Low Powered, Good Performing Vintage Receivers

[dly66]

I have collected some vintage units, mostly fix and repairs to get back in good shape, mostly middle units but several top of the line from the early 70s when those would tend to be around 60 wpc.

Right now I have the Sherwood S-7200 into the workroom system, probably my favorite. Nice sound and something about the fm tuner section makes fm radio more appealing to listen too. Not as sensitive I think I need a better antenna setup for fm. Have a very good impression of the 2000A I have too. Picked up a Fisher 190B from a fellow AKer and at 14 wpc or so it has an appealing sound to it too. With the cozy workroom and the KLH 17s at that power seems like even it is not being worked very hard. Looks all original inside and other than the stereo beacon being out seems to work just fine. I have an SX-636 in the queue to restore but listening to it after resolving some noisy transistor issues it seems like it will likely be an appealing sounding unit too.

 

[Ibemiked]

I have the following 70’s receivers that sound good and don’t have a lot of WPC.
Sansui 3300 (35WPC) Great Sound A/B/C speaker outputs. Preout/Main in, “Quad ready”, lots of ins & outs, Quality piece. Great receiver. Highly recommend!
Pioneer SX-737 (35WPC) Great Sound, well built. Highly recommend if can be gotten for good price.
Sansui 350a (35WPC) Good sound, my particular one could use freshening up.
Pioneer SX-700T (35WPC) sounds good, not as good as the SX-737.
And also some good 80’s ones as well
Proton D940 (40WPC) Incredible sound! Would think it was atleast 100WPC! Can be used in bridged mono mode as well. Preout/Main In. Highly recommend buying this if you can find one!
Nakamichi TA-2A (50WPC) Great receiver! Also sounds like it’s much more than 50WPC. Quality receiver. Preout/Main in. Another one I would recommend snatching up for the right price.
Denon DRA-435R (50WPC) like the 2 above sounds great and always surprised by the 50WPC. Also has the good binding posts. These can be found for not a lot of money and are great to have around. Also has a preout. If you need a “cheap” receiver that performs, id get one of these.

 

[Bill Ashton]

15 watt Pioneer SX-424 driving Dynaco A-25's in the bedroom..
Works and sounds perfect.

Glad you reminded me! I have a Pioneer 626 I got from another member here ( out of rotation at this moment) that is a great sounding piece...20-30 watt catagory, but will drive old Bose 901's or the big B & O M75's without breaking a sweat (or getting warm).

Sansui G2000 or G3000 could be good in this slot as well...

 

[Bvers1]

Got a Sansui 551 that sounds really good on Heresy 1's. Could only go to 1/2 volume. Moved the Heresy inside the house, just testing in the Garage.. Got the 551 on HPM 40's now. Sounds good up to 1/2 volume, full volume goes down hill. My 1972 original Sherwood 7100A was really good hooked to EPI 50's. Old friends still brag on that setup. Got to fix the power switch. Got another 7100A from EBAY for spare parts. Have not tested yet, it may work. I'll look at the jumper idea in this forum. Got a Sherwood 7310 I need to test too. I need to get busy.

 

[uteman1011]

I have the following 70’s receivers that sound good and don’t have a lot of WPC.
Sansui 3300 (35WPC) Great Sound A/B/C speaker outputs. Preout/Main in, “Quad ready”, lots of ins & outs, Quality piece. Great receiver. Highly recommend!
Pioneer SX-737 (35WPC) Great Sound, well built. Highly recommend if can be gotten for good price.
Sansui 350a (35WPC) Good sound, my particular one could use freshening up.
Pioneer SX-700T (35WPC) sounds good, not as good as the SX-737.
And also some good 80’s ones as well
Proton D940 (40WPC) Incredible sound! Would think it was atleast 100WPC! Can be used in bridged mono mode as well. Preout/Main In. Highly recommend buying this if you can find one!
Nakamichi TA-2A (50WPC) Great receiver! Also sounds like it’s much more than 50WPC. Quality receiver. Preout/Main in. Another one I would recommend snatching up for the right price.
Denon DRA-435R (50WPC) like the 2 above sounds great and always surprised by the 50WPC. Also has the good binding posts. These can be found for not a lot of money and are great to have around. Also has a preout. If you need a “cheap” receiver that performs, id get one of these.

I just picked up a Pioneer SX-737 a couple months ago for $100. Really disappointing when I first connected it for test. It sounded terrible next to my Kenwood KR-3090 and HK-330b. It was super dirty so finally got it to the garage and cleaned it up, worked it with DeoxIT for 3 days! Hooked back up to the Heresy's and it really cranks! I have some left channel fuzz for about 3 minutes until it gets warmed up. I might have to get it in for work.

 

[lowercasee]

I just picked up a Pioneer SX-737 a couple months ago for $100. Really disappointing when I first connected it for test. It sounded terrible next to my Kenwood KR-3090 and HK-330b. It was super dirty so finally got it to the garage and cleaned it up, worked it with DeoxIT for 3 days! Hooked back up to the Heresy's and it really cranks! I have some left channel fuzz for about 3 minutes until it gets warmed up. I might have to get it in for work.

Maybe a failing speaker relay or noisy transistors.