Old Classic Receivers: A Mistake to Buy?

Capzark....I get it loud and clear.

it goes on and on. i have had problems with older gear, i have had some that worked fine, but always have sold at an opportune time. there is a lot of nostalgia, and those old receivers sure do look cool. like older cars- a plymouth roadrunner or baracuda, etc. best kept in the garage most of the time. nice to have though. vintage and antique items are nice to have. i can tell you this- in a shop i listened to a marantz 1070 and yamaha 1020. several people in the shop all agreed the marantz sounded markedly better. i recently did some comparing of jolida gear as i am a dealer to a mac 1900 we took in on trade. it is in very nice condition. the jolida gear both hybrid and tube sounds considerably better. several people agree with that. even the jolida 20wpc tube amp sounds a good deal better. and the jolida gear looks nice. elegant in the simplicity. i have had a pair of advent 6003 speakers which were about the best sounding speakers i have ever heard. i frequently use klipsch speakers to demo gear. i have had marantz, old pioneer, mac, and others. no way do any of those sound as good as jolida 1701 50wpc hybrid amp. and none have sounded anywhere close to any of their tube amps. and cost nearly as much as something nice and new. however, some of the vintage gear has an investment value. i like that.

Hi, I know this is an old post but I have a Sansui G9000 pure power receiver hooked up to Mach 1 speakers and it still sounds great. It looks and sounds like new. No bleeding caps and the tuner still functions as new. I know this is hard to believe but I have cleaned it inside and out every 6 months since I got it in 1982.

This receiver was originally hooked up to Cerwin Vega and Polk audio speakers. For a while I used it as my main amp for my surround system. This thing will rock the house and you can hear it up the street when it gets cranked (Not very often).

So don't listen. If you buy an old receiver and it was a top end one chances are it will last a long time. My new Onkyo's 7.1 surround amps and receivers had always had issues and the Pioneer elite system was not much better.

I have a Denon DP-62L with a grace cartridge and a Pioneer PR 707 hooked to it as well and it sound great.So buy and enjoy.

Old audio gear is like old cars...they have unique charms but usually require some maintenance to continue to run well as time goes on. Not as much or as regular as cars, but you get the drift.

I am fond of the old stuff too. Some of it is very good still even by modern standards. Pricing on the used market is usually in line with the actual value compared to other options. Some pieces might carry a premium due to being "collector items" for various reasons, usually having something to do with unique performance or design.

o not a mistake to buy, but realize that any receiver, old or new, has to make compromises to fit everything in a relatively small package and still perform well, especially with things that matter for best performance with many modern, smaller full range speakers, like size and quality of the power supply, there will almost always be better performing options out there, both old and new.

The money that's spent on them tells the whole story.  In particular for Pioneer's receivers.  The SX-xx50 and xx80 series hold their value for the same (good) reasons classic Mac gear does.  But they are meant to be used with the speakers (Bart Locanthi designs like the L-x00 and HPM x00 series) with which they were designed to be mated.  They  don't do simultaneous high current and high voltage as well as new specialty amps do.  If you use a reasonably high sensitivity/efficiency speaker, they sound better than anything mass market has offered since.  The 950 and larger (and newer) are bargains in terms of quality per dollar.  I'd grab em all day long.  (In point of fact, I have.  I've got a 980, two 1080's, a 1280 and two 1980's, all kicking it in vintage systems through out the house....)