Pulled out my vintage Sansui CDX 711 CD player tonight

Man I forgot how good this thing sounds! Spinning some early CD's from the late 1980's on it.
Top of the line for the day 1989, IIRC MSRP was $1200.


Sansui CD-X 711
Specifications:
Scanners: 3-beam semiconductor laser
Decoding (D/A): 16 bit linear
Frequency response: DC to 20 kHz, +/- 0.3 dB
Total harmonic distortion: less than 0003% (1 kHz)
Noise ratio (S/N): better than 103 dB
Dynamic range: better than 98 dB
Not my pics :

 

Out of curiosity I just put it on a scale, comes in at a whopping 21.5 pounds! My modern Pioneer Elite multi player only weighs 4 pounds for a comparison of build quality. Power supply is in the weight folks.(and the sound quality) . IMO this kills the Elite for CD playback.

Got the Sansui NOS in 1991 for a measly $285 on closeout from American TV/Audio, probably Sansui's last great player. Sadly American have closed all stores this year in my area. They used to have such a nice low/mid high end room with speakers, tons of Adcom stuff, really nice selection for the budget minded guy.

I also got a Sansui AUX 911 DG Integrated amp at the same time for pennies on the dollar. Unfortunately that died several years ago. Nice amp.

 

Wonder if it's Sony-based or Philips-based; the old Philips stuff still sounds surprisingly musical.

 

I'm not sure what to look for in the Sony/Phillips build, but regardless the build quality is very robust all things considered. And still working after all these years. All I had to do was put a new belt on the drawer a few years ago

 

Nice.

 

I just noticed the balanced outputs! Very nice ...

 

I used the balanced outputs with it's companion Sansui integrated amp from the same era/line.

It has amazing build and sound, I did a shootout several months ago against a brand new Onkyo C7030 which has new Wolfson 192/24 DACs and the old Sansui easily sounded better. It is right up there with the highly rated Pioneer Elite PD 91 of the same era, which I also own.

Found this in an old magazine:

 

I see by your profile you like Sansui, I have the old Sansui PM-C100II speakers and I resurrected my Sansui AUX 911 DG integrated amp recently.

 

After looking at the plain plastic front panel it's kind of a shocker to see the well built and designed internals.
Back in the day ( maybe late seventies ) I had one of Sansui's giant receivers. Anyone remember the model numbers of those hulks ? Several hundred watts, around 100 pounds ( Something like G33000 ? )

 

The G33000 was insane. No idea what that would go for now. Probably up the with Pioneer's SX1980.

 

i too am a proud owner of the ELITE PD-91. it's only real flaw, -an iffy tolerance for CD-R- was easily corrected with some light adjustment of FOCUS and TRACKING GAIN.

my copy will now spin up virtually anything, including DATA discs, (CD-ROM, video game discs, etc.) of course, audio output with those sorts of discs will be nothing more than digital hash.

in any case, the PD-91 is most recommended as an outstandingly beautiful sounding (and looking) CD player;










LASER PICKUP ASSY. no. PWY1004

 

It's not plain plastic on the front panel, it's steel with black lacquer.

Yup, G33000 had a huge power supply hanging off the back end of the receiver.

 

AU-X 911 DG - VERY NICE too!! How do you like your amp?

I'm have the AU-X901 'Vintage'. It's nice.

 

It's got more than enough power and sounds almost as good as my monster Pioneer Elite A-91D.

 

Yup, thats it, to bad it didn't sound as good as it looked. Thanks for the memory.

 

Nice amp!