Scored some freebies. So time for a living room system.

[mhainz]

I was talking to a long time family friend the other day and mentioned that my wife had finally conceded to let me put a turntable in the living room so I needed to get a new amp and speakers to run it. ( I think my wife thought I might just want to run a small headphone only setup but that's another story altogether!)

Anyway my friend said he had an old receiver in his photographic darkroom that he didn't need anymore and would I be interested. Yeah sure. So he gave me this:





Absolutely awesome early 70s receiver. Almost mint condition and sounds fantastic.

Then he rummaged some more and brought out these speakers which he and his son had built back in the 80s.



From what he can remember (he's built and modified several speaker systems over the years) they're loaded with Audax dome tweeters and Philips 7inch long throw woofers. The cabinets are made of 35mm thick solid Jarrah and apart from the tuned ports they are completely airtight.

All I know is they sound amazing. I'm hearing things I've never heard before even at very moderate listening volumes. I always loved the sound of my JBLs but these run absolute rings around them.

BTW is it just me or is Photobucket a total PITA? It's literally taken me 20minutes to put this post together with 3 images. Sheesh!

 

[Dave_1962]

That is a sweet receiver and yes Photobucket sucks__
I can't make out the model number - what is it?

 

[mhainz]

Thanks Dave. It's a CR-700. Not much info out there on it other than it was the first receiver Yamaha apparently sold outside the JDM between 1971 and 73. 40watts x 2 at 8ohms. Found the specs over at HFE but would love to track down a user manual.

 

[Rome]

Great pieces!

Rome

 

[Nightwisher]

Sweet! Don't see many Yamahas like that.

 

[onwardjames]

Wow, that's a real special set!!!! Love those speakers, and that Yamaha is beautiful.

 

[SPL db]

Nice looking system, nice design on the speakers!

 

[Styx_II]

That's a good friend you got there and a great starting point.

 

[Northwinds]

Nice!

 

[beotek]

You got a great friend

 

[zebra03]

Ask and you shall receive ................................ the good stuff !!!

 

[daveg3588]

Beautiful craftsmanship in those speakers, nice to have good friends.

 

[ronscat]

Really nice, and as the guys said - great friend!!

 

[mhainz]

Yep he sure is a good friend. The speaker boxes were all cut by hand. The guy doesn't own a router. Next time I'm at his place I'll take a pic of his living room speakers he pretty much carved by hand. Originally he was going to give me another set of speakers which would have been amazing. Little mini pyramid shaped towers containing a mid and tweeter but unfortunately they were matched to a pair of 12 inch subs. I say unfortunately because there's no way my wife would have put up with those!!

 

[Drugolf]

Sweet!

 

[MCM_Fan]

That Yamaha is sweet looking. Never seen one like that before. What turntable do you plan to run with it? If it's like most other vintage Yamahas, it should have a pretty nice phono section.

Yes Photobucket absolutely sucks. It finally got so bad, I stopped using it about six months ago. I switched to postimage and haven't looked back. It's much faster and easier to use without all the ads and email spam.

 

[audionut373]

Wow, what a beautiful receiver!

 

[Old Guy8]

Nice receiver and hand built speakers.

 

[Leben]

Very nice gear and friend!

 

[mhainz]

That Yamaha is sweet looking. Never seen one like that before. What turntable do you plan to run with it? If it's like most other vintage Yamahas, it should have a pretty nice phono section.

.

As its my living room system i'm just after a nice "background" sound so I'm just using my manualised Akai APB20. I had this in my outdoor system so currently just running an AT91 cartridge. As a lot of my old Jazz LPs are in far less than perfect condition I find the conical stylus sounds better than a higher end one which seem to pick up every little click and pop.

Here's a pic in situ...



The receiver sounds great; plenty of power with a really nice neutral sound. Speakers sound fantastic with classical, jazz or acoustic stringed music. Vocals also really shine. I'm hearing stuff I'd never heard before. Only thing I've found they're not well suited to rock and classic rock. Sound a bit hollow but that's alright. I've got my other system for that.

Cheers all.