Jeez, where to begin?
I’m a firm believer that hi-fi audio hit it’s peak in the late 70’s/early 80’s. I have a preference for Sansui, but Pioneer, Akai, Onkyo, etc all work for me.
Realistic STA-450 with some small pioneer speakers. Speakers are juat small enough to slide under the bed. Unit is full featured (am/fm/tape, aux in, phono, etc) and 14W/channel. Will go waaaay louder than you would ever want in the bedroom though, so no need for more power than that. Aound is noce and clean. Works nicely with either set of my vintage headphones. Just a little thing for my night table for listening to the local radio station.
What I’m currently using as my main system:
Breakdown - reciever:
Not super powerful (rated 20W/channel), but goes louder than I can stand and sound is nice and warm. Build date: 1969.
Technics SL-2000. Basic, all manual turntable. But it’s a good, quality piece. Unfortunately, most of these died an early death around these parts due to “scratch” DJ’s.....
For those “old” cassettes:
Gotta have something modern enough for CD’s:
Speakers:
AR-4x’s. Wonderful bookcase sized drivers. When they leave my possesion, it will be at my estate sale. They’re that good, never letting them go.
Tape decks hooked up to main system but across the room:
Garage:
Speakers are from a Canadian company that has since gone out of business. Big and powerful, but with a little too much “boom”. Not to be unexpected, they basically meant for “disco era” music. The work fine with the Akai AA-910 to fill the garage with sound though.
Waiting in storage or for repair/refurb:
All-in-one unit. Older Sears sold product. I have a bunch of vintage digital and flip clocks as well as audio stuff.
Polk speakers. Got a 5.1 system hanging around, pioneer theater/receiver and polk drivers.
Side of the road grab:
Has some blown resistors I need to replace.
Thats a Sansui 8080DB. Highly sought after reciever, only a 9090 has higher output. 85 watts per channel, 9090 has 110 per channel. Keep in mind: an 85 watt rating from the late 70’s makes todays stuff look pathetic, even when it’s rated double the power of the 8080db. The two main caps are HUGE in the 8080. Something you just won’t see in todays audio equipment. It needs some caps replaced and new finals, then a full adjust and balance before taking it’s place in the audio room/office.
Old “julliet” combo unit. Radio, phono and 8 track. Not even sure why I grabbed it, other than it looked neglected and abandoned in the used build supply place where I found it.
Pioneer home theater reciever:
Another “throwing it out” snatch:
Contact cleaner on the volume dial and power awitch and it works like new.
Waiting a rebuild, blown voice coils:
Nothing special about them, other than they are from the “made in DGR” (democratic german republic, from before the wall fell).
Pioneer receiver:
Wynford Hall, quadrasonic:
Another pair of AR-4x’s:
I have to pull the crossovers out and freshen them up, as well as refiniah the boxes. They look ok, just not up to my standards.
Underneath the 4x’s is a pair of ESM3’s:
Thise need to be “re-foamed”. I have the surrounds waiting to be installed.
There’s a bunch of other misc stuff around, but thats the main stuff.
The 8080 will be rebuilt and the “fake wood” case will be removed and I plan to make a real case out of oak. It will replace the 350 in the main house system. The 8080 will drive the AR-4x’s in the office/music room and it will drive the second set of AR’s out in the main living area. Since the 8080 will drive 3 sets of speakers (a,b,c), I’m thinking about putting a couple waterproof drivers out on the deck as well.
For quiet moments, I’ve got a couple sets of headphones:
Both studio monitor headphones. Sansui ss-35 and a set of pioneer monitor 10’s. Both sound fantastic! Better than anything modern I’ve tried (including stuff like higher end Sennheiser).
Yep, I definitely prefer my audio....”vintage”.
Never got into tube stuff though. Too expensive for me, both to buy and/or repair. Same with reel to reel. I’ve got friends that live and die by them, but they’re not that big thing for me. Too much hassle to set up, too hard to find blank tape or media for them.
For what you see above, I’ve only got a couple hundred bucks into it. People just throw out most hi-fi audio stuff, thinking it’s worthless now or if it breaks, it’s not worth fixing. Some of it was yard sale grabs and, believe it or not, some of it I’ve found just chucked down the bank by the side of the road. Most commonly, people think they’re broken because they get that “scratch scratch” when adjusting the volume or balance knobs. A shot of contact cleaner and it’s usually working fine afterwards. After that, it’s usually a blown thin film resistor or a dead/leaking cap. The only thing that stands out in purchase price and repairs needed was the 8080DB. I paid 300 bucks for that, and it had blown finals. But it’s a serious piece of kit, they’re inpossible to find around here and worth every penny of that 300 bucks...and then some.
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