Dragging out a great old dinosaur

Lots of great old amps out there. My tube is currently out of commission waiting for new input tubes and I dragged out my 25+ year old bone stock Nakamichi SR-4 stasis receiver. Other than scratchy input controls and a bit of hiss (probably from old capacitors)this unit is a champ. Yeah, its not as good as my main amp but it always amazes me how good some of this old stuff is. Will keep it forever as I couldn't sell it for anything anyways. Cheers!

Those dinosaur's can give you just about everything except that 3D sound stage. That cost's big bucks.

I was in the same boat, had to bring out my old Marantz 2600 receiver temporarily, it was ok but overly warm and colored.

I have been enjoying a Nakamichi TA2 Stasis receiver and am currently getting my Sansui AU-919 serviced. Love the old stuff!

I bought an old Bell tube integrated, made in 1961, with the original RCA and Telefunken tubes.
From what I see,it's never seen a repair or had any parts replaced.

It's put many a more expensive tubed amp to shame, and it's my reality check amp.
Whenever I get the urge to buy a new amp, I always use the old Bell for comparison sake.
It was bested by the DecWare amp that I use in my main system, but the Bell does duty in a casual listening system ,FM radio as main source.

The only drawback to the amp are the screw on speaker terminals and the cheap closely spaced RCA jacks.
I use another pawn shop find, an old solid state Spectro Acoustics pre amp and plug it into the Aux input of the Bell, which enables me to use more robust interconnects.
The speaker terminals are still stock, I use some adaptors to allow me to use some thicker guage wire.

The speakers in this little setup are home brew omni directional, full range crossoverless by design.
I run two 8 inch wideband drivers front and back firing and to spread the sound a pair of side firing Monsoon ribbon tranduscers.The system is very easy to listen to,not harsh or strident, but adding a sub would improve it.

There's lots of stuff out there that will perform reasonably well and for a lot of folks be all that they need.

Just don't expect too much from it and you'll be happy.