly unusual, and/or rich, and/or a lot older and on your way in life than me. They came out in when, 1983. By 1988 I only new 3 people that had CD players, and they were all rich kids Dad's players. My freshman roommate in college got one and I bought my first CD that fall, in 1988. Jethro Tull's Original Masters I think it's called. Second was The Doors. Third was Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. It was at this point, when I had a place to play them, that I stopped buying pre-recorded cassettes. But it took a long while to build up my collection. No one in my realm bought as many CD's as I did while in college (about 2-3 a week). CD's eventually replaced pre-recorded cassettes for sure, but they didn't replace mix tapes until 2000.

I hope this helps you understand.

Here's a pic of my rack form a few years ago. Check down in the lower section for that same cassette player, the best one Sony made in 1989, and among the best ones they ever made, period. It still works.



Here's a picture off the internet of what it looks like more close up.

[Bonzo]

Jul 18, 2018 21:02:04 GMT -5 siggie said:

Jul 18, 2018 17:05:08 GMT -5 leonski said:

In '89 only ONE question.
WHY in the world would you buy a Cassette Deck?

Grateful Dead tapes?

That too!!!

[teaman]

Jul 20, 2018 15:01:59 GMT -5 Bonzo said:

Jul 18, 2018 17:05:08 GMT -5 leonski said:

In '89 only ONE question.
WHY in the world would you buy a Cassette Deck?

I don't want to derail this thread entirely so I'll just bullet point the answer (IN NO PARTICULAR PRIORITY ORDER) and leave it alone from here.

- Cassettes were still a major player in the audio world in general in 1989. Maybe for you they were an obvious out of date tech, but if you go looking at cassette sales stats, you will see that in 1989 they sold nearly as many as they ever did. It is only after 1989 that sales declined. But even in 1995 sales were still at about half. It took until 2000 for them to go away totally. 1989 is around the time cassette sales and CD sales were equal. So it's absolutely wrong to say cassettes were dead.

- Even when they on their way out, do you expect everyone to go out and replace all their old cassettes with CD's on the same day? Or as you say, weeks? Or just because Blu-ray came out, to replace all one's DVD's nearly immediately? Especially a kid like me who had about 300 cassettes when I was 18? No kid I knew had nearly as many. So come on, give me a break.

- Cassettes were a real deal part of my life until about 2000-2001 when I got my CD burner. Until then, tapes WERE basically the ONLY way to make mixes for yourself and friends. I used to love making mix tapes for girls especially.

- Even after I got my CD burner, I still played cassettes. I converted a lot of them to CD, but not all. And you know what, that very same cassette player I got in 1989 is still working and in my rack today.

- When I was a teen I used to record a lot of stuff off the radio. Whether it was songs or funny commercials or other things, it used to be one of the most fun things I did. And I collected a lot of stuff. That's the stuff I've converted when I get time. I still have more to go.

- Cars still came with cassette decks as late as 2004. I know this because my old 2004 Nissan Murano had one, and I think they made that model until around 2008 or 2009 or so. In 1989, cars did not typically come with CD players. Mainly only after market players had them. The first car I had that came with a stock CD player was my 1997 Chevy Tahoe.

- It's not ALWAYS about sound quality. Not everything deserves or needs to be upgraded to the new tech.

- There are more reasons, but that's all I'm going to take the time to answer right now.

I had converted from vinyl to CD within weeks of it being a viable option. When I bought my first CDs, you had your choice of about 3000 titles.

I'd say this makes you highly unusual, and/or rich, and/or a lot older and on your way in life than me. They came out in when, 1983. By 1988 I only new 3 people that had CD players, and they were all rich kids Dad's players. My freshman roommate in college got one and I bought my first CD that fall, in 1988. Jethro Tull's Original Masters I think it's called. Second was The Doors. Third was Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. It was at this point, when I had a place to play them, that I stopped buying pre-recorded cassettes. But it took a long while to build up my collection. No one in my realm bought as many CD's as I did while in college (about 2-3 a week). CD's eventually replaced pre-recorded cassettes for sure, but they didn't replace mix tapes until 2000.

I hope this helps you understand.

Here's a pic of my rack form a few years ago. Check down in the lower section for that same cassette player, the best one Sony made in 1989, and among the best ones they ever made, period. It still works.

View Attachment

Here's a picture off the internet of what it looks like more close up.

View Attachment

Just to add, my 2007 Charger Daytona came with both a CD player and a Cassette deck. I just gave away five Technics three and four head multi motor cassette decks here and on the Klipsch forum for free....just asked for shipping costs. Some were $800 decks. Didn't realize so many people still use cassettes

[emofrmcgy]

Jul 20, 2018 15:01:59 GMT -5 Bonzo said:

Jul 18, 2018 17:05:08 GMT -5 leonski said:

In '89 only ONE question.
WHY in the world would you buy a Cassette Deck?

I don't want to derail this thread entirely so I'll just bullet point the answer (IN NO PARTICULAR PRIORITY ORDER) and leave it alone from here.

- Cassettes were still a major player in the audio world in general in 1989. Maybe for you they were an obvious out of date tech, but if you go looking at cassette sales stats, you will see that in 1989 they sold nearly as many as they ever did. It is only after 1989 that sales declined. But even in 1995 sales were still at about half. It took until 2000 for them to go away totally. 1989 is around the time cassette sales and CD sales were equal. So it's absolutely wrong to say cassettes were dead.

- Even when they on their way out, do you expect everyone to go out and replace all their old cassettes with CD's on the same day? Or as you say, weeks? Or just because Blu-ray came out, to replace all one's DVD's nearly immediately? Especially a kid like me who had about 300 cassettes when I was 18? No kid I knew had nearly as many. So come on, give me a break.

- Cassettes were a real deal part of my life until about 2000-2001 when I got my CD burner. Until then, tapes WERE basically the ONLY way to make mixes for yourself and friends. I used to love making mix tapes for girls especially.

- Even after I got my CD burner, I still played cassettes. I converted a lot of them to CD, but not all. And you know what, that very same cassette player I got in 1989 is still working and in my rack today.

- When I was a teen I used to record a lot of stuff off the radio. Whether it was songs or funny commercials or other things, it used to be one of the most fun things I did. And I collected a lot of stuff. That's the stuff I've converted when I get time. I still have more to go.

- Cars still came with cassette decks as late as 2004. I know this because my old 2004 Nissan Murano had one, and I think they made that model until around 2008 or 2009 or so. In 1989, cars did not typically come with CD players. Mainly only after market players had them. The first car I had that came with a stock CD player was my 1997 Chevy Tahoe.

- It's not ALWAYS about sound quality. Not everything deserves or needs to be upgraded to the new tech.

- There are more reasons, but that's all I'm going to take the time to answer right now.

I had converted from vinyl to CD within weeks of it being a viable option. When I bought my first CDs, you had your choice of about 3000 titles.

I'd say this makes you highly unusual, and/or rich, and/or a lot older and on your way in life than me. They came out in when, 1983. By 1988 I only new 3 people that had CD players, and they were all rich kids Dad's players. My freshman roommate in college got one and I bought my first CD that fall, in 1988. Jethro Tull's Original Masters I think it's called. Second was The Doors. Third was Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. It was at this point, when I had a place to play them, that I stopped buying pre-recorded cassettes. But it took a long while to build up my collection. No one in my realm bought as many CD's as I did while in college (about 2-3 a week). CD's eventually replaced pre-recorded cassettes for sure, but they didn't replace mix tapes until 2000.

I hope this helps you understand.

Here's a pic of my rack form a few years ago. Check down in the lower section for that same cassette player, the best one Sony made in 1989, and among the best ones they ever made, period. It still works.

View Attachment

Here's a picture off the internet of what it looks like more close up.

View Attachment

It got derailed 3 pages back when someone started talking about magnepan crossovers and whatnot.
There isn’t a thread on this forum that doesn’t get completely derailed.

[leonski]

Bonzo:
For me it WAS about SQ. I had trouble keeping vinyl absolutely pristine. Cassettes, those recorded at HOME from either CD or pristine Vinyl (record it the first time you played it!) sounded 10x better than 'factory' which
always had truncated highs and an alarming background hiss.

Once CD became available, I simply STOPPED buying new vinyl. And my cassettes? mostly given away.

Can you still get GOOD blank tape? TDK SAx would be a good start.

I still have my Original CD player. A Philips sold in the USA as Magnevox. The FD-1000 was a 14 bit player / 4x oversampling. A real relic by todays standards.

[a2channelman]

Jul 20, 2018 15:56:31 GMT -5 leonski said:

Bonzo:
For me it WAS about SQ. I had trouble keeping vinyl absolutely pristine. Cassettes, those recorded at HOME from either CD or pristine Vinyl (record it the first time you played it!) sounded 10x better than 'factory' which
always had truncated highs and an alarming background hiss.

Once CD became available, I simply STOPPED buying new vinyl. And my cassettes? mostly given away.

Can you still get GOOD blank tape? TDK SAx would be a good start.

I still have my Original CD player. A Philips sold in the USA as Magnevox. The FD-1000 was a 14 bit player / 4x oversampling. A real relic by todays standards.

I play 40+ year old records all day long.
I just played a copy of Bruce Cockburn ~ Night Vision on 1973 yellow vinyl
Which I bought used for maybe $5.........OK here is the deal
A record cleaning machine such as the oh so affordable Record Dr performs small miracles
A nice cartridge, in my case a Denon DL 110 but there are others are very forgiving when set up right
A nice phono stage such as my Emotiva SP-1 , which is very very quiet and open sounding.
I now buy used CD's for $2 or less and collect vinyl more again.

Cassettes .......so far I haven't seen any new ones other than normal bias but high bias may be available

[leonski]

You have apparently reached a 'happy place' in your accomodation with the rituals necessary to make vinyl work well.
I never could, at least in my relative youth.

I've seen videos of people applying a THIN layer of wood glue to vinyl, waiting for it to dry than 'peeling' it off.
Is that real or a quick way to destroy your collection?

[novisnick]

Jul 20, 2018 16:55:49 GMT -5 leonski said:

You have apparently reached a 'happy place' in your accomodation with the rituals necessary to make vinyl work well.
I never could, at least in my relative youth.

I've seen videos of people applying a THIN layer of wood glue to vinyl, waiting for it to dry than 'peeling' it off.
Is that real or a quick way to destroy your collection?

I’ve seen them as well, you won’t see me doing that to any of my LPs. 

[Bonzo]

Jul 20, 2018 15:56:31 GMT -5 leonski said:

Bonzo:
For me it WAS about SQ

And there you have the difference. At my age it was about gathering more music any way I could.

Once CD became available, I simply STOPPED buying new vinyl.

As I did with pre-recorded cassettes once I had a place to play CDs.

Can you still get GOOD blank tape? TDK SAx would be a good start.

Dunno. But I will say this, tapes are trendy right now. Especially in the bootleg world. And you know whats funny, who's into them. A couple weeks ago while at Micro Center (our local super computer GEEK place) talking to Sheldon Cooper, he was raving about cassettes. Talking about trading and all that. And how cool they LOOK nowadays, with metallics and vibrant colors and such. It was really hard for me not to laugh right in front of him.

[Bonzo]

Jul 20, 2018 15:36:07 GMT -5 emofrmcgy said:

Jul 20, 2018 15:01:59 GMT -5 Bonzo said:

I don't want to derail this thread entirely so I'll just bullet point the answer (IN NO PARTICULAR PRIORITY ORDER) and leave it alone from here.

- Cassettes were still a major player in the audio world in general in 1989. Maybe for you they were an obvious out of date tech, but if you go looking at cassette sales stats, you will see that in 1989 they sold nearly as many as they ever did. It is only after 1989 that sales declined. But even in 1995 sales were still at about half. It took until 2000 for them to go away totally. 1989 is around the time cassette sales and CD sales were equal. So it's absolutely wrong to say cassettes were dead.

- Even when they on their way out, do you expect everyone to go out and replace all their old cassettes with CD's on the same day? Or as you say, weeks? Or just because Blu-ray came out, to replace all one's DVD's nearly immediately? Especially a kid like me who had about 300 cassettes when I was 18? No kid I knew had nearly as many. So come on, give me a break.

- Cassettes were a real deal part of my life until about 2000-2001 when I got my CD burner. Until then, tapes WERE basically the ONLY way to make mixes for yourself and friends. I used to love making mix tapes for girls especially.

- Even after I got my CD burner, I still played cassettes. I converted a lot of them to CD, but not all. And you know what, that very same cassette player I got in 1989 is still working and in my rack today.

- When I was a teen I used to record a lot of stuff off the radio. Whether it was songs or funny commercials or other things, it used to be one of the most fun things I did. And I collected a lot of stuff. That's the stuff I've converted when I get time. I still have more to go.

- Cars still came with cassette decks as late as 2004. I know this because my old 2004 Nissan Murano had one, and I think they made that model until around 2008 or 2009 or so. In 1989, cars did not typically come with CD players. Mainly only after market players had them. The first car I had that came with a stock CD player was my 1997 Chevy Tahoe.

- It's not ALWAYS about sound quality. Not everything deserves or needs to be upgraded to the new tech.

- There are more reasons, but that's all I'm going to take the time to answer right now.

I'd say this makes you highly unusual, and/or rich, and/or a lot older and on your way in life than me. They came out in when, 1983. By 1988 I only new 3 people that had CD players, and they were all rich kids Dad's players. My freshman roommate in college got one and I bought my first CD that fall, in 1988. Jethro Tull's Original Masters I think it's called. Second was The Doors. Third was Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. It was at this point, when I had a place to play them, that I stopped buying pre-recorded cassettes. But it took a long while to build up my collection. No one in my realm bought as many CD's as I did while in college (about 2-3 a week). CD's eventually replaced pre-recorded cassettes for sure, but they didn't replace mix tapes until 2000.

I hope this helps you understand.

Here's a pic of my rack form a few years ago. Check down in the lower section for that same cassette player, the best one Sony made in 1989, and among the best ones they ever made, period. It still works.

View Attachment

Here's a picture off the internet of what it looks like more close up.

View Attachment

It got derailed 3 pages back when someone started talking about magnepan crossovers and whatnot.
There isn’t a thread on this forum that doesn’t get completely derailed.

Well its totally official now, completely derailed. If I'm not getting them locked down, I'm sending them off the tracks. 😬🛤️🚞

[mgbpuff]

I had one of the first cassette tape recorders. It was a Heathkit version using an Advent mechanism that I built in 1974. I also had one of the first CD players, a Teac, that I paid approx. $400 from HIFI Buys in 1983 ( I remember because it caused a household problem that I bought it without consultation with the wife! )

[leonski]

Jul 21, 2018 8:55:43 GMT -5 mgbpuff said:

I had one of the first cassette tape recorders. It was a Heathkit version using an Advent mechanism that I built in 1974. I also had one of the first CD players, a Teac, that I paid approx. $400 from HIFI Buys in 1983 ( I remember because it caused a household problem that I bought it without consultation with the wife! )

I was in HS until  '70.    Buddy was a budding audiophile.   He purchased an EXTERNAL Dolby System.    At that time they made 2 of 'em   One was 'single ended' and the other had both record and playback
circuitry making calibration easier.     Bring your OWN cassette deck.   But the good was that it was individually calibrated to YOUR cassette and tape.   No 'one-size' solution.    But the single ended unit meant a lot of 
cable swapping.   
I wish I could even just find a picture of it.     I'll bet it is collectible today.

[mtavares]

Jul 20, 2018 10:03:51 GMT -5 lcheetec said:

Looks like there will be a couple of pairs of the PA-1's in Singapore. Mine arrived Tues this week, and I've swapped out my Yaqin Tube integrated for them.

Listening now, re-adjusting back to solid state after almost a year of KT-88's.

lcheetec,

We would much appreciate if you could share you opinion, about the PA-1 SQ at this moment.


QJA

[lcheetec]

Jul 21, 2018 15:04:45 GMT -5 mtavares said:

Jul 20, 2018 10:03:51 GMT -5 lcheetec said:

Looks like there will be a couple of pairs of the PA-1's in Singapore. Mine arrived Tues this week, and I've swapped out my Yaqin Tube integrated for them.

Listening now, re-adjusting back to solid state after almost a year of KT-88's.

lcheetec,

We would much appreciate if you could share you opinion, about the PA-1 SQ at this moment.


QJA

They're still running in, and that's how they sound. They've made small improvements since I plugged them in, but there's some ways to go.

Let me explain. As mentioned in a post above, I've spent the last year with a Yaqin tubed integrated, the MC-100B. These aren't the last word in SQ but they are very, very good sounding. In particular, both male and female voices (when we'll recorded) have a heft to it that's not overbearing, but real. I would say it's that last degree than makes a singer sound "in the room" vs a recorded caricature of him/her.

The PA-1's, when first inserted between my BasX PT-100 and my Tritons, brought me back down to Earth/reality.

Not threadbare, but the clinical-ness and (perhaps) less endowed and maybe more accurate reproduction took a little getting used to. I raised the (built-in on the Tritons) sub levels a little, and even the low-pass on my Orisun (Chinese sub) to compensate, and hoped it wouldn't muddy the sound unnecessarily. Thankfully, it didn't.

Apart from the "presence" region, a little farther down it somehow cleaned up where the Yaqin seemed to be bloating (to a small degree, but nevertheless did) up kick drums, bass guitar etc.

Although this sometimes made it less satisfying (the way bloat can sometimes be), it also benefited certain recordings, like the exquisite (in my mind) Linda Ronstadt album Cry Like the Wolf, Howl like the Wind. I'm hearing this now, and with radio and other matter of music playing almost non-stop during waking hours after the PA-1's were installed, it's finally started to come alive. Linda and Aaron Neville's voices sounded fine this morning. It probably won't ever sound like the Yaqin, but it was fine sounding, unlike the thin and bare copies it would have earlier.

More importantly, the balance served the music in general. The fairly aggressive percussion and drum work on the aforementioned Howl album came through well, and enjoyable.

Further down, I'm going to both try some Daft Punk, one of the few recordings that became overbearing on the Yaqin, and also play some movies on blu-ray. Although I have played some Netflix and even TV over the Emotiva's, this very annoying hum is obvious whenever the TV is switched on. I've bought a noise isolator thing from AliExpress that's supposed to cut out 120Hz (or so) noise caused by Cable TV, but it's still a few days away.

Stay tuned.

[lcheetec]

It's been more than a week, and they continue to improve, although I'm not close to solving the hiss/hum/noise problem when the TV comes on.

Discovered a delightful album from Dave Koz & Friends, Summer Horns II from A to Z.

Last track on the album was Route 66. Nice overall sound from the PA-1's, full and less stringy like compared to how it sounded the first week.

Last night I also had The Steve Miller Band playing. Rockin'