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Discussion: 1950's Sansui tube receives, amplifiers and transformers (where it all began) - media, manuals and more!

JimEGR

JimEGR

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
There is very little product documentation out there for this period.

The Best of Sansui has a couple of models documented -

tube-amps.net lists what is probably the most complete product list for this period -

I recently lucked upon what looks to be late a 50's product catalog. The exclusion of the Q-15 suggests the catalog is pre-1961. Much of the product is shown on tube-amps.net, but there is at least one product that is unique to this catalog - the V-60 power amp.

The catalog is printed on very thin, nearly transparent paper. You can see a shadow of the print from the backside of each page. I can't tell if it is frail from age, or this was just the nature of the paper it was printed on. It is very fragile. Would not survive page turning in a three ring binder it was punched for. I wish I knew it's story. Could have been in a company file for all of these years, or with a collector, relative or former employee - it is a mystery. Pretty fascinating to think of the history of this piece, and all these years later here it sits on my kitchen table in the USA - and now translated and digitized into the public domain for all of the globe.

I'll send a hi-res copy to the AK Database and post a link to it HERE once the upload is processed.

If you have any other products or documentation (or discussion) for this period please post it here.

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Very cool to see this full catalog, and all the detail it provides. I'm seeing some of these items for the very first time. Also nice to get the "straight skinny" on my SP-220 and Q-3535. A couple of interesting things I noted:

1. The main office address in Tokyo is different from that most commonly seen on their gear in the 70's and 80's. They obviously hadn't moved into the "big" building yet at the time this was printed.

2. They were selling automatic voltage stabilizers. I wonder if this was due to unreliable/unstable utility power in Japan at that time, or if this was just an early shot at providing "value add" accessories in house. First I'd ever seen these referenced as part of Sansui's product line.

3. The picture of the factory is a new insight, even if the photo quality is somewhat poor.

The paper this was printed on makes me think of rice paper, by your description. Seems to have been a common practice for things printed in Japan in that era, especially those items intended for mass distribution.
 
Sansuiman said:
Very cool to see this full catalog, and all the detail it provides. I'm seeing some of these items for the very first time. Also nice to get the "straight skinny" on my SP-220 and Q-3535. A couple of interesting things I noted:

1. The main office address in Tokyo is different from that most commonly seen on their gear in the 70's and 80's. They obviously hadn't moved into the "big" building yet at the time this was printed.

2. They were selling automatic voltage stabilizers. I wonder if this was due to unreliable/unstable utility power in Japan at that time, or if this was just an early shot at providing "value add" accessories in house. First I'd ever seen these referenced as part of Sansui's product line.

3. The picture of the factory is a new insight, even if the photo quality is somewhat poor.

The paper this was printed on makes me think of rice paper, by your description. Seems to have been a common practice for things printed in Japan in that era, especially those items intended for mass distribution.
Click to expand...

Yes interesting about the voltage stabilizers. A curiosity. A device of utility or performance. I think you are right about the paper being rice paper. It does not feel like a wood fiber paper.

Cool glimpse into the way-back machine of Sansui. Once the hi-res files show up in the AK database there will be more detail to see in the images.

That Q-101 would be a fun rig to own - and 100 watts!
 
@LBPete, yes, I was quite surprised to see anything solid state related from Sansui in 1959. As one who was born in the mid 70', I've always been of the impression that transistors didn't make it into consumer electronics in any significant way until the mid 1960's.

These would've been pretty cutting edge products prior to 1960, wouldn't they? I believe Sansui's first solid state "product" technically was the transistorized phono preamp in the original AU-111. The TR-707A was the first fully solid state model they offered, and that was in 1967.
 
@Sterling245 the amp you showed me was a Sansui Q-3535, right? The first post in this thread is the first time I've seen that model listed anywhere. So cool!
 
I also have a Q-3535 here awaiting something work. Quite the substantial amp, with a serious load of legendary Sansui iron. I have been of the understanding it was first offered in 1958, so now I'm unsure if it was introduced in 1955 or 58. Is there anything that shows the Q-3535 was in production as early as 1955? I ask primarily because I'd think a stereo amp would've been a bleeding edge design in 1955, when virtually everything in audio was still monaural, so far as I've ever seen.
 
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My 2 cents: Sansui 1956(I belive) Catalog

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Full Hi-res catalog in PDF has already been uploaded to HiFiengine and should appear there in a couple of days, beause I still haven't figured out how to upload a 50 Mb catalog to the AK database....
And some other Sansui papers from me on Hifiengine:
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