Thoughts on vintage Accuphase

I owned an E202 and T101 for 35 plus years.  Still have the T101, Great Tuner but doesn't get a lot of use these days.  Never had any problems with the E202.  While it was an integrated amp, you could also use it either as an amp only or pre-amp only.  Paired with double Advents, then Ohms and finally Polk RTA12's.  Can't speak to the equipment you are looking at but I never had any issues with mine over all those years.  Was pleased with the sound and found that changing the cabling had the biggest impact.

I've been perusing local ads for vintage equipment, but my god, either the sellers are deluded or there really is a market where people are willing to pay more money for a 30 years-old unit compared to an equivalent new (or new'ish) one. I'm not trying to suggest that vintage does not measure up, but they have to perform significantly better to warrant such high asking prices. I'm pretty much done considering vintage :(

We serviced out a C-200 several weeks ago. It is extremely well built and the design is top notch. Any electronics this old though needs all the filter capacitors replaced in the power supplies.

But seriously there are many better sounding preamps. While this preamp was quiet, it was only capable of MM cartridges. The tone controls employed switches so set to flat it was truly flat. But it has a bright character that is de rigor for solid state preamps in the 70s and 80s. I think you could do better with a Dynaco PAS-3, properly refurbished.


I could entertain getting something like this for the novelty, but not more than maybe $200 and certainly not for my main system.

Vintage Accuphase is really well made stuff, but no gear is immune to the ravages of time.  So it is important to have the item checked out very well before buying.

The audio dealer I worked at sold the Accuphase line in the late 70’s early 80’s.  They were made by Kensonic labs which I was told was an offshoot of Trio Electronics, makers of Kenwood.  I may be wrong as it was40 years ago.  I sold the integrated amp and the separates. IMHO, they sounded bright, bright, bright!  The line didn’t sell and in 1985, I sold all the Accuphase at dealer cost to recoup the loss. They have gotten much, much better over the years and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy the later era gear, but certainly not the early stuff. Ralph is correct, it sounded bright as did all Japanese made amps from that time period.