70's and early 80's Japanese Component: How good were they?

[Johnny Vinyl]

I love the look of equipment in that era! I still have my Optonica Amp which had the same look. So much better than today's boring gear.

BTW, I do not miss my Sansui amplifier. It had capacitor coupling on the output so it had horrible bass. And it would distort easy. I think it was worse than my Pioneer speakers to tell the truth. The latter at least had good woodwork.

My very first "real" casette deck (dual deck) was an Optonica (Sharp brand). I remember my brother-in-law and I purchasing one on the same day to get a deal. We paid $725 ea at the time.......

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I love the look of equipment in that era! I still have my Optonica Amp which had the same look. So much better than today's boring gear.

BTW, I do not miss my Sansui amplifier. It had capacitor coupling on the output so it had horrible bass. And it would distort easy. I think it was worse than my Pioneer speakers to tell the truth. The latter at least had good woodwork.

Very nice woodwork. But it hurts a bit just looking at those horns. I had a pair of these...

...and they seemed great until I moved on to kinder, gentler tweeter technologies.

Tim

 

[Bruce B]

I had a new Pioneer receiver go bad on me right out of the box in '78. The model # was, I think SX-1250. Took it back to the store and they told me it was their last one and the new model, SX-1280 is the replacement. The receiver were HUGE!! Had a Technics SL-1200 and then Denon DP-47F. R2R were Teac 4430, Pioneer RT909 and then a Revox B-77. Speakers were Cerwin-Vegas, ESS, BIC and then a pair of Maggie MGII. Went on to upgrade to HK Citation amp/pre and then Apt-Holman pre and Hafler DH-500 amp. Throughout the 70's-80's, the one Pioneer was the only thing that bit the dust.

 

[FrantzM]

Myles

Come on Man! A little fair play! These SS gear were built like tanks.. They rarely fail. The CA-2010 was at one point driving an Infinty Quantum Referendum and rather well IIRC, it still is working today, right now, as a matter of fact. The TT, the YP-D8 work as well as the day it was purchased and one can tell the thing was built to last and perform.

I believe in coming back once in a while on one's tracks and look for where one had erred and we did concerning SS for a good while.
I keep on repeating that fact, yet few would seem to take it at heart: I believe Steve Williams here has used his Studer A80, SS and 80 vintage machine, for a while With Stock Electronics! with superb sonics... I would like him to chime in. Sure things have gotten betterin SS, we learned in 1976 0r 78lter that too much Global Negative Feedback wasn't a good thing, so did the Japanese manufacturers and they reacted properly in their circuitry. Yamaha actually mentioned this in their late 70's amplifier brochures.

As for the TTs there was a flourish. Technics hit everybody real hard witht the SP-10 but Kenwood repied with the superb L-07...

Then Pioneer replied their Exclusive Line P-3

Then Sony with their PS-X9

Then Luxman, then Denon DP-100M

,

Then the fabulous Nakamichi T-1000

Meanwhile the nice audiophile view was to declare these TTs inferior to a Linn Sondek LP-12 !! Weren't we kidding ourselves? Now we are rediscovering these TTs.. The SP-10 MKII has achieved mega-TT status (again)... And to remember that it will "smoke" more than one current TT with pedigree and the requisite great look... To know that we would have preferred back then a LP-12 Sondek over it makes me cringe ... Did we really believe that? Really?

This could well have been posted in my thread about Audiophiles and our Prejudices .. I am beginning to see how prejudice we are. I have heard that someone in Haiti has a Nak TX-1000. No !! There doesn't seem to be any legal means to part him from it

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Myles

Come on Man! A little fair play! These SS gear were built like tanks.. They rarely fail. The CA-2010 was at one point driving an Infinty Quantum Referendum and rather well IIRC, it still is working today, right now, as a matter of fact. The TT, the YP-D8 work as well as the day it was purchased and one can tell the thing was built to last and perform.

I believe in coming back once in a while on one's tracks and look for where one had erred and we did concerning SS for a good while.
I keep on repeating that fact, yet few would seem to take it at heart: I believe Steve Williams here has used his Studer A80, SS and 80 vintage machine, for a while With Stock Electronics! with superb sonics... I would like him to chime in. Sure things have gotten betterin SS, we learned in 1976 0r 78lter that too much Global Negative Feedback wasn't a good thing, so did the Japanese manufacturers and they reacted properly in their circuitry. Yamaha actually mentioned this in their late 70's amplifier brochures.

As for the TTs there was a flourish. Technics hit everybody real hard witht the SP-10 but Kenwood repied with the superb L-07...

Then Pioneer replied their Exclusive Line P-3

Then Sony with their PS-X9

Then Luxman, then Denon,

Then the fabulous Nakamichi T-1000

Meanwhile the nice audiophile view was to declare these TTs inferior to a Linn Sondek LP-12 !! Weren't we kidding ourselves? Now we are rediscovering these TTs.. The SP-10 MKII has achieved mega-TT status (again)... And to remember that it will "smoke" more than one current TT with pedigree and the requisite great look... To know that we would have preferred back then a LP-12 Sondek over it makes me cringe ... Did we really believe that? Really?

This could well have been posted in my thread about Audiophiles and our Prejudices .. I am beginning to see how prejudice we are. I have heard that someone in Haiti has a Nak TX-1000. No !! There doesn't seem to be any legal means to part him from it

Yes.

Tim

 

[flez007]

I was a huge Sansui fan, and had many of their integrateids, then moved to some Marantz receivers and lastly SAE and Luxman before miving to high-end gear, lots of fun and great tunes!

 

[c1ferrari]

I remember back in the 70's my uncle who was in his 80's wanted a stereo. So I took him down to the local hifi shop. He purchased a Pioneer receiver and when I hooked it up at his home,he couldn't believe the sound,like a kid with a new toy. I'm sure it was those wonderful blue lights.:b

Ah, that's a nice story, Roger

 

[c1ferrari]

We still beleived in non-disposable goods back then. Build 'em like tanks and people will come back. Today....builld 'em like plastic as people will want a change in a year or two anyway.

So sad...
So true

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Oh yeah.

Lets see:

Technics TT, Sony and Pioneer integrated amp with tuner, JVC 32 channel spectrum graphic equalizer with with blue flourescent spectrum analizer display screen, sansui spring reverb with "rainbow" display, digital timer by I think Sony, dolby tape noise reduction, Sony front load cassette deck, pop and click filter, my gosh, all those pretty lights and knobs to twist. Radio Shack (Tandy) power meters mounted in line with the speaker cables ( ahem..I mean lamp cord) . Then run it all through the R2R amplifier to really pile on the distortion (ahem...sound) and wow, some crazy speakers made at the local audio saloon but dang it was fun. Then I heard minimalism high end and the new journey began.

Tom

You had a greater sense of adventure than I, Tom. I started and stayed fairly minimalist. My system was a Thorens, a Japanese integrated (first a Kenwood then the HK I still have) and speakers, for years. The speakers progressed, as I said, from those Altecs to kinder, gentler tweeter technologies, which also took me into much less efficient designs, and the discovery of the power of power (headroom), which, along with recording/making music led me to pro gear which eventually led me to actives.

Tim

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Great trip down memory lane ... We (actually my father) went the full spectrum from serious tubes of yore (Eico, Lafayette, Dynaco, Harman-Kardon, then Mac Intosh) to the beginning of Japanese SS which were for the most part not that good, then tubes again some English (Leak, Quad), some American (Dynaco again, then Mac) then SS again this time much better Pioneer, then Yamaha) Speakers were inthe begining mostly American (Altec Lansing, JBL, Acoustic Research, BIC venturi, Lafayette) then English (Quad ESl. Celestion Ditton 66) then American again (Bozak which model I forget, a curious and very good ESl /cone Hybrid whose name escapes me, then Advent) then Japanese for a little while (Pioneer CS-63DX, then HpM-200 then the much better and by a mile Yamaha NS-1000 M which were to me very serious speakers) . 0 then superior American of the times Infinity QLS .. I left from that to study in the USA ... in the early 80's ... You can tell I have heard a lot of them them seen them. I was fortunate enough to witness the birth of the High End in the USA and in the midst of that developed and held for a long time some preconceived notions for a long time. A few of these:

Belt Drive were superior to Direct Drives. For exemple in 1988 I could have gotten the fabulous kenwood L-07, I opted rather for a Linn Sondek wannabe,the Pink Triangle > Oh! i did get a Linn Sondek which was nice but whose bass was weak and the mid bass mushy no matter how much i tried to set the table and I think i was pretty good at setting Linns. The top end of the linn is not the best in extension either .. It systematically dulls the top end with the ittok arm in my expereince .. The Fidelity Research arms which got later in my SOTA days and the arm whcih came with the wonderful mapleknoll Ariadne (GReat TT/Arm by the way, ugy as hell and a litle fickle but great combo with a sound to rival the best Tt around) I was too young to understand how good the Mapleknoll was and sold to my eternal chagrin .. I am geting OT here

The other widely held and false notion which I held until very, very recently : All the SS from the 70's to early 80's were junk. I am no longer sure about that , the Yamaha CA-2010 on portable DAC (HRT Streamer) and Denon Headphones sounds rather sweet.. Actually this thread was inspired by the discovery of some of these components in the Family house...

I would like more people with experience of these old things to chime in. I will also post my own impressions on the current system I am assembling in the family home. Yamaha Integrated, Yamaha TT, Magnepan MMG ... For the recor the yamaha does "double-down" 130 Watts at 8 ohm, 260 at 4 Ohms/both Channel driven.The 'natural Sound" circuitry was designed after Matti Ottala came up with the notion of TIM (Transient InterModulation) distortion which was mostly due to excessive Negative Feedback... Negative Feedback has been given a bad name in Audiophile circles but it not its presence (often necessary and immensely beneficial) but too much of it while i creates some (not all) nice measurements numbers creates other measurable and audible problems , TIM being of these.

More later .. maybe

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles

Come on Man! A little fair play! These SS gear were built like tanks.. They rarely fail. The CA-2010 was at one point driving an Infinty Quantum Referendum and rather well IIRC, it still is working today, right now, as a matter of fact. The TT, the YP-D8 work as well as the day it was purchased and one can tell the thing was built to last and perform.

I believe in coming back once in a while on one's tracks and look for where one had erred and we did concerning SS for a good while.
I keep on repeating that fact, yet few would seem to take it at heart: I believe Steve Williams here has used his Studer A80, SS and 80 vintage machine, for a while With Stock Electronics! with superb sonics... I would like him to chime in. Sure things have gotten betterin SS, we learned in 1976 0r 78lter that too much Global Negative Feedback wasn't a good thing, so did the Japanese manufacturers and they reacted properly in their circuitry. Yamaha actually mentioned this in their late 70's amplifier brochures.

As for the TTs there was a flourish. Technics hit everybody real hard witht the SP-10 but Kenwood repied with the superb L-07...

Then Pioneer replied their Exclusive Line P-3

Then Sony with their PS-X9

Then Luxman, then Denon DP-100M

,

Then the fabulous Nakamichi T-1000

Meanwhile the nice audiophile view was to declare these TTs inferior to a Linn Sondek LP-12 !! Weren't we kidding ourselves? Now we are rediscovering these TTs.. The SP-10 MKII has achieved mega-TT status (again)... And to remember that it will "smoke" more than one current TT with pedigree and the requisite great look... To know that we would have preferred back then a LP-12 Sondek over it makes me cringe ... Did we really believe that? Really?

This could well have been posted in my thread about Audiophiles and our Prejudices .. I am beginning to see how prejudice we are. I have heard that someone in Haiti has a Nak TX-1000. No !! There doesn't seem to be any legal means to part him from it

Frantz, you seem hell bent on arguing with the facts. Are you telling me that the Marantz disaster didn't happen? People turned them on and the units went up in a puff of smoke. Please read what I said: the first gen of ss products had their issues. Every example given is of later generation ss gear. Even the Pioneer John referenced was multiple gens removed from the first products.

Look up and read about the problems with early "transistors." They were far from reliable.

 

[FrantzM]

Myles

Do read my last post.... And Yes the early 70's weren't good. But what about the late 70's and early 80's ? Would you at least concede that the TT, arms and of course Cartridges were good?

Not hell bent just trying to find the truth... It tends too often to be hidden under a thick layer of prejudices

 

[steve williams]

I have fond memories of my Nakamichi Dragon with its autobias and auto reverse. There just wasn't a better tape deck IMO

 

[JackD201]

Japan is underrated in the US and EU even today with perhaps the exception of Phono Cartridges.

 

[FrantzM]

I have fond memories of my Nakamichi Dragon with its autobias and auto reverse. There just wasn't a better tape deck IMO

The Nakamichi TX-1000 and Dragon Turntables were technological tour de force. They address something which to this day has eluded all TTs .. How to deal with off-center records... A problem more prevalent than LP aficionados would admit and very audible.. Speed stability is compromised regardless of the true rotational stability of the platter itself and the stylus contact withthe groove varies according to the degree of non-centering resulting in an audible flutter... These Nakamichi TTs are the only ones I know to address this problem. As for the other measurements Wow , Flutter, rumble they remain amongst the highest ever measured .. Several of today's routinely expensive Turntables can't compare and yet ... Serious money was invested into developing and making these TTs, to the extent that many observers say that it affected the company in a negative way, since a few years after CD came on the scene and wellthe rest is actuality These TTs were superior and I know of only one reviewer to regular celabrate these REG, Richard Evarist Greene of TAS to use the TX-1000 considering it superior to most of the Ts around .. We went for 30 years talking about Japanese TT as inferior...

@jack

Indeed , certainsuperior gear in Japan of the late 70's and 80's are totally unknown in the USA...Few people have any idea how good the Denon POA-1 is ... Even fewer know about the fabled Onken Tweeters, from the advice of many knowledgeable person amongst the best tweeters ever made and they were being produced during the 70's ... Or how realy good the Accuphase were and continue to be... heck I sincerely believe that with better crossover and box alignment the Yamaha Beryllium Tweeter and midrange would have stood out today! So to me it is due time, we review our positions on Japanese SS and gears of the 70's and 80's ...
And if you really believe Japan big companies can't make good speakers do have a listen at the current line of TAD speakers or the Pionner speakers (forget the names) or the Speakers Sony recently put out with an eye toward Audiophiles but we may shun them because they casue they are just from a big box manufacturer ... Back in the days Onkyo made a vliant attempt at the audiophile segment with speakers geared toward the audiophiles and designed by Keith Johnson, Athena I bleive, I am not sure how this venture went down but it did ...


Admitting to a new position is something I have found many audiophiles .. very reluctant to do..

 

[mep]

Admitting to a new position is something I have found many audiophiles .. very reluctant to do..

I for one don't have a problem with staking out new positions.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I for one don't have a problem with staking out new positions.

Neither do I. The realization that digital can actually sound good has been one of those for me.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles

Do read my last post.... And Yes the early 70's weren't good. But what about the late 70's and early 80's ? Would you at least concede that the TT, arms and of course Cartridges were good?

Not hell bent just trying to find the truth... It tends too often to be hidden under a thick layer of prejudices

Actually no. The AR turntable beat the pants off the Technics. Sure you could stand on the Technics and the platter would spin, but the sounds was not the equal of the AR table of the day. I'd say that the Japanese arms and cartridges of the day fared much better such as the EPA, JVC (Aczel creamed over the 7045 arms--which was ahead of its time in many ways) and FR arms and cartridges

Even to this day, we don't necessarily hear the best the Japanese designers can produce. Some products simply are not exported from Japan. I'll never forget years ago hearing for the first time the WAVAC amps driving a JVC speaker (???) that blew me away. Now expect that no one would ever call JVC speakers audiophile qualit--but this speaker that was not exported out of Japan definitely broke with tradition.

 

[mep]

Myles-I have owned both versions of the AR table, the original and the reissue which was better in all ways than the original. I will say the AR sounded better than cheap direct drive turntables, but it won't beat the pants off of the SP-10 MKII. I don't know the last time you listened to an SP-10 with a good arm, but it's in a different league than the AR. The AR didin't sound better than my Sota Star Sapphire or my VPI TNT. And my TNT didn't beat the pants off of the Technics SP-10 either.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles-I have owned both versions of the AR table, the original and the reissue which was better in all ways than the original. I will say the AR sounded better than cheap direct drive turntables, but it won't beat the pants off of the SP-10 MKII. I don't know the last time you listened to an SP-10 with a good arm, but it's in a different league than the AR. The AR didin't sound better than my Sota Star Sapphire or my VPI TNT. And my TNT didn't beat the pants off of the Technics SP-10 either.

I was referring to out of the box when DD tables came out.