Krosya
Well-Known Member
Just like many of us here, I like to seek out and try out different items - be that speakers, tape decks and of course - receivers/amps. Of course, there are Big Boys club members - Pioneer, Sansui, Yamaha...And I have a lot of respect for those, but often some smaller brands are being overlooked. We often see that with Fisher, RadioShack, Sanyo, Toshiba, even Akai and Optonica, yet many of these "lesser" brands are often at least as good or even better than the Big Boys, - sound and built quality. I have proven that to myself time and time again. I have tried Pioneer, Yamaha, Sansui, etc and while they were very good, but I had more issues with them than other brands - talking receivers and amps only now. Having tried several other brands like RS, Optonica, Akai, Optonica and Nikko I am always on a lookout for these types of the underrdogs as to my ear they sound at least as good if not better and proven to be well built and more reliable.
So, here we come to the new addition to my family of vintage receivers:
Small, but heavy and well built, simple yet interestingly enough:
two selections for the TT - not something you see on a budget receiver. I dont know much about it's specs, but I guess its about 15-20 Watts per channel.
And its much bigger brother:
This one is supposed to be 65 watts per channel, but sounds like it may be even more. Both have very good built - comparable to Pioneers, etc.Solid, heavy, well put together with smooth controls, nice knobs, switches, buttons.
Both have great tuner section - better than most of my other receivers, very very good phono stage and produce crazy good soundstage and overall sound is superb - very detailed, clean, less warm than some others, but not as cool as Pioneers. Smaller receiver almost sounds like tubes. I love the fact that larger one has 2 TT inputs AND separate control for the mids - not just lows and highs, plus some other controls as well.
Both had minor issues when I got them, but after some cleaning and minor tweaking - work well now and I think both are keepers. At least for now, unless I find some new toys I like even better.
Bottom line - dont be a snob and dont be afraid to check out some obscure brands as there are many surprises there.
So, here we come to the new addition to my family of vintage receivers:
Small, but heavy and well built, simple yet interestingly enough:
two selections for the TT - not something you see on a budget receiver. I dont know much about it's specs, but I guess its about 15-20 Watts per channel.
And its much bigger brother:
This one is supposed to be 65 watts per channel, but sounds like it may be even more. Both have very good built - comparable to Pioneers, etc.Solid, heavy, well put together with smooth controls, nice knobs, switches, buttons.
Both have great tuner section - better than most of my other receivers, very very good phono stage and produce crazy good soundstage and overall sound is superb - very detailed, clean, less warm than some others, but not as cool as Pioneers. Smaller receiver almost sounds like tubes. I love the fact that larger one has 2 TT inputs AND separate control for the mids - not just lows and highs, plus some other controls as well.
Both had minor issues when I got them, but after some cleaning and minor tweaking - work well now and I think both are keepers. At least for now, unless I find some new toys I like even better.
Bottom line - dont be a snob and dont be afraid to check out some obscure brands as there are many surprises there.
