Best amps from a few years ago

Sony TA-F670ES. Or something like that perhaps?

Yup would certainly add a nice Sony ES. You can get a 670ES for around £200, and the 770ES for around £250-£300. I have had both and they are cracking amps, especially the 770ES, oodles of power, nice and smooth even at high volumes and a decent in-built phonostage.

Not so old but you can get a nice Denon PMA-2000AE for around £500, quite similar in presentation to the 770ES, beast of an amp.

Yup would certainly add a nice Sony ES. You can get a 670ES for around £200, and the 770ES for around £250-£300. I have had both and they are cracking amps, especially the 770ES, oodles of power, nice and smooth even at high volumes and a decent in-built phonostage.

Not so old but you can get a nice Denon PMA-2000AE for around £500, quite similar in presentation to the 770ES, beast of an amp.

Yes, or the ESD with onboard DAC.  I can vouch for the latter as I have one.  Excellent amp.  Add to this Harman Kardon's Citation Series amps if you can find one, or the HK6550 / 6850 which are also popular (just not in the UK where we don't seem to go a bundle on their gear).  Sansui AU-717 would sit near the £2k bracket these days I think.  Maybe £1500, either way, excellent amp, but make sure you land a good one.  They're old now, need lots of TLC but dual-mono amps, and they'll sit, comfortably with the likes of Leema's Pulse, Exposure's 3010 or HK's 990 amps.  They're all £1000+ amps at release.  

Plenty of others out there, just wait for the crowd to add a few!

Quad 99 / 909 would be my entry.

The original Audiolab 8000A perhaps?

Recently listened to a 20-year old Naim Nait driving ProAc Tablettes. Brilliant stuff.

Hi,

I have a couple for you both available on ebay for less than £2oo.

Arcam Alpha 9
NAD C370

The Arcam often comes with built in phono stage but not the NAD, for this would advise the excellent Regafono mini a2d which is about £80.

Good Luck

You probably find one of AVI's integrated amps for not to much.

regards

Arcam Alpha 10 / NAD C352 (PD version) / A bit younger but e Cyrus 8VS2...

all fantastic amps; all 5 star award winners. The Alpha 10 especially is a stonking amp and still puts a lot of newer and current amps to shame IMO. Effortless sound with bags of power and can withstand multiple speaker upgrades... 

Excellent stuff chaps, wow my eyes are being opened - i haven't investigated this stuff since the 90s!

Things like the nad 370 and the arcam alpha 9 - are they going to be much better than my cambridge audio azur 640?

Theres a sansui au 717 on ebay for 275 quid at the moment

I would agree wholeheartedly with the recommendations for some of the bigger Denon amps, particularly the PMA2000AE or PMA1500AE - both wonderful amplifiers.  I'd also suggest keeping an eye open for a Harman Kardon HK990 (quite rare).

Those old Sansui amps are fabulous but, as RS suggests, do be careful about condition and bear in mind some servicing work wouldn't go amiss if you do pick one up.  

What's this like?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Denon-PMA-SA1-Flagship-from-DENON-High-End-Reference-rrp-5500-onkyo-/110996829135?pt=UK_AudioTVElectronics_HomeAudioHiFi_Amplifiers&hash=item19d7ed33cf

Cant be bad, if the PMA-2000AE is anything to go by, then it should be pretty darn good!