Yamaha A-450 Natural Sound Stereo Amplifier

gromero

New Member
Hi guys! I've just bought a Yamaha A-450 Natural Sound Stereo Amplifier.
I'm very impressed by the high quality sound it delivers, and I really love its lights in buttons...
Is it better than Technics or Pioneer from the same era?
What's your opinion about this amp?
 

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yamaha goodness

I have a big brother of that amp, A-760, just has more frills...someone here has a link to it : http://gigapod.free.fr/Yamaha_A760.html

they weren't cheap, according to the old yamaha ad clips on that site.! I got mine for $30 on ebay..i guess they look unassuming..like a sleeper amp so to speak.

The german versions are a black chassis, with silver knobs.
 
In a word yes the early Yamaha stuff was a cut above the more mainstream brands. It was hard to find, did not have inflated list prices to accommodate ridiculous supposed discounts, was very well built, and sounded great. They also kept the specs conservative. For instance my CR 600 was rated at 30 WPC to make it's THD spec. Actually it would make 42 WPC, but not at the same THD%.
 
Yamaha A-450

I also collected this small amp today. Mint condition from an Yamaha fan.

I'm impressed by the sound of it, too. No Technics (or even Sonys) so far and from the same range (30W) performed better than it to me. The only thing I know it's a 1979 bottom line amplifier. HifiEngine doesn't have the SM. So I have no idea on the Bias adjustments.

I'll recap it completely.

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Nice looking and punchy amps, this Yamaha line. I had A-550, unfortunately for all its good sound it had reliability issues (cutting out shortly after being turned on) and I gave it back, got a Rotel instead. It did sound good, and definitely better than comparable Sony, Pioneer and Technics amps (and way better than later Yamaha amps for that matter).
I'll probably get me another one of those Yammies at some point.
 
Nice looking and punchy amps, this Yamaha line. I had A-550, unfortunately for all its good sound it had reliability issues (cutting out shortly after being turned on) and I gave it back, got a Rotel instead. It did sound good, and definitely better than comparable Sony, Pioneer and Technics amps (and way better than later Yamaha amps for that matter).
I'll probably get me another one of those Yammies at some point.
Mine is now completely recapped. For this unit I put a mix of KMF and SXE series from Nippon Chemicon 105*C I bought near home. A few higher capacitance values for the electrlytics. For the five 1uF electrolytics in this model, Vishay film caps were used. The 4558 opamp is also replaced with a OP2604 (a warmer Natural Sound now). A couple of multiturn Bias pots replaced the old and rust 1K ones. All the pots were cleaned of course.

The sound of this little one is fantastic. I keep it on for few days. One problem I found is that the copper traces are pretty weak and break easily. A good soldering iron is a must and loads of flux as well.

The A-550 is supposed to have "even better" performance, but these are just numbers. If it was me I'd keep that unit I try to fix it. Maybe it's just relay problem.

This series is wonderful... :music:

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Hello,

I know some time has passed by since this thread was opened but here it goes: Can someone help me with a capacitor list for this model? or even better, with a service manual...

Thank you in advance.
 
Same here, I just won one on eBay (takes my Yamaha count to 6) pretty keen to hear it and if anyone has any manual links :)
 
Hey there,

Congrats on your acquisition. It's a really nice amp, to bad I had to sell mine. Unfortunately I can't help you with the manual because I didn't managed to get one. All the best.
 
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