The Golden era of Japanese integrated amps, are we missing out?

Put me in the "anti" camp.  I sold all the Japanese brands in their '60's heyday .... the US designed Haron-Kardon's beat them hands down.  The Audionics BP2 preamp and CC amplifier beat all of them hands down.  And these were in the same price range.  Not to mention the Eico kits, Healthkits, and Fisher and Scott kits of that same era.

The most expensive I evaluated in my home was the complete top end Luxman line .... preamp, power amp, tuner.  They were good, looked fabulously expensive (and were), and sounded somewhere between Marantz transistor gear and the Audio Research SP-6 and D70-90-115 line which cost no more.

I've heard lots of Japanese electronics which sound very good for the price.  But I've never heard any that sounded remotely close to the best.

I also did a "listening comparison" test in 1982 in Louisville, KY of tuners.  I keep hearing about those fabulous Japanese tuners .... and did so at the time.  So borrowed and assembled a bunch of US and Japanese tuners.  As for sound quality, the (then new) Carver TX-11 and the Fisher FM90B tuners beat everything hands down, followed closely by the HK Citation 15.  Most of the tuners sounded "flat" and/or "transistor_y".  The Carver and the Fisher had top to bottom frequency balance and three-dimensional depth ..... they sounded like music, as I look for in any other component.  The others didn't.  The worst in that comparison .... the Crown (no bass), the HK8?0 and the Nikko (both sounded like "flat cardboard")  The Pioneer and Kenwood were mediocre compared to the best.

I have concluded that most folks who are in the Japanese super-tuner camp are there because of the very high sensitivity of some of those old tuners.  But I've never seen a reason not to ultimately judge them the same way we do other components ...... how "real" do they sound.

BTW, the most "3-D" FM sound I've ever heard was through a Dyna PAS3, Dynatuner, and ST-35 system, played through Thiel 3.5's.  While I don't still have the Dyna gear, the Fisher and Carver's still play in my systems.