Vintage Receivers

[North_Sky]

Cool thread.

 

[Chrispy]

About what I think about my old receivers, both an early Fisher ss as well as a later Marantz 2270. Don't miss 'em.

 

[mhardy6647]

About what I think about my old receivers, both an early Fisher ss as well as a later Marantz 2270. Don't miss 'em.

The early Fisher ss receivers were pretty dreadful -- folks today pay stoopit money for 'em, though.
There -- ahem -- is an original condition (albeit working) 500T here. It was a freebie, though, which makes me feel less guilty about its taking up space here.

By this era, "The Fisher" had (as they say) jumped the shark.

 

[valerianf]

My first 'ampli-tuner' was a Marantz 2226B.
It was very reliable and the sound quality was the best of all AVR I have owned.
At that time Marantz was independent.
My hope is that one day will exist an AVR with a similar sound quality.
But may be it is not possible in this gadget oriented century (XXI).

 

[tmtomh]

The beauty of the Marantz like a 2245 is the construction. Built to last. Tough and durable inside. I'm not a fan either of the sound even though I used a 2245 on my test bench for years and finally cannibalized it and took out the amp modules and made a power amp out of it for a winter project.

I have a 2230 that I quite like, although it's boxed up and not in use at the moment. I got it in good but non-working condition off my local Craigslist for $20 several years ago, and then had an area tech rebuild it top to bottom for a couple hundred bucks. It's a great-looking piece of gear - I got a reproduction European-style black faceplate for it too, which I think looks really cool (kepy the original too, of course).

It worked very well in what was my secondary/TV system at the time, feeding a pair of Pioneer BS LR22s. But man, they're not lying about that "three martini" Marantz sound. It's fun, and certainly has its benefits for background music, TV sound (with the bass knob turned down a click or two so dialogue isn't too chesty), and similar applications. But I wouldn't call it the greatest in detail and fidelity. That kind of "rounded," imprecise sound in my main system would drive me crazy - like the audio equivalent of a sensory deprivation tank!

 

[Sal1950]

So many of us had or have old Marantz's, interesting it is.
My first entry into real Hi Fi was a Marantz 2270 and it sounded as beautiful as it looked to me.
Don't throw stones with the knowledge of hindsight guys. LOL
That system was the envy of all that heard it.
Ever done any cruising on ebay, the prices on rebuilds are high, with kool new blue led back-lighting to boot. LOL

 

[Chrispy]

The early Fisher ss receivers were pretty dreadful -- folks today pay stoopit money for 'em, though.
There -- ahem -- is an original condition (albeit working) 500T here. It was a freebie, though, which makes me feel less guilty about its taking up space here.

View attachment 77379
By this era, "The Fisher" had (as they say) jumped the shark.

Yeah eventually why I went beyond the handed-down Fisher to a Marantz 2270....they were fine within their limits no doubt. Just not the magic some guys assign to older gear....

 

[mhardy6647]

In the cold grey light of morning -- I realized I should put in one good word for the early US manufacturers' soiled solid state efforts.
They were nicely designed and well put together. The layout and philosophy was often "leveraged" from (or by, or whatever preposition fits -- if any) the vacuum tube era principles, up to and including socketed transistors , leavened with a little Space Age futurism (i.e., plug in or easily removable circuit cards).

I don't have a photo of the aforementioned Fisher handy, but here're a couple of peeks at the innards of some HH Scott products of the early ss era.
FWIW, I am actually slightly more favorably disposed to the Scott products of that era. They actually sound OK to me, and the tuners (continuing in Scott's tradition... as well as Fisher's) are quite good.

HH Scot 386
scott386above by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
DSC_1553 (1) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

HH Scott 342C

Scott 342C innards sideview by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
Scott 342C by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

(admittedly, both of these are a little bit more recent than the Fisher 500T. The Scotts are from ca. 1967-68; the 500T, off the top of my head, is a year or two newer)

 

[sergeauckland]

Here's my Yamaha CR1000 in my workshop, with an even older Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier above it. The connector strip below the Yamaha brings out the ins and outs, the receiver is too heavy to lift every time I want to use it.

 

[anmpr1]

I recall reading somewhere that Japanese receivers were never very popular in Japan. The writer attributed it to Japan FM band limitations, where closely spaced station frequencies supposedly required better, separate tuners than was common in receivers. Recall how the Japanese FM dial is truncated compared to that in the US. I remember Euro-centric receivers featuring multiple bands, including SW.

 

[mhardy6647]

Here's my Yamaha CR1000 in my workshop, with an even older Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier above it. The connector strip below the Yamaha brings out the ins and outs, the receiver is too heavy to lift every time I want to use it.

View attachment 77419

Is the Cambridge preamp actually older than the CR-1000? The latter is ca. 1976, to the best of my recollection.
Too bad the mic volume slider is broken off

Probably goes without saying that there is a CR-1000 here (for completeness). The disco cosmetics are kind of questionable (it is the funkiest of all Yamaha components of the 'silver-faced' era, I'd opine) but it's a pretty good piece of hardware overall. Wouldn't mind having one of its little brethren (CR-800, 600, or 400) but one's never turned up (at least at a reasonable price). I will actually admit to paying "real" money for a restored CR-1000... although, in hindsight, I am not quite sure why I did.

 

[sergeauckland]

As far as I know, the P50 was manufactured in the years 1971-73, so predates the CR1000. At the time it was 'revolutionary' for its low profile due to having a toroidal mains transformer. Still more or less meets spec, as does the Yamaha. I never tried to get a replacement mic fader as the knob was also missing when I got it, which would probably be harder to get than the fader. I was given the Yamaha as the fet muting had failed off on one channel. Simple fix, then later it failed on the other channel so disabled it. OK for the workshop.

S

 

[Martin]

My first receiver was a Pioneer SX-680 with a whopping 30W per channel. I enjoyed it for many years until it was stolen. My second and last 2-channel receiver was an SAE Two R6 with 60W per channel. Both were paired with Cerwin-Vega speakers, the Pioneer with 313’s and the SAE with 12-tr’s. I spent many memorable hours listening to each system.

Martin

 

[tmtomh]

As far as I know, the P50 was manufactured in the years 1971-73, so predates the CR1000. At the time it was 'revolutionary' for its low profile due to having a toroidal mains transformer. Still more or less meets spec, as does the Yamaha. I never tried to get a replacement mic fader as the knob was also missing when I got it, which would probably be harder to get than the fader. I was given the Yamaha as the fet muting had failed off on one channel. Simple fix, then later it failed on the other channel so disabled it. OK for the workshop.

S

Wow - I had no idea Cambridge was that old! According to Wikipedia the P50 dates from 1970.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Audio

 

[sergeauckland]

Wow - I had no idea Cambridge was that old! According to Wikipedia the P50 dates from 1970.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Audio

Yes, but how the market's changed! From the mighty and excellent R50 loudspeaker to the Minx!

Very sad.

S.

 

[eddantes]

I see were sharing old junk we have lying around.

I'd ship this crap to Amir for testing, but he already said that he has no intentions of buying a crane, so I guess that's out.

 

[ripvw]

usually bought separates but here are the two receivers I used to own:

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/fisher/500-b.shtml

https://www.stereophile.com/historical/605fisher/index.html

The Fisher 500-C sounded good with Chartwell LS3/5a's, but as you can see from Stereophile's review it did not test well. Tubes are romantic - just like turntables - fussy too. I owned several other pieces of tube gear over the years and would happily buy stuff from Quicksilver Audio if I coud afford it. Glowing tubes, electrostatic speakers and headphones with a spinning turntable seems to make everything sound better - a glass of single malt also helps...

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/concept/165.shtml

https://classicreceivers.com/concept-16-5

The Concept 16.5 was simply the best receiver of it's era in my experience - way better than anything from Pioneer, Kenwood, Sansui or Marantz - never sold Yamaha. It powered the notoriously hard to drive AR 11's to ridiculous volumes - I even ran them stacked one weekend as a test - not many receivers of any era could drive 4 AR 11's in parallel. Gave mine to my best friend - who bought AR 10pi's to go with them - an even nastier load. He enjoyed them for years, got the speakers re-coned and the switch gear repaired on the Concept - about the only thing that ever went bad on them.

 

[ng411s4]

Here's my fairly modest Sony STR-VX2L receiver from about 1982:

This is the UK version with long wave band reception. 25W/channel into 8 ohms, 0.07% distortion at ?W, 95dB SNR on Aux input ... supposedly ... Power amps are based on Sanyo STK hybrid modules (die rapidly if outputs shorted, I'm told).

Bought on E-Bay UK for £55 about 5 years ago and in close to "mint" condition. For a mid-range (at best) device, the build quality is superb.

Been in daily use for the last two years paired with JPW Sonata Monitor bookshelf speakers (£35 off E-Bay) and an Audioengine B1 blue tooth DAC (bought in Thailand for the equivalent of about £180). The combination was sort of a bit of a come down after a Meridian DSP loudspeaker and source components system. Then again, it sort of wasn't -- it is really very enjoyable to listen to at moderate volumes. Moving quarter of the way around the world meant something had to temporarily give, anyway.

Now supplemented with JBL 306P with Neumann KH 80 coming soon (hopefully) -- attached to DIY pre-amps, Topping DACs and Raspberry Pi based devices -- several choices based on reading ASR ... ... this website can be dangerous to wallets! But a lot less dangerous than some other places!

 

[cistercian]

My old SX727 Pioneer has an excellent FM tuner...excellent. But the low watts per channel
really limit it. Cool looking and very 70's! It is on a shelf, unused. It needs caps...again.

It is the only tuner I own. I only use CD's now.

 

[North_Sky]

Soon ASR will mean Audio Science Retro ...