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New to me Sansui 441

muchachos

muchachos

Active Member
Just got this little guy and well… wow. 11 watts per channel never sounded better. Great rich mids and Christmas tree lights - what’s not to love?

anyways, getting into it. The amp has a decent pop when I switch the speakers on, so I may need to look into replacing a suppressor cap somewhere. The insides are quite dusty and will need a good cleaning as usual. The main power knob seems to be stuck halfway off the switch inside. Try as I might I cannot remove the thing. There seem to be some scuffs on the face from someone trying to pry this knob off. It looks like it may be a case of the aluminum having bonded to the steel shaft, but I certainly hope not. Anyone come across this issue before with the xx1 series? Thanks in advance!
 

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Serial number for the real heads out there.
 

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Use a little penetrating oil on the knob shaft. It should slide off. I've added your serial number to the database. Your 441 was built in January of 1975, the 37th unit off production line 02 that month.

- Pete
 
There is a British guy on youtube who says the 441 is one of his favorite Sansui receivers. He has all xx1 series and prefers the 441. I just bought a 771 , the tuner was not working. Fixed it by replacing a transistor in the power supply. It sounds great driving a set of jbl 4411’s . Definitely try some penetrating oil if you can work onto the shaft. Try pushing in too to break it loose. I have a knob puller that helps apply even pressure. Hope you don’t break the control .
 
LBPete said:
Use a little penetrating oil on the knob shaft. It should slide off. I've added your serial number to the database. Your 441 was built in January of 1975, the 37th unit off production line 02 that month.

- Pete
Click to expand...

Will give that a go. Didn't know you could date them that precisely based on the serials. I have a G-4700 as well which from your chart seems to be a November '79 model. Nice work on that.

billyz said:
There is a British guy on youtube who says the 441 is one of his favorite Sansui receivers. He has all xx1 series and prefers the 441. I just bought a 771 , the tuner was not working. Fixed it by replacing a transistor in the power supply. It sounds great driving a set of jbl 4411’s . Definitely try some penetrating oil if you can work onto the shaft. Try pushing in too to break it loose. I have a knob puller that helps apply even pressure. Hope you don’t break the control .
Click to expand...

Breaking the control is not an option! The steel shaft seems pretty solidly built, so if the knob breaks it's fixable. The shaft, well, it's fixable but the PITA factor increases dramatically. I have a G-4700 as well, which is quite nice but not quite as warm as this one based on initial impressions. Very powerful though at 50 WPC and the tuner works really well.
 
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Thing came off with some penetrating oil. Knob sits flat now. Half of the spline at the end was broken off, and a little piece of half round had been shunted in there. Even with half broken off, it works quite well. Thanks for the help!
 

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Well if this one doesn’t look clean inside… playing right now and it sounds great. Going to have to figure out the tuner though, as it doesn’t pick up anything past 105 on the fm dial.
 

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Was wondering if some had been replaced as they're all very clean looking. There's a post on Canuck with some interior shots which look fairly similar too, so they may just have aged well. To be clear, the tuner section was dusty as all hell, but the power/pre section was almost dust free - possibly due to being further from the vent slots on top. I know nothing about the ownership history, so that doesn't help much either! Had it playing Sinatra at the Sands last night and the only word that comes to mind to describe the sound is lush. Really well suited to jazz/big band. Going to try it out with some Warren Zevon and Neil Young later to see how it does with some rock material.
 
The 441 has very different amplifier architecture than other Sansui models of the era. It uses two Sanyo STK-016 chip amplifiers instead of discrete components. I don't know of any other Sansui products of the era that use them.

- Pete
 
I have it's smaller brother the 331 & it uses the same Sanyo chip amplifiers. A bit cheap looking on the outside but sure sounds great.
What amazes me about it is however is the tuner which pulls in every station better than any other dedicated tuner or other receivers I have.
 
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