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Reference 450r by Quadraflex

M

maruchan

Active Member
I finally found my first vintage receiver in my area. Went to the local thrift store and saw this reference 450r for $10, at first i thought i was a kenwood super eleven.. But when i got up close was smaller and was was some brand i never heard of...

I was a little weary becasue i never heard of this brand. but man was it heavy at least 40 to 50 ponds, and said made in japan in the back so i bought it.. and carried that thing on the bus, and walked 5 blocks to my apartment.. ha... hooked it up and sounds great, better then my jvc sr100...

here are some pics of it....
 

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Not a bad reciever, 60wpc I believe and a decent tuner section. Nice score for $10.00. Is that a Technics SL-D2 I see on top?
 
You must not be in California.
Quadraflex was a brand sold by Pacific Stereo.

I have had a few of their speakers, but never a receiver.
I would have bought it for $10 also.

Rob
 
Quadreflex is a good store branded unit and since the store was into audio, they had some real idea what they were doing. I have a silver faced earlier Q-flex. Fun machines :)
 
Concept was the higher end line, Reference by Quadraflex was their mid-line house product.

The 450R is a very solid receiver and I always liked the cosmetics for this series.

I've owned (at least briefly) the 085R, 180R, 240R, 450R. Haven't have a 650R yet, that one might have stayed in the permanent collection for awhile depending on how the MOSFET design sounds compared to the smaller bipolar designs.

Solid score!

John
 
I have three Quardraflex 650 FET-Rs, one 450R and two 300Rs. I love all of them. They not only sound great but they look awesome. They can also be had for next to nothing. They are definitely under the radar pieces but I think their sound matches up pretty damn close to the Pioneer SX-**80 and SX-**50 series. When and if I see more for a good price I will continue to buy them.
 
doh! I forgot the 300R, had one of those too. These are great receivers to keep and use, not so great for recovering any investment in with the exception possibly of the 650 FET-R which seems to get some buyer interest when it shows up.

The one I have never seen anywhere, except on my repair bench, is the tiny 085R which is an AC/DC design good for about 10 watts produced from a pair of UPC1185H IC's. I've had that little bugger since 1978 and it is still doing its audio duty day in and day out as a bench amp/preamp/tuner. I modified this one many years ago so the tape out functions as a pre-out, so I can use it as a source as well as an amp or receiver.

John

elgato8905 said:
I have three Quardraflex 650 FET-Rs, one 450R and two 300Rs. I love all of them. They not only sound great but they look awesome. They can also be had for next to nothing. They are definitely under the radar pieces but I think their sound matches up pretty damn close to the Pioneer SX-**80 and SX-**50 series. When and if I see more for a good price I will continue to buy them.
Click to expand...
 
elgato8905 said:
They can also be had for next to nothing.
Click to expand...

Recently picked up an old 767 for the proverbial "next to nothing." Thought it would be good for parts for future projects. But when I powered it up at home the damned thing worked. All of it.

What's more, it pulled in FM stations quite strongly -- BEFORE I hooked up an antenna or even a length of wire. This Quadraflex obviously doesn't know I'm in a very difficult reception area that challenges my other receivers.

From what I gather, the Reference and Concept lines only got better. Impressive. Obviously, I won't be mining this thing for parts.

Wasn't supposed to work -- dammit.
 
jdurbin1 said:
The one I have never seen anywhere, except on my repair bench, is the tiny 085R which is an AC/DC design good for about 10 watts produced from a pair of UPC1185H IC's. I've had that little bugger since 1978 and it is still doing its audio duty day in and day out as a bench amp/preamp/tuner. I modified this one many years ago so the tape out functions as a pre-out, so I can use it as a source as well as an amp or receiver.

John
Click to expand...

And DOH!!! I forgot I used to have the 180R too before I gave it to a friend. I actually saw the 085R for sale one time on ebay about a year and a half ago. I was REALLY tempted to bid on it just because it was so small and cool looking and I already knew what the bigger Rs could do. It sold for almost nothing. I still wish I had bought it.

And yes you're right jd... They should not be bought to resell. Only to listen. Even the 650s don't sell for much. I have always wondered why this line has never gotten the respect it deserves.
 
650 FET R fan here... Love the look and sound of the receiver, even if the knobs and window are plastic...
 
All Quadraflex and Concept products were made by CBS Audio Products (we were owned by CBS at the time), for us. It wasn't so much that Quadraflex was midline and Concept was higher end- we were phasing out Quadraflex and replacing it with Concept. We wanted something that looked more competitive against the Pioneer and Sansui stuff, and the Quadraflex product just wasn't cutting it in that department.

That's a great receiver you got for yourself. Beauty!
 
I think pretty simple... insufficient brand awareness. Nobody that lived back east or in other countries likely ever saw one. Compare that to Pioneer, Sansui, Marantz etc. that had worldwide exposure and weren't house brands to boot.

The Concept line was demonstrably better and therefore is more collected and better known, at least within the internet-connected vintage audio enthusiast community. But, compare the price on a TOTL Concept 16.5 vs. an SX-1980, Sansui G33000 etc. and the lack of widespread brand awareness becomes visible again.

My $0.02 on this anyway... if I ever decide to give up my 085R, I'll drop you a line - shame to be one model short of having the whole line in one place :D

John

elgato8905 said:
And DOH!!! I forgot I used to have the 180R too before I gave it to a friend. I actually saw the 085R for sale one time on ebay about a year and a half ago. I was REALLY tempted to bid on it just because it was so small and cool looking and I already knew what the bigger Rs could do. It sold for almost nothing. I still wish I had bought it.

And yes you're right jd... They should not be bought to resell. Only to listen. Even the 650s don't sell for much. I have always wondered why this line has never gotten the respect it deserves.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah but still... If you're going by sound alone (or even looks...) the Quadraflex blackface Rs are pretty damn sweet.
 
Totally agree... other thing I left out in my analysis was original price, I don't actually know what that looked like for Quadraflex or Concept but my guess is as house brands they probably did not price these as high as some of the name brand competition. That would tend to lead to lower perceived value which might linger for many years.

I would love to hear more about the pricing from our resident expert, PacificStereo.

John
 
Well, if you guys give me a couple of days (I'm out of town), I can look at my old "book of Everything," which covers a vast amount of the products we sold, both current and discontinued. If you have a question about pricing on a specific model, I can help.

The black Quadraflex (and Reference) stuff was beautiful in an era of silver-faced competition, but as a "house" brand, it always had less cachet than big Japanese names like Pioneer. The people that KNEW, loved their Quadraflex products, and continued to buy them. The Concept line was specifically designed to make people go WOW and think about buying one of those rather than some other product.

The margins were significantly higher on our brands than the mainline stuff, so selling a Quadraflex or Concept made money for us in two ways- one as an equipment manufacturer, the other as higher gross profit in the store at sale time. Coupled with the fact that it was very good stuff, it was very much a win for everyone involved, including the customer.

Quadraflex: There was no "magic" combination for speakers and products. All of those products were very capable, and speaker selection really boiled down to customer taste and sophistication, his/her listening environment, and very often, WAF.
 
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