The Golden era of Japanese integrated amps, are we missing out?

If we are speaking in terms of lo to mid-fi, then some of that gear might or might not be worth restoring..but lets not forget that the "golden era" of Hi-Fi is the 70's and 80's TOTL of equipment from that period is worth restoring and would give a ran for the money to some of the most esoteric TOTL gear of today. If anything, some of that knowledge of fine sound equipment building has been lost. Today's consumer prefers the Sonos, Bose and other mass production systems. Even in the remaining Audiophile community, the aluminum sculptures of today, seem to be sometimes more appreciated than the actual sound they are supposed to produce. The remaining manufacturers that are still focused on producing true hi-fi equipment are far few in between and their products are becoming increasingly expensive because of the continuous decrease of of quality audio grade components and the limited supply of talented engineers. There is simply very little room left for any economies of scale and the associated high cost of production follows. 

Most of my vintage gear is comprised of separates from Sony, Yamaha and few others and mostly V-fet equipment. The type of sound a v-fet amplifier produces is sublime to my ears. I have many pieces of equipment from early and mid 70s that still run strong, but I restore all of my equipment anyways. Where I see areas of improvement of the original design, I am not holding back to from addressing them.

I only have three integrates. A Sony TAN-5650 (v-fet), Lo-D HA-500f (very rare v-fet) and a Pioneer A90 (A200 in Japan)
The two v-fet integrates I would consider mid-fi, but I will still restore at some point because they already sound good even unrestored.

The Pioneer A90 is a different beast. @200w/channel, with a massive PSU, copper plated chassis and a few other tricks underneath the otherwise plain-jane silver face, it is a silent sleeper with a fantastic build quality, even by today standards.... This I might restore just for the fun of working on it.

@ skywachr
re: "Sansui "Pure Power DC" (Direct Current) design amps and receivers..."

I only own one Sansui...(the only v-fet amp Sansui ever made), so I am not necessarily acquainted with Sansui amplifier design but I am almost certain that "DC" is a reference to a Directly Coupled amplifier design...as in: no coupling capacitor is present in the signal path.

Thanks sonetduo for these more than instructive and captivating remarks..

I also did a "listening comparison" test in 1982 in Louisville, KY of tuners.  I keep hearing about those fabulous Japanese tuners .... and did so at the time.  So borrowed and assembled a bunch of US and Japanese tuners.  As for sound quality, the (then new) Carver TX-11 and the Fisher FM90B tuners beat everything hands down, followed closely by the HK Citation 15.  Most of the tuners sounded "flat" and/or "transistor_y".  The Carver and the Fisher had top to bottom frequency balance and three-dimensional depth ..... they sounded like music, as I look for in any other component.  The others didn't.  The worst in that comparison .... the Crown (no bass), the HK8?0 and the Nikko (both sounded like "flat cardboard")  The Pioneer and Kenwood were mediocre compared to the best.

I have concluded that most folks who are in the Japanese super-tuner camp are there because of the very high sensitivity of some of those old tuners.  But I've never seen a reason not to ultimately judge them the same way we do other components ...... how "real" do they sound.

BTW, the most "3-D" FM sound I've ever heard was through a Dyna PAS3, Dynatuner, and ST-35 system, played through Thiel 3.5's.  While I don't still have the Dyna gear, the Fisher and Carver's still play in my systems.