After 10 Years or so I am Finally Whole

KingBubba

"Too Much Stuff"
About ten years ago I came across a fair deal on an SX-1250. I drove to Melbourne, Fl. to meet the seller. I arrived at the address I was given. It turned out to be in the parking lot of an audio repair shop called Tedco. I waited for a long time when a man shows up in a van with a parrot on his shoulder. As it turned out the receiver was in the shop and part of the sale was to pay off the repair bill at the shop. The shop owner pulled out the 1250 and fired it up for me. I believe it had been in the shop to be dialed in with DC offset and bias because the bill was small. I finally settled with the owner for a total price of just a bit under half of what I had brought with me. As I carried the receiver out to my car, walking with the man with a parrot on his shoulder, he casually mentioned that he had an SX-1280 and an SX-1980 in the back of his van. I look in the back of the van and, as sure as hell, there are the 2 beauties. I knew I did not have the money for the 1980, but I hoped to swing the deal on the 1280. He agreed to the same price for the 1280 as I gave for the 1250. I only had $100 left; so there was no dealing for the 1980. I actually did not really want it. I sure had no idea what they were going to draw here in this decade or I would have jumped on it with all my extremities.

Once home and hooked up both receivers worked well and only needed a tweek on DC offset and Bias. I used the 1250 at home and the 1280 was my screamer at work. It wasn't more than 6 months when they both started showing similar symptoms. They were sending out nasty spikes and the 1280 was really cooking at the power supply. I did not care to have my speakers killed by the spikes so I put them both on the shelf to wait until I could to afford to send them out. As of now, after the last two years, I have them both finally set up in the living room system. OMG I am so happy. Don't get me wrong, I had first had the 1250 together with a Sansui Model Eight Deluxe; so my system was no slouch. The two Pioneers seem to have a bit more synergy and the bedroom system will end up with the Deluxe and the G-8000.

I have mattsd to thank for the work, with the 1250 in 2015 and the 1280 in 2016. They both sound crystalline to me. This has been too many years in the making, but it has been worth the wait. I tried to take some pics but the living room has so many big windows that the system stays too dark to be seen and pics with the flash suck. You all know what they look like; so you can use your imaginations. Thanks for listening to my long story, but I still wish I had bought the 1980.:confused:
 
Cool....

Though I would have been miffed with the guy because of not initially telling me about the SX-1980. Leading you on a wild goose chase paying off a repair bill just to obtain a receiver, just to find out what he had in the van.
 
I am not a huge Pioneer fanboy, but a friend of mine is, and at one point he owned all three of those units. Having listened to all three on the same set of speakers in the same room, we both kind of concurred that the SX-1250 and SX-1280 sounded better than the "hyped" SX-1980. Although it was "cool" to actually have the SX-1980, he recently cashed in on insane market value of the SX-1980 to fund his complete SPEC rack project. IIRC, I think he got somewhere north of $2K for it.
 
That is cool! I've done some strange deals in strange places. But I've never paid off someone's bill as part of the deal. I'm happy you have them up and running.
 
I am not a huge Pioneer fanboy, but a friend of mine is, and at one point he owned all three of those units. Having listened to all three on the same set of speakers in the same room, we both kind of concurred that the SX-1250 and SX-1280 sounded better than the "hyped" SX-1980. Although it was "cool" to actually have the SX-1980, he recently cashed in on insane market value of the SX-1980 to fund his complete SPEC rack project. IIRC, I think he got somewhere north of $2K for it.
Could not have said it any better....Agree on the Insane market value of the SX-1980 :crazy:....My Complete SPEC system is worth the Price.
 
Interesting. In all the meandering at flea markets over the years, I have never encountered any of those three units. I've never even seen one in person. The biggest was a sx 980 for 100. And it had issues, so I moved it.
One of these days maybe I'll find one ....but I doubt it.
 
I think the days of finding an SX - 1250, 1050, 950 or any monster amps at flea markets for flea sized prices are well and truly gone.
People have wised up with the internet at their finger tips.
It's pay, pay and more pay, sadly, if you want something desirable.
 
Nice ending...

The part where you wrote "man shows up in a van with a parrot on his shoulder." was totally unexpected, and for whatever reason, I found it funny. I guess if that was going to happen, it would be in Florida.

Thanks for sharing!!
 
Onward, that is a great way to show off your stuff, which is a nice collection BTW. What are those speakers in the video? I see the 1980 there. I don't know if I could even pick it up, let alone putting it up on the top shelf. I barely was able to put my Onkyo TX-8500MkII in the box today for its visit with blhagstrom sometime this week. Anyway thanks for a nice post. It was my first like.

Gary
 
Onward, that is a great way to show off your stuff, which is a nice collection BTW. What are those speakers in the video? I see the 1980 there. I don't know if I could even pick it up, let alone putting it up on the top shelf. I barely was able to put my Onkyo TX-8500MkII in the box today for its visit with blhagstrom sometime this week. Anyway thanks for a nice post. It was my first like.

Gary

I am going to have to provide a disclaimer here, lol. That's my 1250, but the rest of the gear is not mine. This was filmed by Mattsd right after he finished the repair, so all that goodness is his. Strangely enough, I scored some Polk SDA 1-B's right after I got my 1250 back, the ones you see here are Polk SDA 1-C's (difference is the better cabinet, and I think the tweets might be slightly improved).

I do utilize the metal shelving tho. Here's a recent pic.

20160826_215253.jpg


Guess you'll have to save that "first like" for another day, my friend. :rolleyes:
 
The 8500MkII is a true heavyweight, eclipsing the 1250 and the 1280. It is a dual mono unit with double everything. Mine has not been used for 8 years and I miss it.
 
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