I know this thread is old but has anyone had Legendary Amps.com do any work for you and if so, how’d you like it? Also, what are the sound differences between vintage Yamaha, Tandberg and Luxman (house sound).
Best sound in old late 70s early 80s receivers
People seem to be quite impressed with the sound of some of the large receivers from the good old days when they are hooked up to good cable and a good source. Anybody have any opnionsor first hand experience on what some of the best sounding receivers from the late 70s early 80s are. Pioneer, Marantz, Sanusui, Kenwood? Not counting the NAD 7020. Thanks,keith
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#mewsickbuff I have over 50 of these mid-late 70's in stock and have owned well over 100. The worst sounding brands to me are Yamaha "Natural Sound" and Sony receivers. Tandberg is another dog. Kenwood is better than these BUT middle of the pack for most models...exceptions below. It really depends on what you want to hear. Pioneer and Marantz sound great but far from the highest resolution. Luxman will give you the greatest "detail". You will hear things with Luxman that will be masked by most of the other brands. Here are some of my Favorites to seek out. Best bargains (which sound Better than the best Pioneer/Marantz): SANYO JCX-2900K, ONKYO TX-8500 either version, Sherwood 9910. Others are Any TOTL Sansui's like Eight Deluxe (Not Eight), 9000 Models....not cheap. NIKKO NR1415, Kenwood KR-9600 and 9050, Technics SA-800, Luxman R1070/1120. Pioneer - SX1250, 1010, Marantz 2285, 2325, 2330 I pair all my receivers with JBL Monitors (4412, 4312A, JBL 166) Hope this helps you get started. |
Harmon-Kardon built a series of receivers with separate power transformers for each channel. That seemed to be an audible improvement at the time. The thing is, any receiver or amplifier from that era is going to need work to perform the way it did when new. Controls and switches have to be cleaned, mechanical grounds (often screws holding circuit boards down) have to be sorted out, filter capacitors in the power supplies replaced, and electrolytic capacitors used for coupling and bypass replaced (as well as any tantalum capacitors used as coupling caps- yuk!). Additionally its a good idea to remove the output transistors, clean the heatsinks and reseat them with new heatsink compound. The bias and dc offset controls should be cleaned as well and then adjusted properly. The bearings in the variable capacitors used to tune the FM should be cleaned and the FM given a complete alignment. The unit should be tested for noise- transistors this old can become noisy. A word to the wise: semiconductor replacements are tricky to find. Most of them are no longer available, although there are likely replacements. But there are plenty of Chinese counterfeits that you can get easily enough on ebay, but quite often they don’t meet spec and may just blow up when installed. A reliable source of parts is East Coast Transistor Parts who has been around for decades:www.kenwoodparts.com/ Do your homework and due diligence when making a purchase like this. Good Luck! |
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