Best looking vintage Hifi gear

Following @kuma

47 lab Gaincard power amplifier

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I bought it from PFM classified ads already completely rebuilt by the owner a few years ago.
He did all the electronics himself and had the wooden case professionally restored by a cabinet maker. Not much help to you I’m affraid!
Jonathan

Hitachi DA-1000 CD player

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A very historically significant item, to be sure, but ‘best looking’? To my eyes it looks like it belongs in a medical laboratory - a centrifuge for separating bodily fluids, perhaps?

Mark

This is already posted by someone much further back.

But yes, it represents the 80s mindset of the vision we had of the future back then. And it was cool. That Hitachi is pure 1980s cyberpunk. The design on those displays, while atrocious from a hifi perspective, taps into something at the core of many a psyche in that era. An amazing bit of design.

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more like a very expensive micro wave :smiley:

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When I grow up I’m going to have a huge barn full of vintage hifi gear on one side and micro computers on the other. Does that make me a sad person?

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I managed to lose the computers from my life, but otherwise ----

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Very nice. Funny to think that at the time of release of these first generation players, barring the Sony CDP-101, most used vertical loading so you could see the disc spinning. By the time the second generation arrived, vertical loading had vanished and the drawer dominated.

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ah yes. I also thought their Phonocube looks great.


cube_humpty

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have you once heard 47 labs gear ? i have never seen that brand in France, only on Stereophile mag.

Yes many times. And I have owned their Shigaraki DAC and Phonocube with its power supply. ( supplies )… and Miyabi 47 cartridge. ( this one is not much to look at buy I loved the sound and still looking for a cartridge that has the same magic )
I do not much care for Japanese hifi but 47labs stuff is fun to listen to.

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Marantz PM450, for those who could not afford the VU meters models (still have it)
Screen Shot 2023-01-20 at 16.24.16

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Or the bigger PM 700

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Mine was not dissimilar

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Actually a pretty well designed and reliable piece of kit if I remember rightly although I was only 6 years old at the time.

It kept me very happy for a few years anyway!

Ran on 6 x HP11 (C cell) batteries or mains.

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My dad had one of these. I used to pretend it was the controls of the millennium falcon! Just like Naim it had DIN connections

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I got mine in 68/69 , very, very similar

Anyone remember the first Sony portable CD player, or rather transportable? It was cool to have one at the time and the charging bay had RCA connections to your amp.

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Quite correct, Richard!
Somehow I’m really attracted by these first vertical CD players.
Here is the second one - Pioneer P-D1😊
ATB,
Ivo

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