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Old Classic Receivers: A Mistake to Buy?

I was contemplating purchasing a 70's receiver, as I used to love the construction and appearance of the Sansui, Kenwood, Pioneer, Marantz. However, when I ran this by an audio friend, he said, "Forget it."

He says: They sound terrible. The caps & resistors used before the early 90s' were dreadful. The electrolytics are drying up and will start crackling and substantially degrade the sonics. The switches and controls used were almost never sealed, so they deteriorate and make noise and can't be fixed even by taking them apart and cleaning them.

Tuners: He says that nearly all non-digital tuners used varactors, which go out of alignment and cause problems, so no old tuners, with the exception of the Mac MR-78 and possibly a few others, are worth dealing with.

I am tempted to believe all that he is saying is true, but I see a market for these items, and also know that people claim they are still using these pieces for 25 years.

What's the truth here? Can some of the techies enlighten me?
kevziek

Showing 1 response by christen2014

christen2014
1 posts
 
Hi, I know this is an old post but I have a Sansui G9000 pure power receiver hooked up to Mach 1 speakers and it still sounds great. It looks and sounds like new. No bleeding caps and the tuner still functions as new. I know this is hard to believe but I have cleaned it inside and out every 6 months since I got it in 1982.

This receiver was originally hooked up to Cerwin Vega and Polk audio speakers. For a while I used it as my main amp for my surround system. This thing will rock the house and you can hear it up the street when it gets cranked (Not very often).

So don't listen. If you buy an old receiver and it was a top end one chances are it will last a long time. My new Onkyo's 7.1 surround amps and receivers had always had issues and the Pioneer elite system was not much better.

I have a Denon DP-62L with a grace cartridge and a Pioneer PR 707 hooked to it as well and it sound great.So buy and enjoy.
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