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70's vintage Japanese amplifiers and receivers.

20170617_091740 by Geoff Old, on Flickr

My Denon, the PMA850. £670 in '77! Consistently sounds excellent, whatever I throw at it. It would be a fortune if made today. Massive caps, twin wound transformer and three input phono stage.

That's a purposeful looking beast! Is it all original inside or have you invested in getting it fully serviced?
I think I could get quite carried away with some of these old amps (if I only had the money).
 
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That's a purposeful looking beast! Is it all original inside or have you invested in getting it fully serviced?
I think I could get quite carried away with some of these old amps (if I only had the money).

It's been fully serviced and recapped. This one isn't mine but it shows the insides well. Lurking behind the panel is the extensive preamp section.
 
Reminds me of the innards of some big old Pioneer amps does that...

I'll take that as a compliment. The phono stage on this is outstanding. A mate who had one chose it as his separate phono stage. He had owned and heard lot of very expensive phono stages too.
 
I had the matching tuner for a good while, a lovely thing:

5035269355_886d0f6407_b.jpg


Sounded great, I only sold it on when I ended up getting the chimney the roof-aerial was attached to removed due to issues with damp!

PS You can use the tuner as power level meters for the amp!
 
That's gorgeous Tony. The SBT doesn't cut it aesthetically in the same way!
 
I have the Denon PMA 850 MK2 with the class A facility at a flick of a switch and can't fault the sound really, tried it with some Snell K speakers and JR-149's with super results.

Makes me wonder if actual sound quality has really improved or not when I listen to this Denon amp. The Sony V-FET TA-F7 is another lovely amp and probably similar vintage and love that too as well as the Trio 600 Supreme.
 
I have the Denon PMA 850 MK2 with the class A facility at a flick of a switch and can't fault the sound really, tried it with some Snell K speakers and JR-149's with super results.

Makes me wonder if actual sound quality has really improved or not when I listen to this Denon amp. The Sony V-FET TA-F7 is another lovely amp and probably similar vintage and love that too as well as the Trio 600 Supreme.

IMO things haven't moved on.

I use the Lentek integrated and the PMA850 as my chosen amps. A friend is now selling more than £8k worth of amplification in preference for his own Lentek! There are similar stories too about the PMA850 being preferred to many thousands of pounds of new amplification in bake-offs at my house. Of course, both these amps were £700 to £800 in 1978 and would be hideously expensive if made today.
 
IMO things haven't moved on.
Certainly not in terms of quality, but perhaps quantity is cheaper these days - especially with Class D amps and switch-mode power supplies.

In my case, I'm forever seduced by the dulcet sounds from an ancient (late 1970s) Pioneer C-21/M-22 class A combo. It is the best sounding amplifier system I've owned, and that includes TOTL Naim, Densen, Dynavector etc. I only wished it had more than 30W per side, which limits it to higher efficiency loudspeakers like the Yamaha NS-1000Ms.
 
Certainly not in terms of quality, but perhaps quantity is cheaper these days - especially with Class D amps and switch-mode power supplies.

In my case, I'm forever seduced by the dulcet sounds from an ancient (late 1970s) Pioneer C-21/M-22 class A combo. It is the best sounding amplifier system I've owned, and that includes TOTL Naim, Densen, Dynavector etc. I only wished it had more than 30W per side, which limits it to higher efficiency loudspeakers like the Yamaha NS-1000Ms.

False economy in many ways though as these are so tricky and expensive to repair that when they play up the unit becomes scrap in most cases.. Caveat emptor.
 
I guess that if one good thing has come out of the relatively new found collectability and value of vintage Japanese hi fi gear it is that it's worth repairing it nowadays.... When you could buy an 80WPC Pioneer receiver for £30 nobody was going to pay to have one repaired...

Which brings me round neatly to mentioning that I do carry out repairs, re-capping etc on vintage Japanese amps:)
 
Certainly not in terms of quality, but perhaps quantity is cheaper these days - especially with Class D amps and switch-mode power supplies.

In my case, I'm forever seduced by the dulcet sounds from an ancient (late 1970s) Pioneer C-21/M-22 class A combo. It is the best sounding amplifier system I've owned, and that includes TOTL Naim, Densen, Dynavector etc. I only wished it had more than 30W per side, which limits it to higher efficiency loudspeakers like the Yamaha NS-1000Ms.

Being an owner of the NS1000M, and a luster of the C21/M22, I suspect you would be doing very well indeed to better the combination at any price.
 
False economy in many ways though as these are so tricky and expensive to repair that when they play up the unit becomes scrap in most cases.. Caveat emptor.
In my case, a warrantied-for-life preamp had to return to the factory to fix an intermittent crackle. Before I sent it back, I peeked inside to see if there was any obvious signs of dry joints or such like. I had no hope in hell of trying to find anything significant on the super-tiny tracks and SMD components. So it was closed up and taken to the post office. I got a replacement unit a few weeks later.

OTOH, I was quite chuffed to replace the electrolytic caps, trim pots and the power transistors (with a complete NOS set) of my vintage amps, and adjust the offset and bias to factory specification on my own.

Being an owner of the NS1000M, and a luster of the C21/M22, I suspect you would be doing very well indeed to better the combination at any price.
I'd like to try valves just once; maybe a classic Audio Research combo. But otherwise, I'm 99.9% content.
 
In my case, a warrantied-for-life preamp had to return to the factory to fix an intermittent crackle. Before I sent it back, I peeked inside to see if there was any obvious signs of dry joints or such like. I had no hope in hell of trying to find anything significant on the super-tiny tracks and SMD components. So it was closed up and taken to the post office. I got a replacement unit a few weeks later.

OTOH, I was quite chuffed to replace the electrolytic caps, trim pots and the power transistors (with a complete NOS set) of my vintage amps, and adjust the offset and bias to factory specification on my own.


I'd like to try valves just once; maybe a classic Audio Research combo. But otherwise, I'm 99.9% content.
I've tried a lot but chose solid state.
 
Just got a Sony ES amp off the bay, the 630ESD, anybody had one of these? Wonder what the dac is like, guessing the phono stage is the same as in all the ES range around the same level 670, 700, etc.
 
This was cropped from the real estate listing photos from when we sold our house, so low resolution (and not silver) but it's my old Sansui TU/AU-717 set. I bought the tuner at a flea market when I was 14 y.o. for $25, and it's just about mint. The AU-717 came later from eBay. It still looks a lot more modern than other 1977 gear IMO.
CdhNjBKNRxE3MnI_uJvhsDpTmrgHIktLQawb5PFlBjOxmDLLCmyFHI8n0OTPRcoWrsSGtbVREC1W4H6sbIpct6CM3QN_4xFujL2RUmHchUfUrhjY64as14fcjnf5Ad8pLWi6TSRSPSo=w1016-h500-no

The protection circuit has gotten slower to switch on over the years, but otherwise it's been reliable. I know these amps had problems with corrosive glue on the PCBs which ended up causing faults.
 
Certainly not in terms of quality, but perhaps quantity is cheaper these days - especially with Class D amps and switch-mode power supplies.

In my case, I'm forever seduced by the dulcet sounds from an ancient (late 1970s) Pioneer C-21/M-22 class A combo. It is the best sounding amplifier system I've owned, and that includes TOTL Naim, Densen, Dynavector etc. I only wished it had more than 30W per side, which limits it to higher efficiency loudspeakers like the Yamaha NS-1000Ms.

James - I'm collecting a pair of Yams at Easter and they will go on the end of an early 80s Pioneer rack with Spec 1/2 , TX-8500II tuner, RT-707 reel to reel and PL 707 turntable. I'm listening to this system now with fairly modest Pioneer speakers in the day (HPM-500) and the sound is fabulous - even with a £2 ribbon as an aerial

Booja30 - I love that Sansui gear too
 
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This was cropped from the real estate listing photos from when we sold our house, so low resolution (and not silver) but it's my old Sansui TU/AU-717 set. I bought the tuner at a flea market when I was 14 y.o. for $25, and it's just about mint. The AU-717 came later from eBay. It still looks a lot more modern than other 1977 gear IMO.
CdhNjBKNRxE3MnI_uJvhsDpTmrgHIktLQawb5PFlBjOxmDLLCmyFHI8n0OTPRcoWrsSGtbVREC1W4H6sbIpct6CM3QN_4xFujL2RUmHchUfUrhjY64as14fcjnf5Ad8pLWi6TSRSPSo=w1016-h500-no

The protection circuit has gotten slower to switch on over the years, but otherwise it's been reliable. I know these amps had problems with corrosive glue on the PCBs which ended up causing faults.
are those small B&O speakers?
 


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