Which Sansui to pick up?

[Sansuiman]

^ I've been intrigued by the TU-X1 and almost bought one a couple of times in the past. But, FM radio in the St. Louis market is a wasteland now and has almost nothing worth listening to anymore. So, a tuner of the X1's caliber would be wasted here. And at what they are fetching, I can't justify it as a museum piece.

It is an exceptional tuner, and perhaps the most advanced of it's era. I'm happy with my TU-9900 and 919's though, as seldom as I listen to terrestrial broadcast anymore. I do understand the fascination from a design and engineering perspective though.

 

[kevzep]

^ I've been intrigued by the TU-X1 and almost bought one a couple of times in the past. But, FM radio in the St. Louis market is a wasteland now and has almost nothing worth listening to anymore. So, a tuner of the X1's caliber would be wasted here. And at what they are fetching, I can't justify it as a museum piece.

It is an exceptional tuner, and perhaps the most advanced of it's era. I'm happy with my TU-9900 and 919's though, as seldom as I listen to terrestrial broadcast anymore. I do understand the fascination from a design and engineering perspective though.

Luckily here in New Zealand, we have some very good quality stations to listen to, my good friend manages two of them, I worked with him to bring a quality broadcast to the airwaves, so I have it covered, but I live almost out of town and almost out of range...But I have a good antenna and the Sansui G9000 in my Lab picks up the stations quite well.....
There is a part of the airwaves which is a wasteland of garbage....
There is also no plans here to shut down the analogue transmitters either, so a tuner is very useful where I live....
One day there will be a TU-X1 in the collection.....I feel its the one thing that will kick my MR78's ass!!

 

[KeithD]

Yes, the 9090 tuner should outperform any of those Pioneer tuners, Sansui tuners generally sound better than the Pioneer tuners, but sometimes they don't quite have the selectivity and sensitivity of the Pioneers.
Pioneer always used exceptional front end packages.

This is what I am most concerned about, the selectivity and sensitivity rather than the sound, specifically. Sitting in the same location with the same antenna, my Pioneer SX-2500 has much better signal reception than the 9090. The Pioneer can easily pull in an FM station in stereo where the 9090 struggles. Will an alignment really improve that on the 9090?

 

[kevzep]

This is what I am most concerned about, the selectivity and sensitivity rather than the sound, specifically. Sitting in the same location with the same antenna, my Pioneer SX-2500 has much better signal reception than the 9090. The Pioneer can easily pull in an FM station in stereo where the 9090 struggles. Will an alignment really improve that on the 9090?

Ok, well, what you could do is have a look at the specs of the two tuners and compare the performance. I do not know the SX2500 that well but I can't imagine its going to be any better than the 9090 tuner, the 9090 is a later unit and the FM tuner technology was peaking around the mid 70's when the 9090 was produced.

Yes, if the tuner is in bad need of an alignment, the difference can be night and day.
I aligned a Sansui G7500 last week which could barely pick anything up, in fact you had to have the FM Muting switched off.
All I did was align it, I replaced nothing!! All it needed was an alignment. The owner simply could not believe it.
So who knows the history of your 9090, someone may have had the "golden screwdriver" in there, ""tweaking", could be any amount of scenarios....
Every receiver tuner that comes across my bench gets aligned, these units are so old now that you can bet someone has been in there fiddling....

 

[KeithD]

I did look at the manuals of the receivers (and one tuner) I have and made a table of comparisons. I've highlighted the best value in each category.



Since we live outside a medium sized city, Sensitivity is likely the most important factor for me (we have difficulty pulling in some local stations in stereo). As you can see, the Pioneer SX-2500 just nudges out the others here, which is my experience. The 9090 wins in two of the 7 categories (maybe ties for the S/N category? Didn't have info on whether S/N was for mono or stereo for the other receivers), while the Pioneer SX-2500 wins or ties in three. But, this will be user location specific as to which parameter(s) is/are most important.

Did have a chance to spend more time with the 9090 today. Used Deoxit and Fader lube on the volume/balance pot which were scratchy. Those cleared up nicely. Did more cleaning on the face window, which also went very well. Other than the scratched top, it's a very attractive receiver. Tuner was doing a bit better for sensitivity in a different location. Pulled in all the stations in stereo I can get on the SX-2500. However, signal strength meter indicates there could be improvement. Not sure if that's as good as it gets, or an alignment would help. Taking a closer look, most stations are off (high) by 0.1 - 0.2 MHz, which is not bad.

Beautiful receiver! I am very happy with what I got. Very pleasing sound. It's clear Sansui left ample room inside, and layout makes sense - power supply/amp have nothing above them and lots of room for air circulation. One down side to all of the Pioneers I have worked on (not many) is the location of the power supply has always been on the bottom underneath the top level of boards. No place for heat to dissipate or much room for air circulation. Does not seem like a good idea. Also, the Pioneers feel cramped compared to the 9090. They jammed everything into a smaller case, which is not necessarily good. They look nice, but makes for challenges when doing repairs/recaps.

Either I am lucky with Sansui or they are better built than Pioneer. This is my third Sansui receiver, and all any of them have needed is some Deoxit for scratchy pots. All are stock, to my knowledge. However, every Pioneer I have had needed something more than that - even ones that were sold to me as working correctly (which always seemed to be the case in limited testing you can do on the spot).

 

[Sansuiman]

Good to hear you are happy with it so far, I was confident you'd be pleased. Pioneers were generally well built of those I've seen up close and under the hood (admittedly not near as many as Sansui) but share your sentiments about cramming a lot of stuff in on the Pioneer receivers, rather than start with a bigger chassis, which they did for fewer models than Sansui near as I can tell.

One thing I didn't much like about Pioneer builds was the extensive use of wire wrapping for inter-board harness connections, rather than pluggable connectors - or even soldered points- as Sansui frequently used. Yes, wire wrap is secure so connection quality isn't an issue, but ease of serviceability is impacted by that approach. A small complaint really, but something I noted.

My favorite pioneer has to be the SX-828 for overall quality, sound and looks. An earlier model (71/72 I believe) that was somewhere between a Sansui 2000X and 5000X power and feature wise, but exceptionally good in almost all respects and I have to acknowledge that here. The SX-2500 is really neat with the auto tuning and remote (I have an Allied 498 here based upon the SX-2500 with a few minor feature and cosmetic tweak but sans remote) and it is a very good receiver, but the sound doesn't grab me the way Sansui does.

The two color knobs (black with silver skirt) on the 2500 never looked quite right to me for some reason. Yes, subjective, I know. FWIW, the Aliied has knobs unique to their line, not the Pioneer style knobs. Some effort was made to conceal its origins, there are many clearly shared parts however.

I think you'll find an affinity for Sansui (for the sound if nothing else) in the long term. Existing preferences and biases can be hard to shake, but I've seen more than a few converts who were bitten by the Sansui bug. Which is not to say you'll forego any further interest in Pioneer, and there's no reason you can collect both, outside of budget constraints and physical space to stack the gear.

 

[BLAH BLAH]

Beautifully put...

 

[KeithD]

Good to hear you are happy with it so far, I was confident you'd be pleased. Pioneers were generally well built of those I've seen up close and under the hood (admittedly not near as many as Sansui) but share your sentiments about cramming a lot of stuff in on the Pioneer receivers, rather than start with a bigger chassis, which they did for fewer models than Sansui near as I can tell.

One thing I didn't much like about Pioneer builds was the extensive use of wire wrapping for inter-board harness connections, rather than pluggable connectors - or even soldered points- as Sansui frequently used. Yes, wire wrap is secure so connection quality isn't an issue, but ease of serviceability is impacted by that approach. A small complaint really, but something I noted.

My favorite pioneer has to be the SX-828 for overall quality, sound and looks. An earlier model (71/72 I believe) that was somewhere between a Sansui 2000X and 5000X power and feature wise, but exceptionally good in almost all respects and I have to acknowledge that here. The SX-2500 is really neat with the auto tuning and remote (I have an Allied 498 here based upon the SX-2500 with a few minor feature and cosmetic tweak but sans remote) and it is a very good receiver, but the sound doesn't grab me the way Sansui does.

The two color knobs (black with silver skirt) on the 2500 never looked quite right to me for some reason. Yes, subjective, I know. FWIW, the Aliied has knobs unique to their line, not the Pioneer style knobs. Some effort was made to conceal its origins, there are many clearly shared parts however.

I think you'll find an affinity for Sansui (for the sound if nothing else) in the long term. Existing preferences and biases can be hard to shake, but I've seen more than a few converts who were bitten by the Sansui bug. Which is not to say you'll forego any further interest in Pioneer, and there's no reason you can collect both, outside of budget constraints and physical space to stack the gear.

Good points all around. I'm not married to Pioneer. My parents were not really "into" music; we we had a Zenith stereo at home. In college in the mid-80's I bought a Technics rack system on clearance. It was great for college, but it was of the black plastic genre. However, when I was looking for a vintage receiver a few years ago for my hobby room, I remembered Pioneer was kind of THE big name in my youth, so I sought that out. They are also more readily available than other brands. At the time I had never even heard of Sansui.

So far I have not heard a Sansui that did not have good sound (admittedly, my samples size is small). However, my draw to Pioneer is the looks. I narrowed down my preferences to the 1970 - 73 series Pioneer receivers (SX-x2x and before). I just think Pioneer had good aesthetic sense. If I were going to keep just one Pioneer it would be a tough call between my 828 and the 2500 - I just continue to be fascinated by the auto-tuning on the 2500, since it is so uncommon. But the 828 is a very solid performer with high quality aesthetics.

Many of the Sansuis leave me flat for aesthetics. However, there still seems to be plenty to choose from with Sansui that meets my tastes, and I enjoy the three I now have. The 9090 is very pleasing to look at, and the sound and design are very impressive.

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice and and shared opinions on my options! I think it turned out real well. There is something a bit different about the Sansui forum as compared to the other manufacturers on AK, and I really appreciate the friendliness here. Thanks again!