Thiel Owners

   As good as the Sansui AU9900 may have been / was in 1975, amplifier technology is now so many generations of sound quality beyond that as to make it likely unlistenable compared with a Classe CAP-101 or similar.  How is the Sansui much different or any more 'fun' from the Pioneer SX-1050 that's only a couple years newer design?
   I owned and/or listened at length to similar Pioneer and Sansui amps of the era.  I bought an Advent 300 receiver to replace the Pioneer and, aside from power output, it blew them both away in every sonic metric.  
   Old top-of-the-line Japanese electronics are usually really well-built and generally reliable, but today - in most cases - they are better to look at than listen to.  Their best FM tuners excepted, with some new parts...

johnhh - I concur with Scott and can add some tangentially-related personal experience. Not Sansui, but Yamaha of the same period. Our non-profit performance venue here in NH was given a Yamaha P2200 @250 w/c and the workhorse darling of its mid-70s era. I wanted it to somehow become a great sound-quality amp for our Thiel 1.5 small venue system. We had caps upgraded, replaced fuses, modified its output impedance, and generally souped it up as best we could. It sounded fine . . . until I substituted my Classé DR-9s or even the Adcom GFA-555II or 5300. These hi-fi amps 20-25 years more recent and designed with sound quality as a goal were in a far higher league.

I'll add that my experience with Japanese design(ers) of the 70s oozed conventionality. Japanese culture does not permit innovation. If any design element could be scrutinized, even by a high-school textbook, then the designer would risk his reputation by promoting it. I have some actual stories of Japanese companies buying avant-garde American designs and then subverting/ diluting them until they were "normalized", and thereby losing their specialness. It's no accident that Japan did not break into the high end in the 20th century.  

johnhh

" what I wanted back then "
When getting back into listening to vinyl I tried to go back and build my dream system from the 80's  all Carver electronics and all American
where posible .  I had re-capped both the amp and pre-amp ,
installed new RCA connectors and speaker posts and yes they sounded better BUT they were still did not sound as good as I had dreamed of ,
or should I say they still were not up to modern sounding equipment .
I know there are now 199 pages in this thread but you'll find many good suggestions on amps that match well with Thiel speakers ,
good luck .

Gentlemen,
Thank you the thoughts and comments. It's tough to give up on a long held dream but it seems this is not one to hang on to. I will chase down the Classe CAP101.
Thanks again for the input. 
John Hejmanowski

John - there's a parallel phenomenon happening in the pro world around tape recorders. A great recorder can be a holy grail for a recordist, especially one with analog vinyl as their target playback medium. Recordists post their epitome tapes for comparison against modern signal chains, often to significant embarrassment of sloppy performance. In 1980 the tape machine might have been king. But it can really suffer in comparison to best of form contemporary technologies.

Some folks here have studied integrated amps and have good advice to give.