[Skylab]

Sansui 9090 prices have also been going up.

 

[Meewoo]

It seems that Sansui 9090db or 9090 are very popular, they are "pioneer sx-1250" of  Sansui. Even Big G can't be that hot as 9090. I found  Sansui 5000x (a) were another surprise. It was around $150 four month ago, now is around $300.

 

[BlueAlien]

I really love the sound my Marantz 2052 has when powering my AKG 240mkii's. But, I was thinking about upgrading to k701's or k702's. How well could my receiver power them?

 

[Meewoo]

Quote:

I really love the sound my Marantz 2052 has when powering my AKG 240mkii's. But, I was thinking about upgrading to k701's or k702's. How well could my receiver power them?

The Marantz can power 701/702 easily.(My Marantz 1060 can easily power my Q701.) I think 701 is not hard to drive, the K240 sextette is more power hungry.

 

[cifani090]

Quote:

 
I did notice the prices of Sansui AU-x17 on ePay keep going down, Kenwood and Yamaha stuff follow the same path. But Pioneer SX-1250, Sx-1280 and Sx-1980 keep the same price or going up. The high-end models still have high demand. Saggy economy really hurts the low and mid models. Did anyone follow Sansui and marantz price tracks?

I have a Marantz 2270 for sale, so i hope the market is hot

I recently say a Sansui 22000 for $595 that needed some servicing done, if i would of only told my 2270 sooner

I would of killed just to look at it at that price.
 

 

[Meewoo]

The price of Marantz always goes up or keeps steady. Americans really like "three martini" sound.

 

[Manyak]

So I was wondering...are '70s amps any good at driving 600 Ohm cans with their discrete transistor designs?
 
I'm thinking of trying out a pair of T1's but want to be sure my SPEC-1/SPEC-4 can drive them

 

[BlueAlien]

Quote:

The Marantz can power 701/702 easily.(My Marantz 1060 can easily power my Q701.) I think 701 is not hard to drive, the K240 sextette is more power hungry.

How good is the receiver at powering the 701's compared to lets say a Schiit LYR?

 

[Meewoo]

Quote:

So I was wondering...are '70s amps any good at driving 600 Ohm cans with their discrete transistor designs?
 
I'm thinking of trying out a pair of T1's but want to be sure my SPEC-1/SPEC-4 can drive them

It's not discrete design that makes the vintage stuff shine; it's the big huge transformer. If you look today's Samsung so called 1000 watts HT receiver, you will find out what I am talking about. I don't know the SPEC-1 design, so I couldn't talk about it. A pre-amp usually doesn't have juice to power up. My HK citation 11 has a very unique design which you can induce power- amp current back to pre-amp and power the speakers and headphones. If I don't connect the cable to do that, the headphone port has no power at all. If your Spec-1 is designed that way, you can easily drive T-1.
 

 

[Meewoo]

Quote:

How good is the receiver at powering the 701's compared to lets say a Schiit LYR?

I don't have Schiit LYR, but I have two home brewed tube headphone amps. I would say there are not much difference between my headphone amps and marantz 1060. Buy my 120 wpc Luxman r-1120a drives 701 with larger sound-stage.

 

[ardgedee]

Quote:

So I was wondering...are '70s amps any good at driving 600 Ohm cans with their discrete transistor designs?
 
I'm thinking of trying out a pair of T1's but want to be sure my SPEC-1/SPEC-4 can drive them

It's impossible to make a blanket statement about all amps of an era. There were quite a few of them and they weren't all classics.
 
With that noted, the K240 Sextett sounds great on my old amps. As long as you get a high-quality amp of reasonable power output at the headphone jack, 600 Ohm phones should not be a problem - assuming the sound character of the headphones and amp are compatible.
 
As for the K701, in my opinion it benefits from lushly lush power to take the edge off its treble. I haven't heard it on old Marantz gear but I'd bet it would sound fine.

 

[Skylab]

Exactly - all vintage amps sound different. The ones I have are certainly at least as good as the Lyr with headphones...but my vintage receivers are all TOTL models which have been serviced and in many cases recapped.

 

[Manyak]

Quote:

It's not discrete design that makes the vintage stuff shine; it's the big huge transformer. If you look today's Samsung so called 1000 watts HT receiver, you will find out what I am talking about. I don't know the SPEC-1 design, so I couldn't talk about it. A pre-amp usually doesn't have juice to power up. My HK citation 11 has a very unique design which you can induce power- amp current back to pre-amp and power the speakers and headphones. If I don't connect the cable to do that, the headphone port has no power at all. If your Spec-1 is designed that way, you can easily drive T-1.
 

Ok yeah, that's the same thing here. The SPEC-1 preamp has an RCA output to the SPEC-4 power amp, and then the speaker outputs are returned from the SPEC-4 to the SPEC-1, which then connects them to the headphone jack and an A/B speaker selector.
 
But I dunno, I mean every half-decent modern receiver I've ever seen - including mine - has a large transformer and supply caps. If you're talking about those HT-in-a-box systems then yeah, those are more like 5-10W/chan and then 25W for the sub. I don't know what tricks they use to be able to advertise a 1kW RMS rating, but there's no way that's possible. Not on 2-inch drivers rated at 3Ω each, they'd blow out instantly. Not to mention it would pull around 1.3kW from the wall, meaning that if you combined one with a big plasma (~500W) you'd be overloading your wall socket.
 


Quote:

It's impossible to make a blanket statement about all amps of an era. There were quite a few of them and they weren't all classics.
 
With that noted, the K240 Sextett sounds great on my old amps. As long as you get a high-quality amp of reasonable power output at the headphone jack, 600 Ohm phones should not be a problem - assuming the sound character of the headphones and amp are compatible.
 
As for the K701, in my opinion it benefits from lushly lush power to take the edge off its treble. I haven't heard it on old Marantz gear but I'd bet it would sound fine.

Well yeah there are always good and bad designs, but I was thinking maybe there was a difference in power handling between op-amp IC's and discrete transistors like there is between them and tubes. I guess not.

 

[Meewoo]

Quote:

Ok yeah, that's the same thing here. The SPEC-1 preamp has an RCA output to the SPEC-4 power amp, and then the speaker outputs are returned from the SPEC-4 to the SPEC-1, which then connects them to the headphone jack and an A/B speaker selector.
 
But I dunno, I mean every half-decent modern receiver I've ever seen - including mine - has a large transformer and supply caps. If you're talking about those HT-in-a-box systems then yeah, those are more like 5-10W/chan and then 25W for the sub. I don't know what tricks they use to be able to advertise a 1kW RMS rating, but there's no way that's possible. Not on 2-inch drivers rated at 3Ω each, they'd blow out instantly. Not to mention it would pull around 1.3kW from the wall, meaning that if you combined one with a big plasma (~500W) you'd be overloading your wall socket.
 
Well yeah there are always good and bad designs, but I was thinking maybe there was a difference in power handling between op-amp IC's and discrete transistors like there is between them and tubes. I guess not.

I am glad to know that Spec system uses power amp to power the headphone port. I think I will go after them in the future. If we only speak using receiver (or integrate amp) to drive headphone. As people said in the early thread , the vintage stuff put a resister between headphone port and speaker output,  modern stuff utilizes a independent headphone output. That why vintage stuff has enough juice to power up almost any headphones. If we talk about drive speaker also, I think modern stuff over $1000 will do good job also (sorry, I didn't own much those high price tag stuff, but based on  information online). But think about this, the price of Pioneer Sx-1250 in 1977 is around $900, and I saw Rshack had receiver for $70. If we transfer the 1977 dollar to today's, the pioneer sx-1250 is over $3000 tag. So basically, Pioneer sx-1250 is a very high-end audio equipment in 1977. If we compare over $2000 modern stuff to sx-1250, I think modern stuff might win (even though it doesn't have the look and touch to us). So I would say comparing $600 vintage stuff to $600 modern stuff today is not fair. $600 vintage stuff should at least compare to $1200 modern stuff.
Yes, I was talking about Samsung audio stuff, I went to worstbuy and checked a1000 wpc Samsung receiver, it only weights around 20lb. I just don't know how company can rate it 1000wpc. Yes, modern high quality stuff has robust transformer, and the good vintage stuff we talk here normally has good transformer. I think discrete design just make stuff easier to fix.  Technology of audio stuff improves over time, MOSFET is the biggest advance. But if the modern headphone port design doesn't back to using the speaker output power as vintage stuff, I will stay with my old ones.
 

 

[wje]

OK, vintage gurus, It's time for me to take on another facet of the hobby by getting back into vintage gear.  Yes, I said "back into" because previously I had 3 fine Sansui receivers, but sold them prior to a move.  I just picked up a Sansui 881 last evening and a Pioneer SX-727 this past weekend.  Also, I'm pondering a SuperScope (Marantz) purchase for tomorrow.
 
Anyway, in my travels, I came across this recent Craigslist ad in my area - the metro Washington, DC area.  Apparently, this guy is looking to sell off his collection.  As you can see by the various photographs, it's not a small collection.  I'm sorry the pictures are not a bit better - I'm dealing with the photos that were manipulated by Craigslist for posting on their site.
 

 

 

 

 
Here's the verbage from the listing on Craigslist:
 
I have a huge collection I would like to sell either as a lot or by the piece. The more you buy the better the price. 95% are tube type. Brands are Eico, Fisher, JBL, EV, Sansui, Grommes, Heathkit, Harman Kardon, Knight, Sherwood, Lafayette etc... etc.... No Marantz or McIntosh, Tannoy or WE. (sorry). Email or call 410 ### ####. I am 1 and a half hours from DC or Baltimore. 2 and a half from Philly. 4 and a half from NY.