Joe's (Manitoulin's) response, a bit long..
Thanks Brian for reviving this thread. :thmbsp: I intended to do so one day, just never seemed to get around to it.
To clear up one issue, the original pics in this post are of a user modded unit. None came with the speaker outs set-up as shown in the pic. IMHO, it was done rather poorly by whoever did it. It could have been done better by using the area above the spkr two out connectors, if it was deemed absolutely necessary at all. I always used gold plated pins for my spkr cables, so never had any problems with the factory connectors.
I always thought the Citation Receiver was perfectly designed for a niche customer that wanted an all-in-one unit, with quite good specs and also exclusivity.
Orion states a 1977 MSRP of $1150, almost three times the $400 MSRP of the 730..
I think the THD spec is misleading as at 75W, I was unable to measure any THD when my original unit was tested in 1981 when I was in the Army. We used an unbelievably expensive test rig used for a classified radio system that could measure down to .005% THD. I think h/k was forced to put the o/p power as high as possible due to the start of the receiver wars. When originally released, h/k did not issue any power specs for the unit. A very radical concept, especially considering the price. I remember trying to sell it to a few customers who balked at buying a receiver that had no specs, especially at the price it listed. At the time, I asked the Cdn h/k distributor, who was not able to get any specs from h/k when the Citation Receiver was first released. Didn't matter, one listen was enough for the lucky few who bought one.
The Citation Receiver is one monster of a unit. It weighs a ton. It has all the features anyone could ask for, including midrange controls and a mpx filter. I especially like how the designers used, for want of a better term, coaxial controls. For example, the bass control has the low filter ganged together. It made for one of the cleanest large receivers I have ever seen. The tuning dial shares the style of the 730, 430 family, which is one of the most attractive of ant analog tuner I have seen. Because of its large size, it will not fit in a normal rack. You pretty well have to make your own, with quite strong support. The top has a rosewood inlay, which I think was a classy way to bridge the transition from fully enclosed units to the later units that came W/O wood cases. The 1 - 10 scale visible from the top was really a good feature. It was copied to on the later 230E. G0 figure, for the top to the bottom.
The only real negative to the unit is the touch controls, that followed from the ST-7 turntable. When first turned on, when selecting a function, there is a pretty good "snap", as opposed to a "thump" sent out to the speakers. I got in the habit of turning the unit on with the spkr selector set to off, then running up and down the functions, before turning on the spkrs. After that, when changing functions, it was noise free until used the next time.
Soundwise, the Citation Receiver is a true performer. The only way I can describe it is by saying it is quite a full sound, especially compared to the 730. It is not that there is anything wrong with the Citation Receiver's sound, quite the opposite, in fact, but it does have its own character. It really sounds best with vinyl. The interesting thing about the Citation Receiver is that it sounds louder that the actual watts out indicate. I find that I can run it with less SPL than my Citation 17s / Citation 19 set-up with the same results. Can't say why, it just is... :scratch2: I still have a portable SPL meter that I verified this anomaly.
The one I have now is actually my second one, the ex-wife would not allow me to pick-up my 1st one :worried: