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Vintage flagship japanese amps, late 70's early 80's, some questions...

Greetings to all music lovers out there.

Recently I started have interest in vintage amps, especially from late 70's and early 80's, I noticed that some high end gears from this era, from Luxman, Yamaha, Sansui, have a impressive built quality, the construction of the top of the line gears appears to be made to last a life time, for example: the integrated Sansui AU2000, Yamaha Centennial Series, Denon POA-8000 monoblocks...

I appreciate very much if enthusiasts of this types of gears can clarify some questions that I have:

For what I know, (maybe I'm wrong about this, i don't know) even considering this gears in impressive Near Mint condition, they still will need to be refurbished right? because 40 years old is too much for some internal components keep their optimum quality?

What are the situations that unfortunately, it will be impossible to make this equipments deliver their optimum performance? (remember that just Near Mint equipments are considered)

Anyone had the surprise of equipments from this era surpass the sound quality of modern gears, that you could not imagine that this would happen?

I know this question can falls down to subjective taste, and other objectives like recreate a sound experience from this era, enjoy the nostalgia of vintage equipments and etc...

but what about really be surprised by the quality of a 40 years old equipments don't loose in anything for the modern standards?

Thanks, all additional info that you can add about this subject are very much appreciated, best regards.








128x128cosmicjazz

Showing 3 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,566 posts
 
The problem with dealing with equipment like this is that it was all built to a budget. Open them up and they look surprisingly similar regardless of brand. Shipping was the main cost- the older units in the 60s and 70s had metal chassis work with nicely done front panels. As technology changed (more ICs, particularly in the output section) and as shipping costs increased over time, metal chassis (and wood cabinetry) gave way to plastic chassis, monolithic circuit boards and controllers to manage front panel controls and inputs.

In a nutshell, the 60s and 70s stuff is easier to service from an access point of view. But these days they are so old that the electrolytic capacitors within (and there are often 100s of them in just one receiver) makes them a poor investment if quality sound is your goal. Sure- they were nice for the dollar when made (which is why they put US companies out of business) and they had good specs on paper that really hasn't changed all that much in the last 40 years, but their day has passed unless its some sort of sentimental value that drives the restoration.


This is not to say that you can't find one that still works. But 'works' and 'meets specs' are two entirely different things.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,566 posts
 
It plays perfectly without any servicing.
If really NIB and it sat on the shelf for 40 years, its a good bet the filter caps are shot even with no use.

I don't advocate replacing resistors in vintage units unless they are clearly defective. But if you want reliable service **and** also expect the unit to perform to spec, you will have to change out electrolytic capacitors.  There's simply no way around that simple fact. All receivers made during this period used electrolytic coupling capacitors and its common now to have to chase the defective ones down. Even if they pass a signal that's not the same as speccing out correctly. 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,566 posts
 
This quote from me is from a very similar thread posted yesterday:


The thing is, any receiver or amplifier from that era is going to need work to perform the way it did when new. Controls and switches have to be cleaned, mechanical grounds (often screws holding circuit boards down) have to be sorted out, filter capacitors in the power supplies replaced, and electrolytic capacitors used for coupling and bypass replaced (as well as any tantalum capacitors used as coupling caps- yuk!). Additionally its a good idea to remove the output transistors, clean the heatsinks and reseat them with new heatsink compound. The bias and dc offset controls should be cleaned as well and then adjusted properly. The bearings in the variable capacitors used to tune the FM should be cleaned and the FM given a complete alignment. The unit should be tested for noise- transistors this old can become noisy.

A word to the wise: semiconductor replacements are tricky to find. Most of them are no longer available, although there are likely replacements. But there are plenty of Chinese counterfeits that you can get easily enough on ebay, but quite often they don’t meet spec and may just blow up when installed. A reliable source of parts is East Coast Transistor Parts who has been around for decades:www.kenwoodparts.com/

Do your homework and due diligence when making a purchase like this. Good Luck!

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