[scottiebabie]

yup its a 120w per of pure old school Sansui power which means muscular warm & very musical. its the 2nd TOTL to the G9000, which is my fav 'Sui receiver, in the X000 series. its equivalent in the Pioneer series is the SX1050/80. to me, the pioneer sounds a tad better as its clean & more neutral though still warm by todays standards but its down to a matter of tastes & which speakers u're powering. in any case its has a great tuner, great looks & is definitely a collectable.
 
bring it out of mothballs & try it out. i think u mite be pleasantly surprized how good it sounds with your headphones esp AKG K1k, 701 & its ilk as i think they meld wonderfully with leaner cans. YMMV ofcos
 
Quote:

My dad has an older Sansui G-8000 receiver sitting in his basement, anyone know anything about this model?
 
 

 

[Skylab]

Joehalo, that's a very nice receiver! You should see if your Dad will let you "borrow" it

 

[scottiebabie]

Skylab hows it goin wit the comparo?? inquiring minds have a need to know! LOL

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Hi scompton - what's the power rating on that one?  I have a 7305.

 

Only 45 watts.  I bought a service manual because I couldn't find any information.  The amplification is by a couple of Sharp ICs.  The service manual actually has a circuit diagram for the inside of the IC.

 

[Skylab]

Today I spent quite a bit of time listening to the Pioneer, and comparing it to the Marantz and the Sansui. From the headphone outs, I would put the Pioneer first, but the Marantz is very, very close. The Sansui is also quite good, but it's more colored than the Pioneer or Marantz. So I ranked it third of those three.

All three of them are absolutely on par from their headphone outs with the WooAudio 6. In fact, i think the Pioneer is better than the Woo WA6 as a headphone amp, and the Marantz very well might be. I need to compare a bit more. My other tube amps - the Trafomatic Head One, WooAudio WA2, Decware MiniTorii, and especially the Leben CS300XS all offer performance that is a little better, in one way or another. The Leben especially offers a silkier treble that is a bit more delicate, while still offering slightly better detail, and has a bit better midrange transparency. The spundstage is also just a little better.

But what was actually most impressive to me is how close the big Japanese receivers are to these dedicated headphone amps in performance. Much, much closer that I ever would have thought.

I want to do more direct comparisons, and I want to add the Optonica integrated into the mix.

 

[ACDOAN]

So far I have been happy with my discontinued Pio Elite A 35R with 35 WPC which can handle 4ohm load with no sweat. I am always look out for a better amp but I realy feel there is no rush since this $200.00 intergrated can drive any cans to insane level and it sounds freaking good too.

 

[sling5s]

No one believed me and I couldn't believe it too that my vintage receivers (marantz and setton-a higher end receiver made by pioneer and designed by pierre cardan) from a thrift store sounded better than my woo audio 6 but I guess I was right.  
 
Also, I know you once reviewed the audio gd-c-2.  Does the audio gd c-2 out perform the woo 6 and your vintage receiver or fall below both?
I'm asking because I just ordered an audio gd c-2 and hoping that it will sound better than my vintage amps. Heard so much about audio gd, just wanted to try their dac and amps. 
 

 
Quote:

Today I spent quite a bit of time listening to the Pioneer, and comparing it to the Marantz and the Sansui. From the headphone outs, I would put the Pioneer first, but the Marantz is very, very close. The Sansui is also quite good, but it's more colored than the Pioneer or Marantz. So I ranked it third of those three.

All three of them are absolutely on par from their headphone outs with the WooAudio 6. In fact, i think the Pioneer is better than the Woo WA6 as a headphone amp, and the Marantz very well might be. I need to compare a bit more. My other tube amps - the Trafomatic Head One, WooAudio WA2, Decware MiniTorii, and especially the Leben CS300XS all offer performance that is a little better, in one way or another. The Leben especially offers a silkier treble that is a bit more delicate, while still offering slightly better detail, and has a bit better midrange transparency. The spundstage is also just a little better.

But what was actually most impressive to me is how close the big Japanese receivers are to these dedicated headphone amps in performance. Much, much closer that I ever would have thought.

I want to do more direct comparisons, and I want to add the Optonica integrated into the mix.

 

 

[dunross]

Looking good scompton. I am hoping my optonica arrives today so I can compare it to my other vintage pieces.
 
Quote:

An Optonica SA-5206 receiver was just delivered.  It's very neutral sounding with plenty of power to drive my vintage orthos.
 

 

 

[Skylab]

The Audio-GD product I reviewed was not the C2, it was an older model C-2C.  It was not as good as the Woo Audio WA6, and as such I highly doubt it would compete with any of these big receivers I have, but I have not had the C2C in far too long to say for sure.

 

[InnerSpace]

This is a very cool thread - and very nostalgic.  This is exactly where modern-era headphone listening began ... guys would save up for a pair of Koss Pro-4aa cans and plug them into their dads' big receivers.  Remember?  It's interesting how we've gotten to where we are today, without really traveling too far.  Me, I always wanted a Pioneer SX1980 - 370 watts per channel, I think.  I had never heard of such numbers.  I got a brochure, which is all I could afford.  (Still got it somewhere.)  Now you're making me think of hunting one down.  This crazy hobby ... if we can't find something new to buy, we buy something old!

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

Today I spent quite a bit of time listening to the Pioneer, and comparing it to the Marantz and the Sansui. From the headphone outs, I would put the Pioneer first, but the Marantz is very, very close. The Sansui is also quite good, but it's more colored than the Pioneer or Marantz. So I ranked it third of those three.

All three of them are absolutely on par from their headphone outs with the WooAudio 6. In fact, i think the Pioneer is better than the Woo WA6 as a headphone amp, and the Marantz very well might be. I need to compare a bit more. My other tube amps - the Trafomatic Head One, WooAudio WA2, Decware MiniTorii, and especially the Leben CS300XS all offer performance that is a little better, in one way or another. The Leben especially offers a silkier treble that is a bit more delicate, while still offering slightly better detail, and has a bit better midrange transparency. The spundstage is also just a little better.

But what was actually most impressive to me is how close the big Japanese receivers are to these dedicated headphone amps in performance. Much, much closer that I ever would have thought.

I want to do more direct comparisons, and I want to add the Optonica integrated into the mix.

My Pioneer A-447 sounds better than the WA6+Sophia to me. Faster, more resolving, punchier, more transparent. I also think the bass/treble controls make it more versatile than traditional headphone amps.

 

[Skylab]

Yeah, the Pioneer SX-1250 have very sophisticated tone controls - bass can be adjusted at either 50 Hz or 100 Hz, and in 2 dB increments.  the +2dB at 50 Hz does WONDERS for the HD800

 

[moodyrn]

That's what I love about vintage audio. The tone control on my fisher uses their own dedicated tube(12ax7) preamp for tone controls. Using tubes for tone control is great because the adjustments sounds natural as oppose to the synthetic or processed sound you get with digital tone controls. I'm not an eq guy, but I find the tone controls on my fisher both usefull and fun. If I adust the bass, it doesn't sound like I'm using an eq. It sounds like an amp with more bass presence.

 

[ford2]

 
 
A Sansui modified so that speaker A feeds the 4 pin XLR.Driving K1000 with a RME DIGI 96 as the source.
 
The RME is set at -20db for effective volume control on the amp,this is needed because of the 130mv input on these older amps.
 
 

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

That's what I love about vintage audio. The tone control on my fisher uses their own dedicated tube(12ax7) preamp for tone controls. Using tubes for tone control is great because the adjustments sounds natural as oppose to the synthetic or processed sound you get with digital tone controls. I'm not an eq guy, but I find the tone controls on my fisher both usefull and fun. If I adust the bass, it doesn't sound like I'm using an eq. It sounds like an amp with more bass presence.

That's exactly what I found. I've been using EQs for several years and have found uses for them (moreso for speakers), so I'm not one for general bass/treble controls. However, the seemingly crude bass/treble controls on these are actually very well implemented and sound great. Reminds me of the bass boost on my M^3, which I was also impressed by. This isn't the type of bass boost that adds boominess or muddiness.