Did the Old Receivers Sound Good?

I can't speak for other brands, but I owned several vintage Marantz receivers, and to me they sounded smooth and pleasing, if a little lacking in dynamics. That was a pretty good achievement for that time though, because a lot of the solid-state gear then was anything but smooth.

After having demo'd and sold thousands of "receivers" in a Retail environment  from the mid 70's to the end of the 80's (Technics, Toshiba, Rotel, Pioneer, Luxman, NAD,Telefunken, Phillips and more) ... My opinion is that they Did Not sound Great then, and the addition of 40 or 50 years has Not Done Anything to improve their "Good, but thin and unromantic" sound. High End separates, many integrated amps and custom equipment, generally (by a WIDE) margin, sounded better and represented a more accurate presentation of the intended sound.

The Golden Age receivers were often Attractive, Well Built and sported Great Specs.... but that all came at a cost due to the very competative nature of the Business and the pursuit of Great Numbers, not Great Sound.

Yes,

But it is not about specs,that's marketing one up-manship, keep in mind, the main brands made their reputations with receivers, then separates .... Of course old equipment needs to be checked/renewed by a pro, components drift out of original specs ...

You still have the split, TUBES or SS. And early Transistors vs later with better transformers ...

I have 2 Fisher 500C Tube Receivers,

 

One is at VAS getting it’s tuner aligned.

Main one, I loan to friends when their equip is in the shop. Everyone is surprised how good it sounds.

SS: I’ve got a Yamaha CR1040, two sets of speakers, shop and basement system, sounds darn good

 

Onkyo AVR, Current Sony AVR, they are nothing to sneeze at.

Many times we hear our better equipment thru the better speakers, thus

.......

The Japanese electronics from the late 60’s -early 70s was inferior

to today’s same value gear adjusted for inflation.

It has to be.

In 50 years some progress has been made right?

 

Now if you go back to the pre transistor tube days maybe 

someone could make an argument.

 

 

 

No, they don’t stand up to todays gear.

Ive recapped/rebuilt several Marantz units myself, and while they have a certain charm to their sound, they don’t stand up to critical scrutiny in listening tests. 
 

Was just comparing a Marantz 7T with a Cary SLP-30 (Both had full recaps done by me recently) And while the Marantz is an impressive performer, the Cary is a more refined unit. Granted, I’m comparing apples to oranges here, but the question was about modern/vintage. And by some standards, the Cary could even be considered vintage now.