I love this thread. It’s like a tour of every party I went to in high school and college. Listening to many systems then, I figured out pretty early on it was all about synergy, and specifications didn’t mean a thing if your amp didn’t pair with your speakers (but alcohol, weed and volume were great equalizers). In that sense, a vintage amp performing to spec (whatever those are for the old amp) paired with the right speakers will sound better than a modern amp paired with the wrong speakers. Some combinations just click. My friends who worked in hifi stores spent a lot of time figuring this out for the gear they had on hand because they knew they usually had one shot at selling you stuff.
My first experience with hifi was with my dad’s Garrard turntable and Fisher tube receiver feeding full range naked drivers stuffed up in the architectural structure of our mid century living room. Soundstage? I don’t know, the sound was everywhere. Bass and treble? Not so much, but oh that midrange was delicious. In the 1970s he got the idea he wanted to upgrade, I suggested Pioneer or Sansui. He opted for a solid state Macintosh receiver with a Philips Electric TT and large Advents. I was never really that impressed.
He gave me the Fisher, and it just seemed old to me and (first big hifi mistake) I sold it and bought a Kenwood KA3500 integrated, liking the way it looked and thinking I was being a “purist”. I paired the amp with Bose 301 bookshelf speakers and an AR TT and that combination actually sounded so good I had people coming into my dorm room from down the hall asking who was playing the guitar. I kept that Kenwood for over thirty years and used it with various speakers and even a sub and it didn’t embarrass itself up until the day it died. It did not sound as sophisticated as my newer gear, and probably didn’t even when it was new. I don’t miss the Kenwood, but I do wish I still had the Fisher receiver (and the AR turntable for that matter).
I was in a used hifi store recently and they had a plenty of big old Japanese receivers and integrated amps in stock (not many separates), and it was fun to reminisce looking at all those shinny hulks. But they’re not cheap now - the cost of nostalgia.
Earlier in the thread somebody mentioned the industrial scale of production and worldwide demand for receivers in the 1970s kept quality high and prices competitive. If you are looking for a bargain now, I would look at the top of the line AVR receivers from a few years ago from the likes Denon, Marantz, Arcam, Yamaha, Sony, and maybe NAD, but they went through a bad patch for quality. In the 2000’s these were company flagships and high production rates and intense competition resulted in quality components, toroidal transformers, and decent sound. Most have a direct signal feature that turns off all the signal processing and turns the units into essentially big integrated amplifiers. An Arcam AVR 600 will sound several times better than a Pioneer SX1280 and will cost you about the same amount of money on today’s market.
As for spec coming back into fashion, you must have spent some time over on AudioScienceReview, LOL.