2. analog
  3. 1232579628

history of Vector Research 7000

I have an old Vector research 7000 that I use as a tuner. I have it hooked up to a Musical Fidelity A5, an Opinion cd, and Sonus faber home edition speakers. I found it in the garbage and it pulls in stations better than my Denon DRA 335R. Has anyone ever heard of VR, as it is not listed on many websites and I am wondering if I would get better sound with a used Accuphase or McIntosh or something? I live just above NYC. By the way, I don't know much about this hobby now, but I knew even less when an old neighbor passed away and his daughter gave me his Kenwood KT(forgot the model). I thought it was waaaay too big so I tossed it after a few months. Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. Alan
128x128pharmacylaw
rar1's avatar
rar1
1,777 posts
 
Hi Alan:

Your Vector Research is probably 20+ years old ... which is a good thing, given that the tuner sections of the older receivers were pretty decent. A rule of thumb with tuners ... upgrade the antenna before you upgrade the tuner, the difference will surprise you.

Regards,

Rich
mechans
3,048 posts
 
Thread Jack what antenna should I get if I dont want to climb up to the roof.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,232 posts
 
I was never able to find anything indoor, even amplified, and I've tried, that worked better than the good old standard FM dipole antenna from Radio Shack.
rar1's avatar
rar1
1,777 posts
 
I live in a NYC coop/ apartment house with metal door and window frames, so I can only use indoor antennas. I get good, but not great results with rabbit ears antennas. If I could use the fire escape or attach an antenna to the side of the house, I think that this antenna from Magnum Dynalab looks promising.

Regards,

Rich
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
I had a couple of Vector Research pieces (receiver and a VCR) that I bought during their heyday in the mid-'80s. Vector Research was a design group in the Camarillo/Westlake area of CA. The gear was outsourced to various far East mfrs, including NEC for VCRs and the mfrs that made the gear for NAD and Rotel. Read the description under Damark Industries here.

In amplification VR made a point of having higher current designs that could earn an FTC rating into 4 ohms (also similar to NAD and Rotel). I have one of their receivers (9100?) that was rated 60wpc into 8 ohms and 90 into 4. Compared to the receivers coming from Yamaha, Kenwood, and Pioneer at the time, that was significantly better current delivery. My receiver also had a switch on the back that enabled you to decouple the preamp from the power amp, and flip the amp into 200w mono mode. They also made a companion 60wpc power amp that you could switch to 200wpc mono mode. It provided an inexpensive upgrade path to take a receiver and turn it into either a biamping or 200wpc system.

As stated before, the built-in frequency synthesizer tuner was excellent.

I still have mine, but I accidentally blew the output stage by shorting the speaker leads when I thought the unit was turned off.
More to discover