best vintage stereo receiver

Breathing life into a dead thread!  Agree on the Sansui 9090/8080DB.  I regret selling the Marantz 2330 I owned around 20 years back.

I gifted two receivers to my now ex-gf, a Marantz 2250B which we used in the master bedroom, and a Pioneer SX-1080 which we used in the den. 


Back in the day my first receiver was a Sansui 7070 - I couldn’t afford the 9090DB. 


Frankly speaking, they were/are all good. Not as refined as newer, current gear, but able to reproduce decent sound. Besides that, they just look cool. 


To my humble ears, IMHO, I give the nod to the Pioneer. While the Marantz is super cool with the horizontal dial and blue lights, compared to the Pioneer I found its sound somewhat restrained even though it has the bass/treble/midrange dials. I just found the Pioneer to sound more...spacious? 


One other cool thing about these brands is that they are still able to be repaired.  I have a guy...

Luxman 1120 A.  A beast with plenty of stable current, lots of inputs and a great tuner.  This will run alongside the Accuphase receivers.  Only thing to give pause is the idiot push-pin speaker wire connectors.

I had mine internally bridged (preamp out/power in).  The tech bypassed the LED power meters and a hardwired LAT International power cord replaced the captured cord.  This all made it even better.

No love for Pioneer SX-1250?

I have what some people call High End, but was totally shocked by how good a Yamaha receiver, that I bought a couple of years ago, sounds.

Its a CR-800 driving a pair of Celestion 5000 Ribbon speakers (also underrated)

The sound is smooth and detailed.
What more could I want?