Reduced Depth Stereo Amps

[Martynt74]

Have moved house and sadly this means my hifi doesn't have the space it used to. I sold most of my equipment a while back in anticipation of this as there was no point having reasonably high end stuff that would be screwed over by the room.

Where the amplifier is likely to be placed now is on a 40cm deep unit. Since most amps are around the 39/40cm depth mark, this leaves me no space at the back for cables sticking out.

Ideally i'd still like it to be full width as my plan is to build a small stand and have my turntable above it, so full width would look best but i can always go for a smaller form factor if needed.

At the moment my equipment looks as follows

Custom built T2024 based amplifier with 4 inputs rather than the usual 1
Audiolab 8200CDQ cd player/preamp
A half decent phono amp
Project Primary turntable
B&W 602 S speakers


As you can see it's all generally pretty low end, the speakers i'm happy with (the wife isn't. Especially since i tried to paint them white and did a god awful job!)

I'm tempted to sell the Audiolab as i no longer listen to cd's and put the money towards an amp which has built in MM and DAC for convinience.

Budget would be around £500

For music preference, i prefer singer songwriter-y stuff mainly but as i also tend to lean towards electronic indie (MGMT, Postal Service etc) i also like a quite forward, fast paced, punchy type sound profile. A used Densen would be my ideal scenario for sound, but the size constraints are working against me on that.

 

[agw_01]

Does it have to be brand new Marv? What about a NAD C352, I think they're about 30cm deep and would compliment the B&Ws very well.

 

[Martynt74]

Haha i think that would take me full circle to the setup i had about 12 years ago!

Having looked around, it seems there's a lot from that era that are quite slim. I actually checked the Densen and it's only 33cm deep so would work for me.

More than happy with second hand. I'd quite like something really old and classic like the old Yamaha Ca1010 from the 70's but just missed one which was on Pink Fish.

I have the perfect space for speakers either side of the TV which would actually end up in a perfect position for listening (albeit up against a wall). But i've been told in no uncertain terms that the B&W's aren't going there because they're hideous. I might see if i can re-finish them but otherwise i may end up upping the budget and trying to find some new speakers which are more wife pleasing.

Old image here. Current thinking is the sideboard just to the left of where i'm stood taking the photo, which offers absolutely nowhere to sit and listen face on so would only get used for background listening really.

 

[Kei]

Vintage pioneer, yamaha, technics, luxman or sansui might fit the bill quite well. Not sure that you'll find luxman stuff too often or going all that cheaply though. Towards the end of the 80's quite a few manufacturers went downhill, so there are a few dogs about. I had an L-220 which was remarkably good considering it was from their basic range.


This is on a 400mm deep shelving unit.


One mild irritation which can be common to a lot of vintage amplifiers is oxidation on switch contacts which cause crackles when you press the switches and adjust the volume. In very bad cases it can cause drop outs or channel imbalances. There are also problems you can encounter with capacitors reaching the end of their lifespan in equipment that is over 30 years old. The hotter something operates, the shorter their lifespan. Issues related to knackered caps usually result in noise getting amplified with the signal, like excessive hum and buzz.

http://www.thevintageknob.org/index.php is a good source of info on vintage hifi as is https://www.hifiengine.com/manual-library.shtml