Sansui!

David W

Active Member
I got a digital camera today so I've been running around taking pictures of my stereo equipment.

Here are pics of all of my Sansuis:

http://community.webshots.com/album/58454850rvEbUG

The 500A is my favorite, and the most expensive (cost more to buy it and keep it up that all of the others combined.)

I picked up all of this in the last 2 years. I think I have a problem. :( It doesnt help that there is someone at the flea market who gives me all of the dead sansui recievers he finds (the 5000 and last weekend the 551, I managed to fix the 5000 with a parts unit i found on ebay, still working on the 551.) He says he has a sansui quad at home with a blown fuse, probably will end up taking that too.

What does everyone else here have? I like to see what other sansui lovers have in there collection.

-David
 
Hi David:

Being the Sansui enthusiast that I am, I can certainly relate when it comes to accumulating a whole bunch of recievers, amps, etc..
I plan on taking some photos real soon that everyone here can have a look at if they're interested. Since Thanksgiving, Ive been trying to go thru all my hi fi stuff- and that includes a massive collection of hifi mags too- Audio, Stereo Review, High Fidelity and more going back 30 + years as Ive been able to fill in my collection of backissues Thanks to Ebay (not to mention a vast amount of guitar mags, recording mags, Chess mags, man..., just a bunch of stuff, as well as Ive been logging my cd collection into a database using www.base40.com- as I approach the grand total with that, it comes to close 1600 cd's) so..... as you might imagine, doing all this has been keeping me busy, as I can only do so much each day and B/F here, does like to get his sleep too. In addition, I want to go thru all of those mags and index every and ALL Sansui reviews, ads etc.. , and will probably do so for other brands as well, so no excuses to ever be bored here with nothing to do:) Hopefully I can take all that info and put it on a webpage/site of my own in the not too distant future - for the benefit of all Mankind:) (There is a site, Roger, sundial... something like that, I have the link somewhere in my pc, he has a site that has all the major hi fi mags and a list of reviews by month/year issue, so I can use that as a guideline to help me as well) I did just make some copies of Sansui stuff that I mailed out the other day to Isao- who hosts the excellent, and growing fast site, www.sansui.us - he said he would post it when he receives it. Although there are no photos, a list of what I have in my collection is over here which shows just the 1st page- so remeber to see the next pages (and I also list the month/year it was made- which can be determined by the serial # in the back)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/classicsansui/database?method=reportRows&tbl=1

Happy Holidays, B/F
 
In case anyone's interested in the music database pgm, the link is www.base40.com If you clicked on it in the post above, you get an error because of that hyphen at the end which shouldnt have been included as part of the link.

As for the Sansui List, I dont think my 2nd AU-X1 amp is listed because it was in the shop at the time, so I wasnt able to post the s/n until I got it back. The Sansui Group over at Yahoo has quite a few Sansui enthusiasts also, unfortunately I had a bit of a disagreement with the guy who hosts it, so I havent been contributing there anymore. I was going to delete my List from the database there but when I tried, I got an error message saying I wasnt permitted to do that, oh well, no big deal, so just leave it as is.

Well, Dave- if you read thru the List, I think can you can share my "pain" of what its like to be stricken with Sansui madness. In my case, the main drawback I have is that its all in one room- my Sasement. I am trying, as I said earlier in the cleaning-up/reorganzing process that I'm attempting, to make things easier to manage but ultimately, I think I will require an extra room to put some other things in.

One solution to make things easier if you have a collection of amps and receivers is to use a switchbox such as the ones made by Audio Authority- a few turn up on Ebay from time to time which is where I got mine- its a cascaded amp/speaker/tape or other line level switcher, that can switch up to 16 different models. (A Sansui AX-7 is also VERY cool and handy to simplify the interconnection of your audio gear too- for instance if you have say, 4 receivers and they all have separable pre/power amp sections, you can use the AX-7 to connect them too and then switch between 3 of those units as preamps to one of them as the power amp- and thus avoid moving cables around to hook up each unit everytime you want to listen to it in a particualr arrangement.

I have used my AA switchbox and it works fine. The only drawback I discovered with that is: there is no way around the fact that every amp or receiver that you will switch between needs to be connected to speakers- and thus- that means a bunch of speakers cable runs strewn all over the place. When I had my AA set up, and I had about ten diiferent amps/receivers connected to it- that meant about 10 pairs of speaker cables- my floor was just a pile of speaker cables all on top of each other and all over- it just became too much too deal with. Perhaps its in fact easier just to configure it to switch amps only and as for the speakers- just use one pair of cables and move it around to whatever amp you want to use at any particular time.

Right now, I am in a "dilemna" in that out of all the models I have, I have come to use my two AU-X1's as THE main amps in the hi fi system. With a Sansui CA-2000 preamp (which conveniently has TWO pairs of output jacks- connecting to two amps in a biamping arrangement is very easy). How is this a dilemana you may ask. Well, that means its now harder for me to use the other stuff I have- like the 9090DB or AU-919 etc... unless I can configure a way to switch between using different pairs of amps in a biamp arangement, one day biamp using the two AU-X1's, another day use the AU-919 and AU-717- however, when it comes to biamping, it might be preferable to use two identical model amps, so I'm not sure if using a 170 watt AU-20000 to drive one speaker and a "mere" 85W AU-717 to drive the other would be the best thing to do. (Cant use the G-7700 as doesnt have seperable pre-power section) Keep in mind, biamping means removing the jumpers between the tweeters/mids & woofers on the back of the speakers, so if I then want to use the one amp to power both speakers, that means have to then go thru the hassle of getting behind my speakers and put the jumpers back on again. Oh the "pain", the "pain" with all this hi fi gear.

I'm still trying to come up with an arrangement to make using all this stuff easier (and I havent even mentioned the Teac/Tascam recording equipemnt!) but I think as long as its all in one room, I am going to be limited to what I can do and some stuff may have to sit unused until I am able to acquire more space. Amps & receivers offer some degree of flexibility when you have several of them, but Speakers- thats another story- much more difficult to set up as they are much larger, come in pairs obviously, and need to be spread apart to be used effectively. My basement has its "hands full" just accomodating my Infinity Renaissance 90's. Trying to also use my Quantum 3's, Qb's and Qe's only adds to the "pain" :)

But I must say, NAD C521i cd player-> Sansui CA-2000 preamp--> vertically biamped two Sansui AU-X1's integrated amps in power amp mode--> Renaissance 90 speakers - the sound quality is just outstanding. I was listening to the system last night for several hours until about 2:30 am, and its wonderful- especially Bach's "Fugue in G Minor"- nothing like those church pipe organs to give your speakers a challenging workout on those DEEP and LOW bass notes:)

Happy Holidays, B/F.
 
I just looked out my window, Man, Snow is really starting to come down now! Dark, windy......, nice to be indoors. Though looks as if I'll have to be doing some snow- shoveling soon which means delaying the audio re-organization work.
 
Hey Beatlefred

Thanks for all the info. I'm in envy of your system. :) I'm on the sansui list, in fact, and had already put my collection on the serial number list. I noticed the number you own awhile ago. Thats a lot of Sansui products! I would like to biamp my system with my 5000 powering my tweeters instead of the current Yamaha MX-35 (not a horrible little amp, just like the idea of having 2 almost identical sansui recievers powering my system.) I use the 5000A on the woofers right now. The problem is that I use an active crossover (Rane AC-22) so the nasty turn-on thump produced by the 5000 (or any of my other sansuis as well) would destroy my tweeters as soon as I hit the power button. So the Yamaha stays for now. I dont really do much with the rest of my pieces, unfortunatly. I have an application in mind for the 500A, but the 5000 and the 551 are just sitting, and the 221 is rarely used. Oh well, better to have them sitting around here doing nothing then sitting in the junkyard (I rescued the 5000 and 551 from being thrown away.) I also have a little mono system (amp and tuner) from the 50's waiting for a nice efficient speaker. A switchbox is a good idea, maybe I'll try that someday.

Also, if Isao would like pictures of some of my Sansuis for the website I would be happy to provide some. Once I learn my way around this camera I plan on taking nice pics of all my stuff.
 
I dont know if you're aware of it, but there is a particular board in the 5000A that had a recall on it- as it tended to blow quite often. I was hoping to find the board number and what the board # replacement for it was in one of my old email correspondences but I cant find it at the moment. It was mentioned earlier this year on www.audioutopia.com (before audiokarma was created) I think I wrote the board #'s in the Vintage Mess Bd there, though I'm not really inclined right now to start back tracking thru the archives. If yours is running fine now, I s'pose there's no need to worry about it.
 
I found the number on the audio asylum, F-1040. I checked out the 5000A and it does have that board. It should to be ok though, didnt even see any work that had been done to it, so it looks like I got lucky and got a good one (the unit looked like it was well cared for throughout its life, not a scratch on it and had been cleaned before I got it.) I wonder if the replacement board was F-6013, seems logical since the 5000 and 5000X used this board and are very very similar to the 5000A.

Thanks

-David
 
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