In Reply to: Vintage SS Japanese receivers.... the time is past? posted by Mossback on October 16, 2016 at 09:20:47:
I hesitate to ever recommend a reciever. Too much stuff crammed into too small a space. The radio part in these units tends to cause the most problems (in terms of restore) and one has to question how viable that format is....even now, leave alone the future.
That said the better units of that vintage had reasonable build quality. Their ratings were more conservative than todays mass market stuff.
For example I have a couple of sansui 9090db's. Forget about keeping the dolby radio right....just not worth the cost and effort....nor is there a need. If it came right down to it, and I had to convert them to nothing more than straight power amps, they would still be worth the price IMHO.
So I think you need to ask yourself what it is you want. A part of yesterday? Something at a price point that will continue to function affordably for a period of time?
What tends to make things unrepairable in the future are when lots of things are stuffed into a "chip" and that chip is longer obtainable. Sometimes it is the actual transistors/fets used but that isn't often. In that sense the units you are talking about are mostly far more repairable than newer units will be in their distant future.
There are units, like the HK's with dual power supplies, that actually had darn good preamp sections. But frankly most of the tone/preamp circuits are bettered by todays designs. What isn't better is the massive power transformers and heatsinks.
So I'd guess in a round about way I'd be saying to look at them more as power amps only and go for the house sound you like.
IMHO one would be crazy silly to buy one for a few hundred dollars on ebay and then pay someone another few hundred bucks to restore. They just aren't worth 700-1,000+ bucks in todays sound quality IMHO. But if you can grab a yard sale item for cheap, strip it down, toss a bunch of resistors and caps in it....and end up with a power amp that will play 100 watts per channel all day long into the worst speaker load in the world....well you could do a lot worse.
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Follow Ups
- You have to ask yourself what you are after - Russ57 15:48:56 10/17/16 (9)
- I disagree - 70's receivers was a brief time where the consumer was the winner - airtime 07:55:17 10/19/16 (2)
- Consumer the winner? - Russ57 09:27:48 10/19/16 (1)
- RE: Consumer the winner? - airtime 09:39:31 10/19/16 (0)
- RE: You have to ask yourself what you are after - Crazy Dave 07:26:59 10/18/16 (5)
- Good points Dave - Mossback 10:58:09 10/18/16 (4)
- RE: Good points Dave - Crazy Dave 20:47:23 10/18/16 (3)
- Which B&K model is that one? nt - gonzo 05:43:45 10/19/16 (2)
- TS-108 - Crazy Dave 06:24:47 10/19/16 (1)
- Thanks for the info. nt - gonzo 07:08:01 10/19/16 (0)