Back in the mid 80s I spent way more than was sensible and bought myself seperate NAD pre/power amps, Boston Acoustic Speakers, and a Rega turntable for my birthday. I not only still have and use all that gear, but have since bought more of the same brands 2nd hand mostly from the same era, so I now have 5.1 surround in my lounge room, and stereo amp/speaker sets in my kitchen, office, bedroom, and guest bedroom - all NAD/Boston Acoustic, and all capable of doing Apple AirPlay via Apple TV or old Airport Expresses.
Vintage hifi is great. You will probably need to become the sort of person who can replace all the electrolytic capacitors in your amps and speakers crossovers, or at least know someone who can. And you'll become the sort of person who'll hunt the internet for someone who can ship you replacement drivers for your speakers, styluses and drive belts for your turntable, and hifi grade capacitors (and you'll probably stock pile all of those those). It's at least partially a hobby instead of just appliances you own.
I’d think there would be a market opportunity here. I have an old 70’s amp, and the switches/knobs are a bit noisy.
Sure, I spray it down with contact cleaner, and it fixes it for a few years each time, but the dial light bulbs are starting to burn out.
Most of its internals are hand soldered and switches /relays/etc that would be cheaper, better and more reliable with modern technology.
Even though it was hand wired, it didn’t cost much new (inflation adjusted), so why can’t anyone manufacture something with a similar amplifier but an automated assembly line and better control circuitry (and maybe a rpi header for electronic control) for, say, $1000 in 2025?
As someone with a metre-high stack of vintage recievers in his closet, I think a significant part of the appeal is the feelie aspect. If you put the guts of a Marantz 22xx in a black plastic case with a modern RCA logo in it, it would languish for five years in the back of a Goodwill.
But the feelies are the hard part. An attractive bespoke case is expensive to build and ship. Some of the stuff (high-grade tuning capacitors) probably simply can't be had in quantity without opening a new production line.
I know there are a bunch of DIY kits that claim to be circuit-equivalent to popular vintage amplifier designs, and there's the Akitika range, but they're still not really a turnkey "it's your favourite vintage model, but with zero hours on it"
For a while, I was running an Arduino/PiZero gadget I built that sat under my a NAD 1100 preamp which had a pair of stepper motors and used orings and 3d printed pulleys to turn the volume and input selection knobs. This worked nicely, since I had both remote (IR & WiFi) control, and could still turn the knobs by hand.
You can almost always replace knobs and switches, usually with high quality ones, if you're prepared to hunt around various internet sites to fond them (and often you need to be prepared to just buy something that looks like it's close and accept wasting the money if it doesn't quite fit).
FOr me, and for no real good reason, I prefer to keep my vintage hifi gear as "original" as possible, and I'm not personally interested in "upgrading" the guts. Having said that, I dfrunk-eBayed a really nice old 70s vintage New Zealand built/designed Perraux 2100EXR power amp a while back, assuming I could repair the listed faults - but it turns out too many of the internal components are completely obsolete and unobtainable, and I'm _strongly_ considering gutting it and filling the enclosure with modern class d amp modules. It _might_ become a 7 channel home theatre amp hidden behind the old 70s rack mount amp faceplate. That kinda feels too much like cheating though?
Have you tried Deoxit? It works much better than contact cleaner in my experience. I just got a beautiful old Sony STR-6046A from an antique store and used contact cleaner and it helped the issues some, but they weren't totally fixed until I got more Deoxit and sprayed all the pots and switches yesterday. It removes the oxidation that I don't think contact cleaner does.
Eh? For 1000 credits you can get plenty of integrated amps brand new right now. You could even get one of the top multi-channel, multi-room AV receivers from Denon, Sony or Yamaha for that price. They will be better than your vintage amp, although they might not last as long.
Exactly what I was thinking when you mentioned mid 80's vintage BA speakers. I have Missions from late 80's and I've had to replace the drivers twice. Also have a BA subwoofer that I should find a new driver for since it's now rattling like crazy.
Back in the mid 80s I spent way more than was sensible and bought myself seperate NAD pre/power amps, Boston Acoustic Speakers, and a Rega turntable for my birthday. I not only still have and use all that gear, but have since bought more of the same brands 2nd hand mostly from the same era, so I now have 5.1 surround in my lounge room, and stereo amp/speaker sets in my kitchen, office, bedroom, and guest bedroom - all NAD/Boston Acoustic, and all capable of doing Apple AirPlay via Apple TV or old Airport Expresses.
Vintage hifi is great. You will probably need to become the sort of person who can replace all the electrolytic capacitors in your amps and speakers crossovers, or at least know someone who can. And you'll become the sort of person who'll hunt the internet for someone who can ship you replacement drivers for your speakers, styluses and drive belts for your turntable, and hifi grade capacitors (and you'll probably stock pile all of those those). It's at least partially a hobby instead of just appliances you own.