1970's receivers and integrated amps...

Drken,

I think if you mate a vintage receiver up with an appropriate load for it, you will get a pleasing sound. These vintage pieces are old so you have to make sure they are operating as intended.

My reason for having a nice system is simply the pleasure it gives me. It's hard to define pleasure but like they say about pornography, you know it when you see it. In our cases, when we hear it. What pleases me might not do it for someone else. In addition to my vintage system, I have a Pass/Maggie system (SS + planar) and a tube/hi-eff (SET + custom monitor) system. They all give me pleasure when I listen to them.

Advice: Pick one you like the looks of, make sure it's operating properly and mate it to a nice 8 ohm speaker of decent efficiency. I favor the lower power ones from the late 60's and early 70's. Most importantly, have fun.

Frank......

I was an audio salesman from 1972-1986 so I do have first hand knoledge. I worked in a mom & pop audio store, Soundtrack Audio Systems in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. We sold Pioneer, Kenwood, Sony, Marantz and Sherwood. We also sold Mitsubishi high end and Accuphase when it was owned by Teac Corp. The early 70's equipment was very good, the later stuff, God-aweful. As I said before, way too much negative feedback.

I am not an audio snob by any means, It took me almost 40 years to get a system that sounds wonderful to my ears and that I can be proud of.

Bob

In the early 70s I worked in an audio store. We fixed, tested and sold receivers. We had a test bench and we gave each customer a hard copy of their unit's performance versus specifications for power output, THD and IM. We included a Polariod photo of a 20KHz square wave, to show the unit's bandwidth.

Many units we tested didn't make their specs. Exceptions were Harman-Kardon and Marantz, which often did noticeably better than spec, and Yamaha which just made it.

I quit working in audio before the end of the decade, but friends who didn't told me that by 1980, the poor-performing makes had gotten a lot better.

The better ones (like Tandberg, Sansui, Nikko, Sony, Marantz, Yamaha, Onkyo, Kenwood and Pioneer) can sound very good if in good working order, in a well set up system, and used with the right speaker setup.

Their weak point in general will be current delivery in that power supplies in most receivers and integrated amps do not match up to those in separates. This can be a handicap when used with many modern speaker designs that are harder to drive optimally.

The deficiencies will often be noticed in the bass. Use of a good powered sub to offload the bass can be an effective solution to help deliver top notch performance.

It can be hit or miss about the absolute sound quality of some of these products. And as others have said you have to make sure they are in proper working order. Craigslist is an excellent source of these products. You can find them for under $100, throw another $100 in for cleaning and repairs and you'll end up with a very workable second or third system amp.

That said, at best the amps sound okay to good. One thing that is indisputable is that the tuner sections are excellent and easily keep up with best of modern tuners.