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Accidental Akai AA 7000S Ebay buy - keyboard mash!

Homer4beer

Homer4beer

Well-Known Member
So,

I've been watching this Akai AA 7000S amp on Ebay and tonight up pops a reminder that the auction ends in 15 mins.

The current bid is $200 which seems a good price so I wait until 3 mins to go and put a max bid of $280 on it. I am winning the auction with 5 secs to go at $255 when I get an outbid notice.

Frantically button mashing an amount of $300 for max bid I hit submit with under 1 sec to go. The auction ends and I see a winning amount of $365 and think I lost it but no dramas, I didn't want to spend that much anyway. Then I take a closer look and realise I was the winner!

Then it dawns on me that in my hast to type in $300 I must have mashed out a figure of $400 max bid.

Oh well......I'm sure I've paid too much now and wonder if I can resell and get my money back if I need to.

It sure is a nice unit though!

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Maybe.

I can't find a service manual for it so far just in case there are issues. It's not on the usual sites.

Suggestions?
 
This is why you put down your max bid and walk away - that way you don’t get caught up with bidding fever.
Enjoy your new amp!
 
True.

Yes hopefully I will enjoy the amp. I can't find a lot on it apart from one website singing its praises.

Apparently very very rare.

Amplifiers That Have Preamp-Tone to Volume then to Power Amp.
This is potentially the best amp design if it's very hard to do as you have to design to avoid clipping on maximum tone. The benefit is the preamp is at full volume always & the sound is better for it, instead of a low-level signal after volume going through tone as there will be irregularities beyond what we cover here, impedance varying & sound balance differs by level.

So what other amps put Volume after Preamp? The 1966 Akai AA-7000 sounded great for that design
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That's funny, I did the same thing not too long ago. At the last nano second I just hit one of those bid increase buttons at the bottom and then the auction was done. I was bummed that I lost but then I didn't.

That looks like an interesting amp. What are the details on it? $65 extra for something rare that you like isn't too bad all things considered.
 
Well $65 plus shipping :idea:

It's very hard to find info on. More from the few websites I've found that mentions it.


http://select45rpm.com/pages/hifi/hifi-blog.html#6

We had two of the wonderful 1966 Akai AA7000 receiver, both were in awful condition inside, one fairly sold as 'not working' as a resistor smoked so they wisely left it after unwisely plugging it in. The second was said to be working, a total lie as transistor legs rusted away & idiot unsoldered transformer wires that we only redid knowing the other one here at the same time.
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A repost of the review.

http://select45rpm.com/pages/hifi/vintage-hifi-reviews.html#142

AS-ORIGINAL: Very Good. UPGRADED: Excellent. 40w.
CC, Transformer coupled. After success with this brand finding the 1970 Akai AA-8500 below, to look out for more. This is a slimline designer looking receiver, the sort of modern design Bang & Olufsen will have seen. Thick wood sides with a dust trapping solid cast grille. Fully featured receiver, if no Filters which is unusual but these can compromise a design. First appears in Hi-Fi News April 1967 in the 'Audio Fair Preview' shows a picture, price was £147 5s, despite Akai having a London showroom as did Sony, they mostly sold Tape machines. On getting the not-great circuit diagram, as it's 1966 it has Nuvistors for the Tuner stage still. The circuit in transistors is Phono x2, Tone-Pre x1, Power Amp driver x3, Transformer coupling splitter to Output pair. The schematic is awful blurry with little detail to know even the components which makes it tricky. Appears in the 1967/68 HFYB as '40w music' for £156, if it's 40w RMS from giving 27v clean sine & the brochures say it weighs 13kg which is heavy for the slim size & the high price is in the range of the Fisher receivers. Not expecting this to be easy, but certainly worthwhile. The AA-7000 & AA-5000 brochure suggests the AA-7000 has germanium outputs if they aren't, the slighly later AA-5000 seems an updated design with silicons & no coupling transformer but only 8kg. The AA-7000 is actually very large 52cm wide, 11cm high & 44cm deep. On getting our new coffee table, aka this huge amp, it's very impressive 1" thick solid wood sides aka veneered ply, huge glass tuner display, Silicon outputs the same as the Sansui 3000A had the Bendix B170008 'orange'. The tuner has a space for '102' but even the ad shows it's not included, strange. The top is in two parts with the power amp output stage on the front one with 2 cable plugs. We've seen some stylish Hifi but this one will have delighted the women as it looks so cool, not some plain box thing, this is a designer piece. The transformer is a block one the full height, the size you see in 50w amps. The recess for the AM antenna which is usually a pain on receivers is mostly out of the way. Multivoltage switch & plug under a small cover to set to 6 voltages, ours was sold for 110v, can't see many UK buyers after this in 1966. The input phono sockets are the good not conical ones, Muting & FM gain switches, Speaker out is like the AA-8500 via 6.3mm mono jacks or more typical screw connectors. Amps like this need to be in Museums as Mid Century classics like Eames chairs, why is Hifi so underappreciated for design? All amps pre 1969 seem to need a full recap, after that the quality must have improved, but a 1966 amp needs a full rebuild. Still has the small grey hollow resistors like valve amps use & some are handpainted for the value lines. The power amp top lid section has 'Riken' large capacitors called "Dry Electrolytic" which doesn't quite make sense, cutting them open shows they are a typical electrolytic cap if dry & slightly crusty from age if smells different. Amps like this keep our interest in this alive. To get to the fascia etc, lids off, sides off, tuner part off & then 8 bulbs which are 6.3v bayonet type. To be extra careful of the tuner glass blue-grey & white lettering is important: if it looks 'bubbly' it'll wash off with just water as ours did, we know how to redo it. To recap this to our standards is a tricky one too, the 4 large caps are one single, one double & two triple so 9 caps in 4 cases. This amp has had a full recap on all but the 4 largest caps including the tuner, reveals an excellent sound, wide stereo & deep full bass shows it certainly is worth the effort. We left the 150v tuner ones as original as they get light use & having cut similar apart, they are still good, if it could be redone fully. The 3 larger caps were barely damp but not crusty so one you could get away with using occasionally. There are two minor versions, the side boards are solid veneered ply on the early ones, later the ply was machined out on the inside, holes in the metal sides made & metal runners added on the top edge which are vents for the inside, this is original & appears a rarer version from ones found online. There isn't much heat inside only the NuVistors, the top lid is the amp heatsink. The later one adds a resistor & transistor to the output stages, but the glue rusts the transistor & ruins it. As the manual doesn't show this addition, it appears to be the nearly the same as the Sansui 3000A output stage adding stability, if it works fine without it. The sound as recapped & upgraded on the Tannoy Golds is extremely good, rating a very high Excellent. The solid bassline this amp has as well as sweet crisp treble & a midrange smoothness & dynamics that rivals our valve amps. A tricky amp to get right, but a real winner if you have the space for it. BUY-RAW RATING: Will need some recapping as too old & it's got other tricky issues, but well worth the effort.REBUILD RATING: We've had two of these, to rebuild is an advanced job as so much needs redoing. COOL RATING: 9 the first 'designer' styled Hifi, unique looks with high quality build, made to impress. Treat it kindly & it'll not disappoint. (2015-16)
 
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Probably not. If it was was worth more bidders would have stepped up and outbid your $400. You will also have to deal with the eBay selling and PayPal fees. $450 is what you will need to sell it for on eBay to break even.

I use esnipe.
 
Wow, I so disagree with these posters here and am glad you searched around and found the place that comments on this amp, the Akai AA7000.

I'll drop this link you already mentioned,

Vintage Hi-Fi Amplifiers 1957-1971: Reviews by select45rpm - Page 1

... and you should see this amp is right up there with the 1965 TA 1120. That's good company to be in.

I wished I could have been around to talk you into keeping it or selling it to me.

I won't tell you what I shelled out for my Sony STR 6120.

Add:

"We bring out the Best from Amplifiers by Upgrading which is strictly Custom Work. Early Transistor designs like the 1965 Sony TA-1120 & 1966 Akai AA7000 are luxurious price no object designs made from scratch based on Valve Amp designs. Those two amps are certainly a few of the best in vintage, if they need a total rebuild to be their best, they are over 50 years old now. For the mastery of the designer, a pure sound is possible, with huge effortless dynamics. Treble so pure, Midrange so effortless & Deep Bass. The Sony & Akai look great too as money was spent on making them look great, the Akai especially is probably the first "Designer" Hifi & should be heralded as an important Design, but it's been forgotten."
 
Or trade it for five dozen eggs, three pounds of bacon, and a large canister of coffee.
 
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