Because the vintage gear you already own or can afford is almost certainly better than any new gear you can afford.

Nothing you can buy for sensible money now is built like vintage hi-fi equipment, or made in Japan. Nor is much of it very sonically inspiring either, something those of us who don’t need to sell new hi-fi gear to pay the bills are not afraid to tell you.

How do I know this? I work on and in this stuff every day. I regularly see 50-year-old hi-fi equipment that has come in for its first maintenance, EVER! Do you think modern BOSE, Cambridge Audio, NAD or Sonos equipment will be working 50 years after you buy it? Five years is often too long for this new stuff. I’ve even had to replace a laser in a 2.5-year-old Marantz CD player, out of warranty!

I can also guarantee the crappy dock, soundbar or Bluetooth speaker doesn’t sound anywhere as good as proper vintage hi-fi gear. Not even in the same universe. Experience shows that $500 vintage amplifiers regularly crush $2000 new ones in terms of build, sound quality and service life and I’d consider all three of those parameters very important.

If your vintage equipment only needs routine maintenance, why wouldn’t you get that done? That would be like saying my car needs some maintenance and a few new parts. I’ll just sell it and buy a newer, likely less well-made model.