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It's a stereo test so I'm not surprised that the old equipment sounded good. The equipment I had years ago had very good sound.
Vintage stereo vs. modern surround sound would give different results. The Beethoven symphonies on Blu-ray with surround sound that I now have are vastly superior to the stereo symphonies on vinyl I had 50 years ago. And I now can watch the orchestra in high definition on my 10 foot projection screen (which is far superior to the Kloss Novabeam I had many years ago).
The author says: "So what have all these new features brought us? Surround sound-but most people never hook up those extra speakers." I'm not sure that this is true - actually, I doubt it.
Pioneer SX-1980 Receiver (1978 model) weighed 78 pounds and was rated at 270 watts per channel.
Audio improvements over the years is more about convenience, smaller and lightweight equipment that delivers much better sound than the run of the mill stuff from earlier decades. The lovingly cared for vinyl records with the finest turntables and cartridges are superior to CDs, but CDs produce infinitely better sound than most people scratched up record collections.
WOW. That Pioneer receiver gave me a huge case of nostalgia as my parents had one (or something that looks just like it).
I remember when Styx's Mr. Roboto came out, we would site between the speakers and just play the middle of that song where the stereo effects made it sound like it was shooting sounds through your head
Also my dad being super insistant that we wait 10-15 seconds before actually using it after turning it on. I think something had to heat up or something.. you could hear an audible click/switch.
old news, I know the people that did the test, it got debated on the AK for a year.
The 1980 is an amp topology that is still worlds ahead - even with the built in flaws, but no one is asking any of the makers to do this today. only about 1% of the population listens to music and even then the most go digital because they like crap.
do NOT buy a 1980. Unless it says full rebuild and modernization and the seller has the documentation from the 5 people in the US that can do it, you are going to pay $2000 for one that needs work to run, and you are going to pay at least $2000 and 2 years to get it worked on, from 1 of the 5 people in the USA capable of doing this.
that being said, as the receiver comes on, there is a huge voltage offset across the main amp. This is a 285watt amp so the offset could be a couple volts which will blow the speakers - you never put strong DC across a speaker. They simply use a delay circuit to drive the base of a transistor to trigger a relay that connects the emitter resistors to the speaker terminals and headphone circuit....that is the click you hear. when you tune one of these and it ages, you put a dvm across the speaker outputs and note the reading, if it is still over 100mv, you increase the value of the cap and perhaps beef up the collector current of the drive transistor to handle the increased duration of inrush current.
The lack of HD Radio on the old receivers is a show stopper.
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