Curious about reputations of various 70s brands
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Blue Shadow
Waiting for Vintage Gear from this century
First two were old by the mid-70s, probably fading a bit in the market using their good name from the 60s making some gear that at least for Sherwood sounded good so folks looked to the bottom three, well saw the bottom three when they went to the stores.
Pioneer was in every market, warehouse and stores had piles and piles of it and they made one of everything or more so everyone wanted something Pioneer with all the advertising they did the big rack of gear they could impress with and such. Sansui was the one that had different looks. They were well liked and some preferred them over other brands. Kenwood, sort of the quiet manufacturer not making one of each but they had some good gear and all their stuff with tuners had great tuners as they made a pile of radio reception (all bands it seems) equipment for hobbyists and their HAM radio gear was great. They also made some statement pieces that were state-of-the-art for the audio world. The L-07 gear is fantastic still today, best tuner, great amps, turntable that today if found might sell for 3-grand. That is some good stuff.
But all three of those are part of what I considered the General Motors of audio along with a number of other brands that filled the shelves at the stores. Not the BMW, Porsche, Mercedes Benz or Ferrari. Just great general sale gear. The L-07 gear was such a big step up that this stuff would be in the higher echelon. This gear would fill the sound room with gear along with some of the higher end brands you did not mention.
Pioneer was in every market, warehouse and stores had piles and piles of it and they made one of everything or more so everyone wanted something Pioneer with all the advertising they did the big rack of gear they could impress with and such. Sansui was the one that had different looks. They were well liked and some preferred them over other brands. Kenwood, sort of the quiet manufacturer not making one of each but they had some good gear and all their stuff with tuners had great tuners as they made a pile of radio reception (all bands it seems) equipment for hobbyists and their HAM radio gear was great. They also made some statement pieces that were state-of-the-art for the audio world. The L-07 gear is fantastic still today, best tuner, great amps, turntable that today if found might sell for 3-grand. That is some good stuff.
But all three of those are part of what I considered the General Motors of audio along with a number of other brands that filled the shelves at the stores. Not the BMW, Porsche, Mercedes Benz or Ferrari. Just great general sale gear. The L-07 gear was such a big step up that this stuff would be in the higher echelon. This gear would fill the sound room with gear along with some of the higher end brands you did not mention.
the skipper
Professional Curmudgeon
Never heard of Sherwin but I think you mean "Fisher". That was a good brand through the 60's but slowly lost it's luster in the 70's. The last three were solid.
Blue Devil
Active Member
Oh wow you heard that too? Thought it was just me.
TomB19
Active Member
As best I can tell, Sansui, Kenwood, and Pioneer all made some epic quality gear that was so good, they were easily above the capability of speakers of the day. If the speakers of the day were as we have now, it may have made sense to be more discerning but I am proud to own equipment from all three of these manufacturers right now. My brother had an A-60, back in the day, that sounded well adequate and it's from a line known to be well inferior sounding to the AU line. He connected it to some department store speakers and good to go. 
I don't know anything about Fisher so I wont comment but some people I respect tell me Sherwood made some high end amps that would compete with anyone.
If you want to talk about tape, that changes things considerably. I'd say you should add Akai into the mix and you should remove the companies listed, except for Pioneer. Specifically, the Akai GX line with their glass heads were among the best.
There are a few Harmon Kardon cassette decks that were world beaters. They were as good as anything from Nakamichi, Pioneer, or Akai.
I will just say this about cassette decks... I've done endless A/B comparison of an HK CD391 vs a Sony TC-K630 and it took a long time A/B comparing with a pair of MDR-CD999 headphones (amazing headphones for the day and still hold up well) to decide there was an infinitesimal difference in favor of the CD391 using TDK SA cassettes. With Sony Metal Master cassettes, the two decks were either identical or an even smaller edge going to the Sony.
The Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck was a disappointment. Not because it was not great; it was. It was a disappointment because it didn't "blow away" everything else, as was the legend of the day in 1984.
I worked at an audio store in the 1980s and had a chance to audition a lot of gear, even taking some of it home. It was always a disappointment, with the exception of a few speakers that brought delight.
As best I can tell from my audio journey, brand allegiance is mostly a religion. Get yourself a good pair of speakers and some high end components from almost any manufacturer and you will be good to go. If you want to achieve that last 1% that comes from selecting the absolute best of everything, you will spend a ton of money and probably ruin your enjoyment of music, but specific brands and models will rise above the rest, albeit just barely.
A local audio dealer frequently uses the phrase, "it was like someone popped a cork and the music came out!" to describe components, cables, just about anything, actually. What a bunch of BS. He was a B&W/Arcam dealer and yes, that stuff sounded amazing but you could connect a high end Pioneer amp from 1980 to those B&W and they would have sounded a tiny bit different but just as good. I will point out there were some amazing speakers from other companies, also, even back then. Snell comes to mind. I'm going to throw in Heco, although I doubt many in North America have heard of them.
By the way, one of the speakers that most surprised me was the Bose 301. Yeah, I know they are ultra-low end but they sounded OK, provided a bit of thump, and retailed at something like 250 bucks. The value was a revelation, back then. We weren't spoiled with excellent, cheap, speakers like we are now. Most of the low end stuff, sold with systems, around here in the late 1970s were "house brands". Invariably, the crossovers were a single capacitor. They were pretty crap.
Classic speakers take more of an effort to love but they can be brought to a pretty nice place for those who take the time to re-design the crossover networks and perhaps swap in a modern tweeter.
As best I can tell, you can select the brand you lusted over, but couldn't afford the TOTL gear of, as a teen, and build a system with that gear today, have a ton of fun building it, and end up with a really great system.
I don't know anything about Fisher so I wont comment but some people I respect tell me Sherwood made some high end amps that would compete with anyone.
If you want to talk about tape, that changes things considerably. I'd say you should add Akai into the mix and you should remove the companies listed, except for Pioneer. Specifically, the Akai GX line with their glass heads were among the best.
There are a few Harmon Kardon cassette decks that were world beaters. They were as good as anything from Nakamichi, Pioneer, or Akai.
I will just say this about cassette decks... I've done endless A/B comparison of an HK CD391 vs a Sony TC-K630 and it took a long time A/B comparing with a pair of MDR-CD999 headphones (amazing headphones for the day and still hold up well) to decide there was an infinitesimal difference in favor of the CD391 using TDK SA cassettes. With Sony Metal Master cassettes, the two decks were either identical or an even smaller edge going to the Sony.
The Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck was a disappointment. Not because it was not great; it was. It was a disappointment because it didn't "blow away" everything else, as was the legend of the day in 1984.
I worked at an audio store in the 1980s and had a chance to audition a lot of gear, even taking some of it home. It was always a disappointment, with the exception of a few speakers that brought delight.
As best I can tell from my audio journey, brand allegiance is mostly a religion. Get yourself a good pair of speakers and some high end components from almost any manufacturer and you will be good to go. If you want to achieve that last 1% that comes from selecting the absolute best of everything, you will spend a ton of money and probably ruin your enjoyment of music, but specific brands and models will rise above the rest, albeit just barely.
A local audio dealer frequently uses the phrase, "it was like someone popped a cork and the music came out!" to describe components, cables, just about anything, actually. What a bunch of BS. He was a B&W/Arcam dealer and yes, that stuff sounded amazing but you could connect a high end Pioneer amp from 1980 to those B&W and they would have sounded a tiny bit different but just as good. I will point out there were some amazing speakers from other companies, also, even back then. Snell comes to mind. I'm going to throw in Heco, although I doubt many in North America have heard of them.
By the way, one of the speakers that most surprised me was the Bose 301. Yeah, I know they are ultra-low end but they sounded OK, provided a bit of thump, and retailed at something like 250 bucks. The value was a revelation, back then. We weren't spoiled with excellent, cheap, speakers like we are now. Most of the low end stuff, sold with systems, around here in the late 1970s were "house brands". Invariably, the crossovers were a single capacitor. They were pretty crap.
Classic speakers take more of an effort to love but they can be brought to a pretty nice place for those who take the time to re-design the crossover networks and perhaps swap in a modern tweeter.
As best I can tell, you can select the brand you lusted over, but couldn't afford the TOTL gear of, as a teen, and build a system with that gear today, have a ton of fun building it, and end up with a really great system.
I preferred Harmon-Kardon in that era.
Sherwood. Stupid autocorrect.
Ummm, Sony? Magnetbox? Sanyo?
Last edited:
goodolpg
Just an old fart trying to help.
The one with the heavy "tax".
the skipper
Professional Curmudgeon
I'll second that. If one had the power and room to PROPERLY place the 901's and your musical tastes mirrored what they did best, the 901's were excellent speakers but, for all intents and purposes, the 301's were great everyman speakers that did everything quite well. In fact, I'd say that still holds true today.
A23gt
Nobody special
Every manufacturer you listed made some fine receivers and amplifiers, but fisher wasn't at it's best during the 70s. Their heyday was the 50's and 60's.
Sherwood was high end audio from 58 to around 68 and a solid performer until they moved production to Korea in the late 70s (their Japanese models were still very good sound and quality wise, but never approaching the monster power output of the Japanese home brands.
My opinion is that until around 1972/1973 or so Sherwood put out superior products to most Japanese brands.After that timeframe the Japanese brands really start coming into their own. Sherwoods last gasp of higher end was the SEL and HP lines. The HP2000 being the best of the lot. The S9910 and CP110 were the last of the high quality receivers and fell short of Japan on power, but still sound great.
Pioneer, Sansui, and Kenwood made the best consumer audio ever during the mid to late 70s(Pioneer Spec comes to mind for seperates, Kenwood and Sansui for high quality integrated amps, and all of them for receivers). I would argue that their best receivers beat any receiver put out by McIntosh(all in one items like receivers were never really Macs thing) during that period and the were the equal of Marantz and HK.
For some reason I've been very long winded today. Must cut back on the caffeine.....
Sherwood was high end audio from 58 to around 68 and a solid performer until they moved production to Korea in the late 70s (their Japanese models were still very good sound and quality wise, but never approaching the monster power output of the Japanese home brands.
My opinion is that until around 1972/1973 or so Sherwood put out superior products to most Japanese brands.After that timeframe the Japanese brands really start coming into their own. Sherwoods last gasp of higher end was the SEL and HP lines. The HP2000 being the best of the lot. The S9910 and CP110 were the last of the high quality receivers and fell short of Japan on power, but still sound great.
Pioneer, Sansui, and Kenwood made the best consumer audio ever during the mid to late 70s(Pioneer Spec comes to mind for seperates, Kenwood and Sansui for high quality integrated amps, and all of them for receivers). I would argue that their best receivers beat any receiver put out by McIntosh(all in one items like receivers were never really Macs thing) during that period and the were the equal of Marantz and HK.
For some reason I've been very long winded today. Must cut back on the caffeine.....
xero-D-hero
Super Member
I'll vouch for Sansui & Kenwood... 
Bret P.
Bret P.
TMI LOL.
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