Good day! So I got my hands on this middle sized Sansui AU-X317 stereo amplifier. Is it just me or there is absolutely no information about it? The only website that has some information is https://audio-database.com/SANSUI/amp/au-alpha317k-e.html . Looks totally the same, but here it says 150w, while mine draws 300w. I feel that 2x55w sounds pretty close to what it can output, while I can still be wrong. My location is in Europe, Norway, so it can be different from the one on the website. Maybe there is some people who know the equivalent of the US version? I would really like to get the service manual for this thing.
I own the Sansui AU-3900 (already restored), and it is just an amazing piece of art. Both sound and looks are perfect for my taste.
I know that alpha series Sansuis don’t get as much love as the older ones from 70s, since the sound is not the same anymore. Hooking it up to my Klipsch RF82 II it sounds somewhere right below the Technics SU8600 and Sansui AU3900. It lacks some life in the music it is producing. This unit is very clean on the inside and caps look fine at the first look. Looking further we see that caps used in this amp are Nippon Chemi Con (main filter caps, and some other), a few Jamicon and a few Taicon. Not to be rude or say that Sansui engineers don’t know what they do, I feel like this unit could get some improvement, especially choosing the better quality caps. I’ve done NAD C272 recap a few weeks ago, and they used exactly the same Jamicon caps. All of them, were dead, showing crazy high resistance/esr or very bad uF reading.
Do you guys think that this unit is worth keeping and restoring? or is it better to sell it and look for other Sansuis. As I said earlier, I love the AU3900. Using it daily for desktop with my Klipsch bookshelfs (RB61 I think). This AU-X317 is going to be used with the other system.
Adding a few pictures of it (disassembled at the moment).
I own the Sansui AU-3900 (already restored), and it is just an amazing piece of art. Both sound and looks are perfect for my taste.
I know that alpha series Sansuis don’t get as much love as the older ones from 70s, since the sound is not the same anymore. Hooking it up to my Klipsch RF82 II it sounds somewhere right below the Technics SU8600 and Sansui AU3900. It lacks some life in the music it is producing. This unit is very clean on the inside and caps look fine at the first look. Looking further we see that caps used in this amp are Nippon Chemi Con (main filter caps, and some other), a few Jamicon and a few Taicon. Not to be rude or say that Sansui engineers don’t know what they do, I feel like this unit could get some improvement, especially choosing the better quality caps. I’ve done NAD C272 recap a few weeks ago, and they used exactly the same Jamicon caps. All of them, were dead, showing crazy high resistance/esr or very bad uF reading.
Do you guys think that this unit is worth keeping and restoring? or is it better to sell it and look for other Sansuis. As I said earlier, I love the AU3900. Using it daily for desktop with my Klipsch bookshelfs (RB61 I think). This AU-X317 is going to be used with the other system.
Adding a few pictures of it (disassembled at the moment).
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