My New Baby... Pioneer SX-1280

The heck with the 1980. LOL. I am an original owner of the 1280, & it's not a big deal to have less power & 1 less uf knob. Love my baby!!! Enjoy

@dmar Exactly you won't find me crying into my beer over the few supposedly improvements in a Pioneer SX-1980. My Pioneer SX-1280 rocks my rock plenty.

I have both. (Two 1980s, actually.) The great thing about the dreadnaught level xx50's and xx80s is headroom and a few small picked nits notwithstanding, they all sound nearly identical. I have restored multiples of all of them and have kept at least one of every receiver from the 780 upward.
They're a little more neutral than the average Macs or Marantzes of the same era, but they all sound of a school that, to me means they all didn't fall far from the Gordon Gow/Frank McIntosh tree from which most of the better Japanese homage designs sprang. Underground magazines liked to throw
shade at them because of their ad revenue income streams, but with the hindsight of many decades, it's now obvious that they can stand toe-to-toe with any of the competing designs from that time to the present day. Enjoy your system and don't look back!