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Talk me out of a 8080 or 9090 please :-)

Guido57 said:
Not to get too off track, but the 'value' of vintage, in terms of sound quality vs money spent can vary widely as shown by the fact the OP has a usable $35 5000x. I love my 5000a's but I would never have paid what what might be called Ebay prices. Admittedly I had to get a lot better with a soldering iron for at least one of them.
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agreed - I just bought some new gear (see above) and while under "eBay" prices, they weren't $35 either unfortunately!
 
I have both an Eight and a 9090, and both were fully restored by the same person (thanks Chuck). I think I prefer the 9090 to the Eight but I'd need to set up a back to back comparison. That said, I prefer my SX-1250 to either.
 
Well, you got some nice pieces. I'm looking forward to hearing about your listening impressions. I've had both the SA-9100 and the AU-5500. And a model Six. I liked my 2000X better than the Six. I had a MitsubishiDA-A10DC that was too bright. So I used the 2000X as the preamp section and there was wonderful synergy. It was really quite astonishing! I didn't like the tuner of the 2000X through the Mitz, but phono and cd sounded fantastic! I don't remember what speakers I had at the time. They moved out together pretty quickly after that.
 
Pioneer SA-9100 first in, Deoxit-ed and hooked up - very nice piece, extreme quality on the front, certainly sounds different than Sansui. I'd say Sansui is more in your face. 9100 gets hot-ish, but as you can see it's on the top of a shelf so gets plenty of air, so not too concerned there. Put in the office to the Timeframes (6 ohms). Speaker B level set interesting - was the point of that that you might have a set behind you that you wanted to turn down or something?

4xcmPHH.jpg
 
redondo2018 said:
Pioneer SA-9100 first in, Deoxit-ed and hooked up - very nice piece, extreme quality on the front, certainly sounds different than Sansui. I'd say Sansui is more in your face. 9100 gets hot-ish, but as you can see it's on the top of a shelf so gets plenty of air, so not too concerned there. Put in the office to the Timeframes (6 ohms). Speaker B level set interesting - was the point of that that you might have a set behind you that you wanted to turn down or something?

4xcmPHH.jpg
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The Level Set reduces the volume on all outputs. Pioneer SA-8100 has the same feature, as does Sansui AU-9900/11000/20000. I like it. It allows you to use more of the volume knob range when set to one of the higher attenuation levels.

I had both the SA-8100 and 9100. The 9100 in particular gets warm. IMHO, Pioneer made poor choices for heat dissipation. On the 9100 there is not a lot of room inside, and the transformer is right in the middle of the unit surrounded by boards. Two of them are the amp boards, which are mounted on the heatsinks for the output transistors, so if you push the amp, you will slowly cook the components on the amp boards. Lastly, the PS board is on the bottom with no clear path for air movement to cool the components. You almost always find the PS boards scorched around the transistor heatsinks. I liked the sound of them, but I didn't care much for the internal design.
 
KeithD said:
The Level Set reduces the volume on all outputs. Pioneer SA-8100 has the same feature, as does Sansui AU-9900/11000/20000. I like it. It allows you to use more of the volume knob range when set to one of the higher attenuation levels.

I had both the SA-8100 and 9100. The 9100 in particular gets warm. IMHO, Pioneer made poor choices for heat dissipation. On the 9100 there is not a lot of room inside, and the transformer is right in the middle of the unit surrounded by boards. Two of them are the amp boards, which are mounted on the heatsinks for the output transistors, so if you push the amp, you will slowly cook the components on the amp boards. Lastly, the PS board is on the bottom with no clear path for air movement to cool the components. You almost always find the PS boards scorched around the transistor heatsinks. I liked the sound of them, but I didn't care much for the internal design.
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yeah, those boards are ridiculously close to the heatsinks, I agree there for sure. Definitely not an amp I will be leaving on when not in use. thanks for the info on the level set, seems useful
 
KeithD said:
The Level Set reduces the volume on all outputs. Pioneer SA-8100 has the same feature, as does Sansui AU-9900/11000/20000. I like it. It allows you to use more of the volume knob range when set to one of the higher attenuation levels.

I had both the SA-8100 and 9100. The 9100 in particular gets warm. IMHO, Pioneer made poor choices for heat dissipation. On the 9100 there is not a lot of room inside, and the transformer is right in the middle of the unit surrounded by boards. Two of them are the amp boards, which are mounted on the heatsinks for the output transistors, so if you push the amp, you will slowly cook the components on the amp boards. Lastly, the PS board is on the bottom with no clear path for air movement to cool the components. You almost always find the PS boards scorched around the transistor heatsinks. I liked the sound of them, but I didn't care much for the internal design.
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There is the level set on the front, but I think he's talking about the volume control for the 'b' speaker pair on the back of the unit that allows you, for instance, to balance speakers of various efficiencies or power ratings independent of the ring on the front. The scorching on the power supply 'b' board is due to the two resistors being in contact with that board (at least that's where he scorching was on mine- it was not around the transistor base- I slightly elevated those resistors during a recap hoping to prevent that) and also, with a recap the caps that normally touch those resistors are smaller diameter than the original and (I'd think) would allow for better airflow, but I agree that the scorching board thing isn't an indicator of the best design but I also think it wouldn't have happened had the resistors not been in direct contact with the board, they DID elevate at least one other resistor on that board. On the other hand, I have had two of these now, both of them worked upon first power-up, which does say something about how well made they are and how they've stood the test of time even with those faults. I think the 9100 is a much better than average sounding amplifier, and I especially enjoy the bass response.

One other thing - unless I'm misunderstanding you (or the unit), neither of the power supply boards are on the bottom of the amp. The power supply A board is mounted on one side of the transformer, and the power supply b board is on the left hand side, both mounted vertically. The only PCB I know of on the bottom of the unit is the protection board. The chassis is grooved out under the output transistor heatsinks and perforated on the bottom of the unit and vented on the top as well. It is very densely packed. I have not encountered any amp board scorching or heat related issues, and only one of the two amp boards is next to the transformer, the other is several inches away (separated from the transformer by the large filter caps).
 
KeithD said:
"Basic" for Sansui, but still miles ahead of the "best" of what other brands offered. I had a TOTL Pioneer quad receiver, which I thought was great, but once I heard the Sansui QR-4500, I dumped my Pioneer. Have you listened to the "Synthesized quad" of the 4500? I think it enhances almost all genres of music (though not classical so much). It has a nice synthesized "surround" effect. What you get with the later models (such as the QRX-x001 series), is enhanced channel separation in surround mode, and an actual "Hall" effect in Hall mode, which is suitable for classical and some other types of music. The QR-4500 has two "Hall" settings, but I find they are no different from the "Surround" setting. Don't know why that is, or if it originally had a different sound, but did not age well? Some have tinkered with the quad boards and gotten a Hall effect from the early units.

However, quad is not for everyone. Some people just don't like it. That's ok. I would just say it is a very different experience, and one worth trying. Your QR-4500 will give a very good synthesized quad experience. It's about 80% of the way there compared to later QRX units such as my QRX-8001. If I had to pick just one unit to keep of all my gear, it would be the QRX-8001. It can do stereo and has the various quad modes, and sounds great playing all genres.
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I have to admit I’m pretty ignorant on this subject but what about music for the quad? From what little research I’ve done most media is R-R. So now do you have to go out and get an expensive (because it has to sound good) R-R deck?
 
merder said:
One other thing - unless I'm misunderstanding you (or the unit), neither of the power supply boards are on the bottom of the amp. The power supply A board is mounted on one side of the transformer, and the power supply b board is on the left hand side, both mounted vertically. The only PCB I know of on the bottom of the unit is the protection board. The chassis is grooved out under the output transistor heatsinks and perforated on the bottom of the unit and vented on the top as well. It is very densely packed. I have not encountered any amp board scorching or heat related issues, and only one of the two amp boards is next to the transformer, the other is several inches away (separated from the transformer by the large filter caps).
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Yes, and that protection board is a real bitch to service!! Whoever designed it needs to have their ass whipped! Just saying.
 
Young46 said:
I have to admit I’m pretty ignorant on this subject but what about music for the quad? From what little research I’ve done most media is R-R. So now do you have to go out and get an expensive (because it has to sound good) R-R deck?
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This is getting pretty far off topic from the OP, but no need to get R-R for quad. Using "synthesized" quad from stereo sources gets you 80% of the way there to the quadraphonic experience. The only thing better is true 4 (or 5.1) channel source material that was well engineered (i.e. good choices were made for which channels were placed where in the multichannel mastering - some are better than others.) To get that with vintage Sansu quad receivers/amps, the least expensive route is getting a CD/DVD player that can play SACDs (around $100 used) that also have 4 or 5.1 channel analog outputs. Then buy multichannel SACDs and enjoy the experience. Selection isn't large, and most new titles are classical or jazz, but a good selection of classic rock can be found.

You can also go the route of SQ or QS encoded vinyl, though the QR receives will only decode QS. You need a QRX receiver or QA integrated amp to decode SQ.
 
Among my Sansui collection (9090db, G8000, 881 and 800) the Sansui 800 gets played the most at this point as it fits in my use case the best, low volume late night listening of Jazz, Blues, and vocals.
 
KeithD said:
This is getting pretty far off topic from the OP, but no need to get R-R for quad. Using "synthesized" quad from stereo sources gets you 80% of the way there to the quadraphonic experience. The only thing better is true 4 (or 5.1) channel source material that was well engineered (i.e. good choices were made for which channels were placed where in the multichannel mastering - some are better than others.) To get that with vintage Sansu quad receivers/amps, the least expensive route is getting a CD/DVD player that can play SACDs (around $100 used) that also have 4 or 5.1 channel analog outputs. Then buy multichannel SACDs and enjoy the experience. Selection isn't large, and most new titles are classical or jazz, but a good selection of classic rock can be found.

You can also go the route of SQ or QS encoded vinyl, though the QR receives will only decode QS. You need a QRX receiver or QA integrated amp to decode SQ.
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Thanks for the explanation. I never knew all that. I couldn’t afford TOTL equipment back in the day and quad was definitely out of my price range.
 
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