Favorite classic audio gear?

[viasierra]

For me, there is no question. The finest classic audio equipment, actually ensemble was that from Saul Marantz. The Model 7 preamp, the model 8 & 9 amplifiers and the 10B tuner. Never has one company simultaneously had the finest of each component category available. Those of you who have had, handled and listened to these beauties know this. Those who have not would not know. The legend of these pieces doesn't even do justice to them.

[meatyb0y]

The Linn LP12 - still in use today, fully current, and despite the evident satisfaction I get from my do-everything PS3, Linn Unidisk, and Pioneer plasma, this do-one-thing-really-well item still delivers more pleasure than anything else. Does that disqualify it?

Magnepan SMGa's - my first real high-end speaker, and it introduced me to real music. It's why I learned to love Miles, Monk, Herbie, and Mingus in addition to Peter Gabriel. A speaker that was genuinely flawed, but somehow so well-balanced in it's flaws that it really delivered music.

Ah, the simple days...all I had to do was work 35 hours a week, go to class and sit next to some Univ. of Fla. babe, buy some $3.00 used Coltrane records, a $1.89 bottle of King Cobra or a Mickey's Big mouth, and that was entertainment for the night. Good times!

[kennyt]

LP 12 is right up there, even given it's still made.

[DaveC]

Boy was I lucky as a "kid" in college.
I had 2 sources: Ampex reel-to-reels (both 960 and 970s), Rek-O-Kut turntable/arm with Pickering cartridge.
Electronics were McIntosh C-8 preamps (fine, go ahead and laugh), Dynaco Mark ? (can't remember if they were IIs or IIIs)
Speakers were my roommates DQ10s.
For college kids in the mid 70s, it kicked butt.
Funny thing - I still have one of the Ampex RTRs, my old roommate still has his DQ10s and a separate friend has the McIntosh C-8s.
And yes, all 3 of us are major into audio still (though the old roommie with his 5.1 system based on Quads/ML26s has the most unusual system of the bunch)

[DaveC]

As a follow-up, while I was also exposed to plenty of McIntosh and JBL systems of the time, never was I prepared for the sound when I moved to Berkeley in '77 and popped into a shop on Telegraph avenue (or was it University?...) and they played a James Taylor LP on Tympani 1Ds powered by 6 ML-2s (3/side, 1/panel). No recollection of the preamp or TT, but I went back several times and kept drooling over it all. Eventually I bought a Grace cartridge (to go in my Technics SP1200 TT) and nearly got thrown out of our apartment, as we surely didn't have the $129 I plunked down.
Five years later I wasn't cured and we went out a bought our first hi-fi together: ML-7 preamp, ML-3 amp, B&W 801Fs, Oracle TT, Sumiko "The Arm" and a moving coil cartridge which I'll never recall, but it was probably made/sold by Sumiko at the time. Wow did we love our system. It was truly synergistic and impressed many.

Now it's years later, systems later, ....
And I may have lost my way, as I rarely get the goose bumps I used to experience back then. Heavy sigh ....

[JerryDelColliano]

Cello Audio Palette gets my vote.

Also loved the Cello Performance II amps - bridged. Talk about a room heater