Any Vintage Onkyo Owners?
- Thread starter SPL db
- Start date
Getting around to using the amp. Damn it’s good. Better than I remember it being. It’s more like the 510 than the JVC. Just a killer integrated.
*this one does have those well spoken of series of caps by Panasonic in the power supply (only a few years old) and some new wiring/speaker terminals. There are other things which have been done to it as well. So it may have an edge on the stock version.
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Skid Vicious
Member
The first thing significant purchase I ever made was a TX-3000 when I was 12 with my birthday/lawn mowing money. Spent all afternoon at the stereo store listening to various receivers with a great sales guy who didn't patronize me and was mindful of my budget. He actually steered me towards the Onkyo. Ended up with that, an Onkyo cassette deck that is long forgotten and some of their "house" 3-way speakers.
Great sounding and the industrial designer in me loves the look to this day. In fact I would say that receiver was an early inspiration and influence to my design sensibility. I am definitely in the market for a clean TX-3000 just to have again for nostalgia.
Currently I have a TX -4500 that I got at a garage sale for $10 about 5 years ago with a bunch of Bose Lifestyle speakers and Bose sub. I just all the Bose stuff on the curb without even bothering to hook it up...lol. I was happy with my current Pioneer/Klipsch audio and HT gear, but when I saw the 4500 it brought back a lot of great memories of my old TX-3000, long lost to time and many moves when I was single. It wasn't working from the left channel so I just sighed and put it on the Free section of Craigslist, and a guy emailed me and said I should hold on to it and get it fixed and said he thought there was a guy in Missouri City, TX that could probably fix it. At the time I was working in the next town over so I tracked down Charlies Airwaves and he got it running and apparently replaced a lot of caps and who knows what, he's not too talkative. Charlies Airwaves was/is ostensibly a CB radio repair place in kind of a dilapidated strip mall in a fading part of town. Their main business used to be CB radio repair and service, but as you might imagine that slowed down after the 70's and they opened it up to basically if it runs on electricity, they'll fix it, from toasters to TV's. If you are in the Houston area, check them out but I would recommend you deal with the son Roland, ol' Charlie is a nice guy but Roland is the one who does the work. Kinda gruff and not very talkative but knows his stuff. Anyways, that garage sale TX-4500 got me back into audio and with an eye on vintage audio. Bums me out I wasn't paying attention 10-15 years ago when all this was under the radar and could be had for a song.
I also have an A-5 integrated that I'm prepping for my sisters birthday next month, she saw pictures of my TX-4500 and just loved it, but I'm not parting with that
Thought I would put together a nice vintage system for her since she's been getting back into vinyl, so right now I have the A-5, a Nikko EQ-1, and JBL G300's that are probably the ugliest speakers I've seen and came without grills but I'm refinishing them and building new grills. There's no way I would part with the TX-4500, but I'm rapidly getting attached to the A-5 as well, beautiful looks and sound. Still, I'm really excited for my sis to get this setup, I think she'll be floored with the whole package. My Dad is a master woodworker and is making some beautiful stands to get the JBL's off the ground. I know they're not exactly "vintage" but they are a great sounding smallish speaker and vintage speakers always need something. Lot to be said for modern materials, manufacturing, and design when it comes to speakers. Oldest daughter has an TX-8555 receiver for her phono setup, not vintage but a decent two channel receiver with wireless connectivity that I think I got for like $75.
Thanks for mentioning the TX-3000, brings back a lot of happy memories of a great receiver.
Wally1955
Well-Known Member
Aloha
Yeah Onkyo Vintage Amps and Receivers are gorgeous luckly got couple of Integra Amps from early seventies
My personel No.1 is the A-711/150 pure Vintage with a great Soundstage
Cheers
cute and good sounding Onkyo Integra A-931nII/40
Onkyo Integra A-755nII/100 massive building and the engraphed Faceplate with xtraordinary machined aluminium knobs in my eyes and ears pure Vintage Audio at its best
bom shanka
Yeah Onkyo Vintage Amps and Receivers are gorgeous luckly got couple of Integra Amps from early seventies
My personel No.1 is the A-711/150 pure Vintage with a great Soundstage
Cheers
cute and good sounding Onkyo Integra A-931nII/40
Onkyo Integra A-755nII/100 massive building and the engraphed Faceplate with xtraordinary machined aluminium knobs in my eyes and ears pure Vintage Audio at its best
bom shanka
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hemiram
Active Member
Well, the M-506rs showed up today, and it's not pretty:
Prepare to be sad...I apologize for the crappy pics:
The cat can't even look at it!
Notice the damage on the speaker terminals:
The packing was just pitiful. There was a slightly larger than fist sized hole in the box and the 506rs could be seen through it. There was one layer of bubble wrap around each unit, no double boxing and both units were slammed up against the side of the box with the hole in it. The much lighter matching preamp looks ok, and I was surprised that the Super Servo cable was included. I paid $100 for shipping and he must have pocketed a nice chunk of it. At this point, I hope to cut my losses, get a FULL refund and send it back so I will only be out the shipping to send it back, or take a $500 refund and keep them and see if the 506rs can be salvaged. There is a local audio repair place that might be ok, but I don't know much about it. I hesitate to ship it to even be looked at due to cost.
These are the pics as it supposedly looked like before it was shipped:
The back looked a little different then:
Sad, I was looking forward to seeing those pretty meters lit up in blue bouncing around. I already ordered the LED replacements..
And I just looked at it, the serial number is totally different!
Prepare to be sad...I apologize for the crappy pics:
The cat can't even look at it!
Notice the damage on the speaker terminals:
The packing was just pitiful. There was a slightly larger than fist sized hole in the box and the 506rs could be seen through it. There was one layer of bubble wrap around each unit, no double boxing and both units were slammed up against the side of the box with the hole in it. The much lighter matching preamp looks ok, and I was surprised that the Super Servo cable was included. I paid $100 for shipping and he must have pocketed a nice chunk of it. At this point, I hope to cut my losses, get a FULL refund and send it back so I will only be out the shipping to send it back, or take a $500 refund and keep them and see if the 506rs can be salvaged. There is a local audio repair place that might be ok, but I don't know much about it. I hesitate to ship it to even be looked at due to cost.
These are the pics as it supposedly looked like before it was shipped:
The back looked a little different then:
Sad, I was looking forward to seeing those pretty meters lit up in blue bouncing around. I already ordered the LED replacements..
And I just looked at it, the serial number is totally different!
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oblomov
Well-Known Member
Hilarious, good one!
Seriously though, that is a major bummer. Beautiful amp when in proper shape
PTL-Pioneer
Super Member
I am sorry for your loss
hemiram
Active Member
Oh well, one way or another, I'll be ok. If the seller doesn't get my money back to me, Ebay will. If my tax return money would show up, I would start looking again now, but it's taking forever. At least I'm getting a refund this year, usually because of my tax oddities, I have to pay a little. When the refunds have been tiny, they come right away, when it's thousands of dollars, it drags on and on..
deltalight
AK Subscriber
I've restored an Onkyo M-504, TX-6500 MKII, TX-7000 (designed a 22-LED retrofit) and others. I like Onkyo. My only complaint is the sloppy component assy, but that can be corrected. Some day soon I'm going to try upgrading some late model mid-range like the TX-8050 to improve the sound.
hemiram
Active Member
I kind of wish I could take the M506rs apart and see what's damaged, but I'm not touching it until it's all settled and if I keep it or not. I found a serviced M504 that has just been capped and LED lights added, and checked out totally. The box along with the original receipts and it's the original owner selling it. It's got a few marks on it, but it appears in the video I got from him to be fully operational. He won't take Paypal, so I need to pay cash, and until that tax refund comes I cant do it. I figure someone he knows will jump on it. I need those big meters dancing!!!
crazy eights
Bad Moon Bopster
i recently got an A10 looks great on the outside but pretty dingy under the hood, It sounds amazing tho, I've been slowly bringing the volume up after letting it run for about a week and I am in love with the sound of it, drums are amazing detail and soundstage as well, I'm playing it thru some B&W DM560s that I recently got and am loving every minute of it, the front end is all digital with a Schiit valhalla 2 playing hi res files i have ripped to a hard drive
Going to sell off most of my other spare electronics and see what speakers are out there in the wild to see if there is anything that can match up better but the A10 is a definite keeper, I could live with this forever, so much that I will eventually start looking for a highly competent hopeully local tech to do a resto on it, I also have the T9 tuner and am running it but the radio offerings around here, to me at least are less than inspiring
long story short woohoo am I stoked
Going to sell off most of my other spare electronics and see what speakers are out there in the wild to see if there is anything that can match up better but the A10 is a definite keeper, I could live with this forever, so much that I will eventually start looking for a highly competent hopeully local tech to do a resto on it, I also have the T9 tuner and am running it but the radio offerings around here, to me at least are less than inspiring
long story short woohoo am I stoked
Congratulations! I've always wanted an A10, but ended up going another direction entirely. Enjoy that beast!
crazy eights
Bad Moon Bopster
i couldn't resist any longer I just lit it up with a vinyl needle drop of ziggy and the spiders msfl 1/2 speed master and holeeeeeeeeee crap this thing is POWERFUL and dangerous
The A5, A7, and A10 were very conservatively rated, and overbuilt. I still have the A5 my dad bought new, it's all original and still sounds great. I'm getting ready to pass it along tp my oldest daughter.
