[PhoenixG]

  I hate it when I don't take my own advice...
 
The Mac 1900 whose amplifier section I've been using to power my headphones and a pair of Celestion SL6si speakers has been a real performer.  But, as happens to those of our persuasion, it was becoming commonplace, with prettier faces calling me.  I know I've opined in this forum that the Pioneer stuff from the 70's just wasn't as good as some vintage mavens would tout, but when I saw that shiny silver Pioneer SA-8500II at an estate sale, whose owner would accept a measly $60 for, I had to have it.  I got it home, plugged it in to make sure it worked, and replaced the Mac with the Pioneer and settled in for some listening.  Within 15 minutes, the Mac was put back.  The Pioneer was thin, shrill, completely 2 dimensional, and harsh on the ears.  Next time I'll know better.

I had a Mac 1900 for a bit and it was nice. I obtained it in a sorry state and made a project out of getting it working 100% making it beautiful again.  I put blue gels over the meters and over the bulbs which really made them pop, fixed the tuning meter (which had ceased to function), cleaned everything, repainted the transformers, deoxit'd every possible item, and refinished the case. It was so pretty by the time I was done with it, but it didn't quite stand up to mcintosh separates or even my main systems and I wasn't looking to do a full recap and rebuild, so it found a new home.
 
On a different note, this is pretty neat and unusual. If anyone in the seattle area gets this, dibs on a listening party.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ele/5155554773.html

 

[Oregonian]

  I had a Mac 1900 for a bit and it was nice. I obtained it in a sorry state and made a project out of getting it working 100% making it beautiful again.  I put blue gels over the meters and over the bulbs which really made them pop, fixed the tuning meter (which had ceased to function), cleaned everything, repainted the transformers, deoxit'd every possible item, and refinished the case. It was so pretty by the time I was done with it, but it didn't quite stand up to mcintosh separates or even my main systems and I wasn't looking to do a full recap and rebuild, so it found a new home.
 
On a different note, this is pretty neat and unusual. If anyone in the seattle area gets this, dibs on a listening party.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ele/5155554773.html

Man, that is one of the holy grails of that era!  SilentOne has the G22000..............never even seen the 33000 for sale anywhere before. 

 

[roadcykler]

I can't envision a situation where I'd be willing to pay that much for that, or any other receiver. Would I get almost $10,000 worth of enjoyment out of it? Sure, it would be cool to own one of those, but it would be more the uniqueness than anything else. Speakers don't know if they're getting 100 watts or 300 watts, not to mention how much music you could buy with the thousands of left over dollars after you buy a more reasonable priced amp/receiver.  

 

[Skylab]

Yeah even I can't get my arms around that. I paid about $2,000 total for my completely restored SX-1980...and even that's a lot of scratch. I love it and it sounds great so I've never regretted it even for a second. But $10K for an unrestored vintage receiver? I can't go there no matter how good it is.

 

[aamefford]

I was just given a Harmon Kardon HK 3470. It looks to be roughly 2000 vintage, so not so vintage. Any experience with this unit out there? I'll get some time with it over the weekend hopefully. I'm interested in comments in the mean time.

 

[PhoenixG]

Yeah even I can't get my arms around that. I paid about $2,000 total for my completely restored SX-1980...and even that's a lot of scratch. I love it and it sounds great so I've never regretted it even for a second. But $10K for an unrestored vintage receiver? I can't go there no matter how good it is.

I think he can reasonably expect to get about $6k for it, which is still literally a boatload. It looks like the seller has been trying to sell it on and off for probably 3 years at this point. Since there are so few comps price wise, the seller is using a few fishy comps. One from classic audio (listed at 10k, sold maybe less, but they have a good reputation and were selling a cherry unit), and another that didn't sell from ebay (I can make a listing say anything I want, that doesn't mean that's what it's worth). Also, I usually take at least 15% off an ebay price to make comparisons to a local sale price. Ebay takes a biiiiig cut. I still have no plans to buy it, but it would be nice to listen to haha.
 
 

I was just given a Harmon Kardon HK 3470. It looks to be roughly 2000 vintage, so not so vintage. Any experience with this unit out there? I'll get some time with it over the weekend hopefully. I'm interested in comments in the mean time.

That might be a little new for this thread by at least 10-ish years, but feel free to look through what people like and dislike here - maybe you'll see something similar.

 

[jnorris]

  I hate it when I don't take my own advice...
 
The Mac 1900 whose amplifier section I've been using to power my headphones and a pair of Celestion SL6si speakers has been a real performer.  But, as happens to those of our persuasion, it was becoming commonplace, with prettier faces calling me.  I know I've opined in this forum that the Pioneer stuff from the 70's just wasn't as good as some vintage mavens would tout, but when I saw that shiny silver Pioneer SA-8500II at an estate sale, whose owner would accept a measly $60 for, I had to have it.  I got it home, plugged it in to make sure it worked, and replaced the Mac with the Pioneer and settled in for some listening.  Within 15 minutes, the Mac was put back.  The Pioneer was thin, shrill, completely 2 dimensional, and harsh on the ears.  Next time I'll know better.

I may have been a bit hasty in my judgment of this old girl.  When used as an amp only (no preamp) I was hard pressed to tell the difference between it and the amp on the Mac.  It was clean, quiet, no hum, buzz or hiss.  With the preamp in the loop the hiss level rose and the sound was noticeably less open.  Of course, with the preamp in, all of the noisy pots and switches became an issue.

 

[Silent One]

 

  I had a Mac 1900 for a bit and it was nice. I obtained it in a sorry state and made a project out of getting it working 100% making it beautiful again.  I put blue gels over the meters and over the bulbs which really made them pop, fixed the tuning meter (which had ceased to function), cleaned everything, repainted the transformers, deoxit'd every possible item, and refinished the case. It was so pretty by the time I was done with it, but it didn't quite stand up to mcintosh separates or even my main systems and I wasn't looking to do a full recap and rebuild, so it found a new home.
 
On a different note, this is pretty neat and unusual. If anyone in the seattle area gets this, dibs on a listening party.
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ele/5155554773.html

Man, that is one of the holy grails of that era!  SilentOne has the G22000..............never even seen the 33000 for sale anywhere before. 

The Coup that almost was.::.
 
Spring 2013, fellow member 'wotts' and I nearly nearly pulled off the coup of the year! Memory is a bit fuzzy at this writing, but as I recall, I had just purchased the lovely G-22000. Shortly after, he alerted me to a G-33000 that had just come up for sale back that way.
 
My plan was to purchase the G-33000 and then sell the G-22000 to 'wotts.' I set about raising the cash and it sold...quickly! Had we been successful that would have been some kinda coup!

 

 

[SpeakerBox]

 
I may have been a bit hasty in my judgment of this old girl.  When used as an amp only (no preamp) I was hard pressed to tell the difference between it and the amp on the Mac.  It was clean, quiet, no hum, buzz or hiss.  With the preamp in the loop the hiss level rose and the sound was noticeably less open.  Of course, with the preamp in, all of the noisy pots and switches became an issue.

 
I hear you - as I mentioned before my 1250 sounded awful until I recapped and doused all the controls with DeoxIt.  From then on a different beast.

 

[Terja]

  I may have been a bit hasty in my judgment of this old girl.  When used as an amp only (no preamp) I was hard pressed to tell the difference between it and the amp on the Mac.  It was clean, quiet, no hum, buzz or hiss.  With the preamp in the loop the hiss level rose and the sound was noticeably less open.  Of course, with the preamp in, all of the noisy pots and switches became an issue.

 
\ Just have a note to add to this. This is pretty much what I found out about my Pioneer SA9500II. When I separated the amp section from the preamp I had not idea just what an incredible amp stage it was. The preamp was actually the main drawback even though together I still considered it a very good integrated. I now use the amp stage on the 9500II almost exclusively. If you have an integrated where you can separate the two stages out it's really worth finding out how each section sounds on it own ... you never know what you actually have in some of those vintage irons.

 

[wotts]

  The Coup that almost was.::.
 
Spring 2013, fellow member 'wotts' and I nearly nearly pulled off the coup of the year! Memory is a bit fuzzy at this writing, but as I recall, I had just purchased the lovely G-22000. Shortly after, he alerted me to a G-33000 that had just come up for sale back that way.
 
My plan was to purchase the G-33000 and then sell the G-22000 to 'wotts.' I set about raising the cash and it sold...quickly! Had we been successful that would have been some kinda coup!

 

 
It was local to me. We missed it by an hour I think. I emailed the guy when I saw it and someone was on his way to pick it up - 3-400 miles too. Shame since it was only $2000ish.

 

[PhoenixG]

   
It was local to me. We missed it by an hour I think. I emailed the guy when I saw it and someone was on his way to pick it up - 3-400 miles too. Shame since it was only $2000ish.

I think the 1980 would be kicked to the curb in a heartbeat if a 33000 was up for $2k. 
I mean, how could one not?

 

[jnorris]

   
\ Just have a note to add to this. This is pretty much what I found out about my Pioneer SA9500II. When I separated the amp section from the preamp I had not idea just what an incredible amp stage it was. The preamp was actually the main drawback even though together I still considered it a very good integrated. I now use the amp stage on the 9500II almost exclusively. If you have an integrated where you can separate the two stages out it's really worth finding out how each section sounds on it own ... you never know what you actually have in some of those vintage irons.

I've been running without an active preamp stage on my main stereo for decades.  I was using a hollowed-out Hafler DH-101 which was basically a source switcher with a volume control.  Now I've got a Sumo Athena preamp that allows for the removal of the gain stage.  Whenever I insert an active preamp I can hear the degradation. 

 

[Skylab]

I think the 1980 would be kicked to the curb in a heartbeat if a 33000 was up for $2k. 
I mean, how could one not?

As much as I love my SX-1980, I basically agree. If one could choose between an unrestored 1980 or 33000 for $2K, or even if the 1980 were less, the 33000 is the way to go for sure. Not that it even necessarily sounds better, but the 33000 is more valuable, and an unrestored 1980 is just a repair job waiting to happen, since the power supply board on the 1980 is very prone to failure unless it's both restored and slightly modified by someone who knows what they are doing.

 

[SpeakerBox]

  I've been running without an active preamp stage on my main stereo for decades.  I was using a hollowed-out Hafler DH-101 which was basically a source switcher with a volume control.  Now I've got a Sumo Athena preamp that allows for the removal of the gain stage.  Whenever I insert an active preamp I can hear the degradation. 

 
Sounds like you need a B1 buffer.  Designed by Nelson Pass himself:
 
https://www.passdiy.com/project/preamplifiers/b1-buffer-preamp
 
I just got mine up and running and agree with Dick Olsher's assessment that it is like a Windex treatment for your sound system:
 
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0708/first_watt_b1_preamplifier.htm
 
One caution though - you will hear every flaw in your system!