Firstly, I'm absolutely no expert. I'm a "fledgling" audiophile at best who has taken a liking to older 70's and 80's gear. Once I bought my Sansui Quad QX4500, the "sickness" hit me and I've spent the last few years building a monster cool, midrange quad system with the intension of having surround for movies and plenty of balls to push my big Fisher (15" woofers) and my system of eight speakers and sub when I want to shake the rafters. I own only one Quad album and have never been that serious about perfect, true Quadraphonic sound. Just love the Quad emulation modes and the ability to connect eight speakers.
So, I may not be as savvy as you "adrianbacon", but I can tell you that you are WAY OFF when it comes to Nikko. Of course, every manufacturer has it's "reputation", but that doesn't mean that at least a few of it's products don't shine, no matter how it may be viewed by the general public.
Even Phase Linear, which has been the butt of "Flame Linear" type of jokes for years, has some great vintage gems in it's line-up. So, to make a blanket statement that ALL NIkko is garbage is just plain WRONG. Do you have any experience at all with Nikko? If so, I can't believe you would make this blanket statement.
Specifically for me, my experience revolves around an older Nikko 1200 Module Stereo Pre-amp amplifier. Kinda rare. I was using a well respected Dyanco Pat-4 as my pre to help drive the big array of speakers in my "surround" system. But I found a "never used" Nikko 1200 and bought it. It was absolutely new and has a solid build quality. And you know, when I replaced the Dynaco with that Nikko, my system came alive!
Not to say the Dynaco is at all bad, but this Nikko gave me loads of new power and the clarity, warmth and headroom that I was looking for. It also has a really solid build quality and decent features, yes, albeit mid range gear, it seems that AT LEAST SOME Nikko pieces were engineered with great care. Unless you have experienced a few of their gems, I doubt you would rate Nikko very highly, but don't talk out of school. This one is by far one of my favorite pieces of KIT EVER!
Recently, I found the matching tuner and bought it. It has the weighted tuner knob and nice display, and again, although not considered more than mid-level, this tuner has above average build. Plus, design on some of this decades' Nikko offerings includes some cool toggle switches and rumble/noise filters that seem to be of a bit higher than average design/engineering. Certainly, inventive design at the least!
I wouldn't scoff at Nikko at all. AND, I would highly recommend the 1200 if you can find one!
JMHO
