Audioo, what do you base your comments on? Do you have these receivers? Have you taken them apart and restored them?
I have both an early production Eight and a mid production Eight Deluxe and can say without a doubt the Eight Deluxe is the better of the two. Sansui thought so too, here is the first page of the Eight Deluxe brochure where Sansui outlines the improvements incorporated into the Eight Deluxe.
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The build quality of the early production Eight Deluxe is identical to the Eight. During it's production there were two minor cost cutting changes, the dropped the engraved face plate and changed from solid aluminum knobs with set screws to aluminum knobs with plastic inserts. Other than that the build quality is identical to the late production Eight. My Eight Deluxe has an engraved face plate but the later production knobs.
The early production Eight did not have a speaker protection relay. It relied on a crude "crowbar" circuit and fuses to protect the speakers. That's a significant short coming (pun intended). Based on poling done on this topic the Sansui Serial Number Database indicates the speaker relay was incorporated in January 1972 production.
As far as "The Engineer's Receiver'" I believe that title was invented by our AK member SoCalSam who bestowed it on the Eight. It's been tossed around a lot here on AK but I've never seen that reference in any Sansui Document. In my opinion it's just a fan name without any special meaning. Since the Eight Deluxe has significant improvements developed by Sansui Engineers, I believe it deserves the title of "Engineer's" Receiver.
I also have a 7000 and can say it has the same overall build quality of the Eight but lacks Eight's sophistication. Build quality and circuit design distinctly different measures of a piece of audio equipment. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the 7000 has the same chassis, which in my opinion sets the build quality standard but uses older design electronics which despite the high build quality drops it down a notch from the Eight and maybe two notches from the Eight Deluxe.
- Pete