1970's receivers and integrated amps...

It can be hit or miss about the absolute sound quality of some of these products. And as others have said you have to make sure they are in proper working order. Craigslist is an excellent source of these products. You can find them for under $100, throw another $100 in for cleaning and repairs and you'll end up with a very workable second or third system amp.

That said, at best the amps sound okay to good. One thing that is indisputable is that the tuner sections are excellent and easily keep up with best of modern tuners.

tandberg, mac,revox, kyrocera, marantz, hk, nad, and others made some sweet stuff. condition is everything today.

But God are they BEAUTIFUL!!!

i just love my Yamaha A-1 integrated amp from the very late 70s. while Yamaha's circuits are never "simple" in and of themselves, this was one of their simplest TOTL efforts. the design and execution is quite modern and elegant, somewhat ahead of its time. with new electrolytic capacitors throughout the power supply, the sound quality is top-notch vintage. i use mine in a pseudo-nearfield TV room setup with some old-school Infinity WTLCs. while i don't feel the need to look for anything better, it would still be very interesting to compare it to some modern integrateds at some point.

because of threads like this here and in other forums, i have
been interested to here the differences between 1970's
integrated amps and receivers. i am old enough to have been there but was not an audiophile, and so listened contentedly
for 20 years to dual 1209TT,pioneer sx980(i beleive) thru
altec boleros (on bookshelves). so i guess i like horns.

the best sound i have ever heard was an audionote meishu
integrated (8w) thru avantegarde uno's (they did not have duo's).i bought the meishu but could not ( would not)
afford the avantegardes.

SO, my array of speakers leans towards high-efficiency===
klipsch heresy, forte II, la scala, swans allure, dunleavy sc IVa

that being said, i have lately bought and heard several
(based on recommendations found by visiting similar
forums over several years, trying to read between the lines and see who's listening tastes were similar to mine).

i have (none restored/recapped) marantz 1060,2230; pioneer
SA6500, 8100, 9500 ; harmon kardon 430 ; sansui au-555a
au-999 ; supraphon dm two twenty

listening thru a PC--logitech touch--audionote 4 dac--amp
--klipsch heresys, my preferences are the sansui's,
martantz 1060, pioneer 6500.

the harmon kardon is a different beast. at high low and mid it sounds more powerful than rated.( friend has it -- driving polk LSi7 well)