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Sansui AU-20000 vs Marantz 1300dc

kohngallery

kohngallery

New Member
I know posting this in the Sansui forum will yield biased responses, nonetheless does anyone have experience with both amps? I have both and I have to sell one. I just had the 1300dc repaired and I hooked it up in place of the AU-20000. I was expecting the "tube-like" warmth of the Marantz to appear, but frankly the Sansui sounded richer. Deeper midrange and wider soundstage. The Marantz 1300dc was recapped recently with new outputs on one channel. Does it need a break-in period? Both are being used exclusively for LPs, and mostly mono. They are connected to Sonab oa 2212s which have so many tweeters that everything leans toward treble. Thoughts?
 
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They are both great.

Sounds like you are enjoying / preferring that Sansui sound quite a lot though.

To me it would depend on the goal of the sale. Let your needs decide.

If you need more cash now, sell the one that will net you the most. Go with the market.
If you need to reduce a collection, keep the one you like better. Go with your heart.

It is currently a good time to sell as prices for vintage audio is rather high of late. It's a bit of a bubble now really.
You should do well.

And yes...a beak-in period for repaired and restored audio components is necessary.
Not sure if it's me or the gear getting broken-in though. I like to think it's the gear.
 
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Thanks. It makes sense. I think the Marantz is worth more right now. I really wanted to like it more...These are good problems to have.
 
im playing with a au-517 and Marantz 170dc. Both are fully recapped and i had the Marantz running as power amp with 517 as the preamp. Nice but after just going with the full integrated 517 , I feel it sounds better! Quite amazing on its own. I suspect the bigger au-20000 is impressive
 
kohngallery said:
Thanks. It makes sense. I think the Marantz is worth more right now. I really wanted to like it more...These are good problems to have.
Click to expand...

Yup.

BTW How are you planning to shift it?

If via eBay there are collectors in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil who, because of recent economic booms, would pay a pretty penny for a piece of vintage kit like that.
They were under dictatorships in the 70s and 80s so vintage stuff like that is rare and highly sought after.

For example: Here in Japan, a high school my wife worked at was in the process of throwing away an old broken turn table. a Micro DD-6 (known outside Japan as a Micro Seiki DD-40.
She asked if she could take it and they said OK.

It had some serious issues which I fixed.

It was a matter of good timing too as some financial problem popped up. (I think it was my wife needing to send in a payment to her grad school.)
So I put the DD-6 up for sale on eBay.

I knew how rare and coveted vintage audio from the 70s and 80s were in places like South America.
I also knew that certain countries economies in SA were booming at the time (about 5 years ago ). So I made sure to include those countries in my sale.

The player sold the first time up for the equivalent of 400 dollars (600 if you include shipping) to some luck guy in Argentina.

The sad part is that that player was really good.
I will replace it eventually. Soon.
 
The which sounds better question comes up all the time. As far as sound quality, our opinion really doesn't matter. All that matters is which sounds better to you. Exploring the sound of different pieces of vintage gear is one of the joys of this hobby. Certainly there are other considerations, condition, rareness, desirability, functionality, provenance or even how it was acquired all enter into the decision. We can help define some of those peripheral factors but not sound quality.

Nothing says you can't keep both. We can help with strategies to convince your significant other that having two, three, five, ten or more systems is perfectly normal.

- Pete
 
Thank you for the advice. I'm not sure how I will sell whatever I sell, but locally will give me less headaches. If something happens in shipping its a nightmare. And Customs is always opening boxes of heavy electronics. I'm going to hook up the Sansui AU-20000 and listen again. I'm simply shocked that the Marantz sounds so shrill compared to the Sansui. Perhaps the mono cartridge is an issue. I'm using a phono preamp on both receivers so it's not the phono section. I'll simply have to put myself a very tall drink and listen to albums for the next few hours.
 
kohngallery said:
Thank you for the advice. I'm not sure how I will sell whatever I sell, but locally will give me less headaches. If something happens in shipping its a nightmare. And Customs is always opening boxes of heavy electronics. I'm going to hook up the Sansui AU-20000 and listen again. I'm simply shocked that the Marantz sounds so shrill compared to the Sansui. Perhaps the mono cartridge is an issue. I'm using a phono preamp on both receivers so it's not the phono section. I'll simply have to put myself a very tall drink and listen to albums for the next few hours.
Click to expand...

Forgive me... but you are using a high dollar Stereo integrated to play your mono records on? Sell them both and get a great tube Mono amp to dedicate to your mono recordings.
 
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