A 70s japanese integrated?

[Vinyl-ant]

Got myself some new (to me) cans, a pair of early 70s audio technica at 706 electrets. Ive had a pair of at-h7 electrets in the past and really liked them, but sold them as they werent getting used.

Ive bought some more cans so that i can bugger off away from everyone and relax with some music when the house is full of noise. And moody arseholes. Its been awful over lockdown, tripping over everyone and having no space or time to oneself so the plan is to put a little system together in the bedroom without speakers and run the electrets. They plug into an adapter box that in turn plugs into the speaker terminals on an amp.

The kids are back at school now (for how long is anyones guess ), but they come back.........

Ive tested them with a nasty little 80s marantz reciever and the spare cd player, and they sound really nice, however i know from the ath-7s i had that they are much nicer with a nicer amp.

What id like to do is have a nice 70s amp like the little rotel ra211 10w amp, or the old sony reciever i used to have, and have a little vintage system up there.

In terms of 70s vintage amps, ive only ever had the rotel, the sony reciever and a trio something or other, and that was a good 15 years ago. The rotel was a little sweetie. But i cant find one, so does anyone have any suggestions on what i should be looking at?

I dont need power, just something sweet

Cheers ant

[savvypaul]

I managed to pick up a sweet 1973 vintage 'baby' Marantz 2015 a few years ago for £80. The headphone output is surprisingly good and it's a joy to look at. Prices are starting to get silly, though. Reckon the Rotels are still good value...

[TheMarlin]

I always liked the JVC JAS 11. Sweet sounding little amp. I used to be able to pick them up for £5 on eBay, but now some people ask up to £100.

I used to buy them up, give them them to friends as part of a starter system. These little amps have gotten a lot of my friends into Hifi over the years.

[Vinyl-ant]

Im loking the look of a rotel ra311, and a sony ta1066, the sony is the same model year as my r2r, the rotel is the slightly bigger brother to the 211 i liked so much.
15wpc for the sony and 20 for the rotel

[Fretless]

Couple of vintage Kenwood (Trio) and Sansui integrateds still running here.

[slinger]

I'm quite surprised at the prices of vintage Japanese kit, but I suppose it's been sussed that it still sounds pretty good. I quite fancy this, it's the big brother to the A-40 I started out with.



Not sure I'd go to three hundred quid for it though.

If I had the money, and "needed" a third system, it would be this sort of thing. I've always loved the look of these combos,



You just can't beat the look of dirty great audiophile analogue meters.

[Bencat57]

Have you seen this ?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-ROTE ... SwXGxgPsp2

[oldcameraman3]

A minefield of stuff out there,I have had an Aurex 15 micro system from new and still use it as a main unit at our second home.It is beautifully made and still stands up well to anything I have had since.The only trouble is they go for inflated prices relative to age (over 4o years ) and a good one is hard to find at a reasonable price.The sy-c15 pre amp is excellent but needs a good clean after a while, although that is relatively easy to do.They give more than the rated power relative to modern standards and a good one will last a long time.Although not integrated all the components stack and look like one unit only taking 26 cm in width which is o lot more manageable than the integrated ones and looks and is a high quality unit.Plenty of sources on the net to get further details.Good luck on your search.

[Vinyl-ant]

Ive come across a couple of possibilities, bear in mind im not interested in the power output, 10 to 15w is perfectly adequete to drive the cans. Ill probably be using the first watt and nowt else

First a rather pretty sony str 6036 reciever, about 15wpc. I like the looks of this one

Next a rotel ra 312 which is probably a good shout

Also a sony ta 1066 which is quite pretty aswell, and a sony ta 70, which has the advantage of having a smaller footprint than the others

There wont be any normal speakers on the end of it although the pass through on the cans adapter box could be used if i felt like it at some point.
Kinda defeats the object of having some space from everything else.

I have an idea how the rotel will sound, but not the various sonys

[Lindsayt]

There are so many to pick from, that part of the joy is discovering something that's good for the price you paid for it.

Sony, Pioneer, Kenwood / Trio etc etc

1970 to 1972 Japanese amps tended to be designed along valve amp principles except for using transistors instead of valves.
As the '70's went on the circuits developed a more solid state specific design.

And there was a phase of chasing certain distortion specifications with the over use of feedback and resultant disappointing sound. So much so that you had listening tests of the time that indicated an inverse corelation between THD and sound quality.

There's a school of thought that early 70's receivers sounded a bit better than integrated equivalents because of beefier power supplies in the receivers.

Towards the late 70's the upper ends of the model ranges seemed to be the realm of pre-power combinations.
I personally don't see a big deal in having a pre-power as opposed to an integrated - unless it's for something like a caravan install.
There are a few statement pre-power combinations that I'd take a punt on if I ever saw them for sale at the right price.

I'd also add that my NVA P50SA and A20 combination that cost me a total of £300 makes for a good reference point for comparing against other amplification at that sort of price point.