Vintage hifi amp/receiver - opinions?

[rossr]

I’ve been looking at vintage amps/receivers, with the idea of perhaps upgrading. I have a modest Pioneer amp from the late ‘80s, but I’m quite smitten with the Pioneer 50 and 80-series units from the mid-late ‘70s. However, the more I look, the more high quality, great-looking units from the same era there seem to be. Marantz, Sansui, Technics, Onkyo - all look great, and seem to review well. I’m not sure I will get much of an opportunity to see or hear all the possible alternatives.

Anyone got any opinions or views about the various units from around this era?

[leffemonster]

I always favoured Technics hi-fi components in the past. I owned an SU-V460 amp before swapping to the SU-A900 MkII (in fact, I still have them somewhere). The A900 had a defect where it would go into protection mode after a few hours of running, but I never got it fixed. The V460 was pretty much bullet-proof. I now run a Cambridge Audio amp, Onkyo CD and Thorens TD-160 MkII turntable with SME3009 tonearm, Kef Cresta 3 speakers. My home theatre receiver is a Denon.

I think you can’t go wrong with Technics and Marantz. For Sansui I’d steer clear of their stuff from about 1979/80 onwards when build and sound quality went downhill. Rotel made some great amps in the ‘70s - my dad had an RA-612 for years.

[rossr]

Thanks leffemonster. I've looked at the various components from the Receiver Wars period, including the Technics, and they do look great. I also looked up your components - no wonder you are happy with them. We have Energy speakers and Definitive Technology sub with an Onkyo unit for our tv/theatre system, which work really well. For purely music, I'm looking for something that combines audio quality with the look of the period - with suitable speakers. I have Pinnacle speakers at present, and they might stay, but I'm enjoying the search for possible replacements or supplements.