Choosing a '70s Receiver

Oh yeah. My wife has a friend from college who bought a Marantz 2230 receiver in the '70s, and the thing is still going strong. Great sound, too.

 

Not sure. My Sherwood is from the early 60's. It replaced a Pilot 240. Bottom line: I'd recommend spending an extra $100 and getting a tube amp from the 60's.

 

The only vintage receivers that I've ever heard that come even remotely close to the magic and warmth of a good tube amplifier are the AR (Acoustic Research) Model R receiver and the NAD 7020 (receiver version of the 3020). Maybe...MAYBE something by Harman Kardon might fit the bill. No Marantz, Pioneer, Sanyo, Sherwood, Technics, Kenwood, Sansui, Kenwood, Yamaha, etc is going to meet your criteria. A few of these receivers that have a reputation for being warm are tonally dark, but they are quite edgy and very different from luxurious, soothing tube warmth you may be used to. These popular '70s solid state units are not warm and to believe they are is wishful thinking. If you must explore the vintage Japanese receiver world, stick with the low powered MOSFET units.

 

How is this Sherwood integrated receiver?

 

I meant receiver ...

 

More like you meant integrated. I'm not seeing a tuner anywhere on that. Interesting looking unit though.

 

I really should have given a front pic, a wonderful unit with 120 WPC.

 

Not sure about that one. Passes the eye test and the quad setting is pretty cool!

 

You are quite correct. That glass panel makes the unit look like a receiver but the selection for AM/FM is just not there. A very interesting design and this integrated amp does not look like a recent Sherwood product either ...

This appears to be a quadraphonic amp.

 

I am indeed curious about who the contract manufacturer for this receiver was.

 

And an early one at that. I'm guessing 1971 or thereabouts because of the Dynaquad selector. The matching tuner is the S-2400. Pretty nice.

To the OP: JazzPolice made a good point that you're used to the sound of tubes, so, maybe you'd be better off looking for a tube receiver from the 1960s. Fisher receivers of that era are highly regarded as are the Sansui tube receivers of the '60s. The Sansui 1000 was a very nice unit with great sound. Now, here's where I disagree with JP: I've always found that Sansui's engineers worked hard to make solid state amplifiers that had the warmth of tubes, and IMO, they largely succeeded (I grew up listening to tubes, so I'm well acquainted with their sound.) Sansui's late '60s SS receivers are very good. In particular, I found the 4000 and 5000 to be spectacular; in my senior year of high school I lived with a family (life-long friends of our family) who had been in Japan an came back to the States with some lovely Japanese components, among them a Sansui 5000 receiver. There was a lovely Akai open-reel tape deck and a Dual 1019 turntable (that and the speakers weren't Japanese.) I listened to that unit a lot and found it to be very engaging. For years, to me, it was the gold-standard for how a receiver should sound. My G-4700, IMO, comes pretty close to the 5000, and it has a dynamite tuner in it. In fact, the tuner blows away every other tuner and radio in the house. If you're going to use the unit in your shop, you might well find that a significant portion of your listening to be FM. Anyway, just my two cents here.

 

I would give my first votes for any of the Marantz 22 or 40 series receivers. Even the lower wattage output receivers have that nice warm punch. They look good too.

 

I am still trying to decide when to give my Tandberg TR2075 MKII receiver a good overhaul. Is it even worth doing it in this advanced digital age?



I also have the Tandberg TR2030 shown below

 

Beautiful! Then made really nice looking equipment. I always wanted one of their R2R tape decks, alas, not enough money back in the day.

 

I have not played my Tandberg TD 20 A in a few years ...



The open-reel deck is part of my main sound system that also includes a Conrad Johnson amp and a Parasound outboard DAC. I like mixing my digital and analog gears and doubt I will ever go 100% digital ...

 

That's a really nice machine.

I'll never be 100% digital, either. I like my digital gear, but I can't imagine at least being able to play records in whatever room I happen to want to listen.

 

A preamp with no analog inputs will not work for me. The only problem with an open-reel deck is the cost of open-reel tapes ...

 

I enjoy my Marantz 2238b very much.

 

Right, and since I don't have any tapes, there's no point in getting one this late in the game.

 

Images of (mostly) Sansui vintage gears ...

 

I still have a few EE tapes made by TDK in their original shrinkwrap. EE tapes were the equivalent of metal oxide cassette tapes. I play my EE tape on the following Akai deck, which I use in my study ...

 

Coopmv: this is what I call audio porn! Nice Akai deck, very nice! I always wanted a Teac A-3340S, naturally, being a quad buff.

 

I owned a Teac A-2340S, the little brother to the Teac A-3340S for a few months before I sold it to my HS buddy since he was an amateur musician and could make better use of the deck ...