In college I had an SX-980 driving a pair of Electrovoice Interface A's.  It was by far the best sounding stereo system in the dorm. My brother still uses an SX-1050 in his living room.

I still have my Pioneer CTF-950 cassette deck - probably one of the best built decks of the time. It still works flawlessly, or at least it did the last time I used it 20 years ago...

Your cassette deck probably needs belts and maybe a pinch roller.  Better do it now while parts are still available, and even now,

they're getting a LITTLE bit hard to find.



Frankly,  a healthy 70s/early 80s Pioneer SX-x50 or X80 series receiver, which has been given periodic maintenance which will be

needed by now,  is likely to sound every bit as good as any bleeding edge digital technology 21st century wonder box,  or in many

cases,  quite a bit better.   They are high quality units in every sense of the word and are worthy of appreciation.



Good examples are becoming more valuable these days,  even the lowest models, which are more basic but are not lacking in quality.
CJ

nice!

i have a sansui model 2000 running in the garage that is practically mint. date code on the serial indicates it was made in '69.

at work, i am using an allied 395, which was made in in '68 by pioneer with some realistic minimus 0.5's.

looking at those pics reminds me of an old system I have

SA-8800 integrated amp & TX-7800 tuner. Bought them in about 1980, along with a set of HPM-900 speakers

Right now all this equipment sits in the garage for when I work out there. They still sound good.

The best thing to do with Mac gear is to send it back to Mac and let them do what needs doing.  They are reasonable about what they charge,

and the greatest thing about them is that they fully support everything they ever made.   Heck, they even have their own glass shop and keep masters of ALL front

panel silk screens on hand, and can make a brand new glass face for anything they ever made.   There is very little that they can't handle if they originally made it.



I was once given about five pieces of Mac gear,  all cannibalized for parts.  I gave them to someone who could afford to get them rebuilt.   Certainly I could not have

afforded to do so at the time.    I think the guy I gave them to eventually did get some of the pieces rebuilt.  They are minty now.





CJ





 

That's good.   If he's Mc factory authorized, he will use the right parts and do the job right.  McIntosh does not authorize just any random technician to work on their equipment.





CJ

cj, how far into the gear to you go before you decide to scrap it?

Me?  When major components are simply not available ANYWHERE.  And then, rather than scrap it,  I offer it for sale to others as a parts source.

I don't ever just throw out anything electronic, practically.   Even the junk that I don't think is even worth selling off as a parts pig goes to the local

electronic surplus store where it has one more chance to be picked up by someone who has a use for it.



I don't have any desire to be a storehouse for electronic cadavers.   Anything I keep,  I have reasonable expectations of making it work again

and not too far down the road, at that.





CJ

cool. that 2235b that i picked up, got it for like 20. the guy i bought it from told me "i never plugged it in", which now i call major bullshit on. anyways, get that unit on the bench and find the power transformer shorted on the secondary and the bridge shorted. i wanted this unit to work bad. i really like the marantz black out receivers. anyways, i did find a donor power supply and a bridge. the p.s. as a matter of fact had all the voltages i needed and an extra secondary, but can't remember exactly what it was now. anyways, thanks to that scrapped sansui 5050, that 2235b is alive and running strong. damn near a perfect fit on the transformer too.

This thread reminds me of my stereo I bought in 1979 in Germany. 4 Technics DC mono amps, the top of the line Technics pre amp, cassette player and the best Technics direct drive turntable with the best sure cartridge you could buy. Also had 4 JBL 4311 speakers.
Dame shame all but two of the speakers were stolen.  
That was a lot of money for a e-4 in the Army.

I did the belts once in the early 1990's and have hardly used it since. I bought an extra set of belts and a pinch roller back then and as far as I can tell they haven't deteriorated (sealed in their original plastic bags). If I ever use it again and if it then or ever needs it, I should have it covered.

Agree completely on the late `70's Pioneer gear. At one point while I was still in college, my room mate had a big Phase Linear power amp which we set up as the power amp for my 980 receiver. We totally rocked the dorm with that combo. Since then I've owned some Carver stuff, a couple of Hafler amps (probably the best power amps I've owned), and now I'm back to just using the internal amps on my current VSX-47TX HT receiver. One of these days maybe I'll put together a retro system once I finish my basement. I miss those old heavy metal and wood receivers...

You do realize that to build something like an SX-1980 today,  it would have to retail for something near four thousand dollars, right?




That whole line was always an upscale product.  Pioneer was not aiming for the bottom of the market.  Quality was taken very seriously

back then,  and other companies were pretty serious about it, too.  Kenwood receivers of the same vintage were comparably well built,

or close.



One of the things in my small collection is an almost perfect condition Sansui TR-707A stereo receiver.  That type was the FIRST fully

solid state receiver in production worldwide.   My example WAS absolutely pristine but for a blown op amp, and unfortunately, the technician

I trusted to do the repair was not fully considerate of its pristine physical condition.  He SLID it on its side across a wooden storage shelf

that had some grit on it, and scratched the hell out of the side of the totally irreplaceable anodized aluminum bezel.  Thanks a lot, asshole!




Really it isn't THAT bad and I could probably get it redone as I have friends in the aluminum anodizing business, but it pisses me off that I

brought him an absolute museum piece and he shows it no respect at all.  He knows better!      



That receiver made it over 40 years without a mark on it...and then that happens.   It bugs me more than it should.





CJ

That would have pissed me off for sure.

When I was a kid, we always had Heathkit stuff. At first a tube stereo pre and power amp combo, and later an AR-29 receiver and then an AR-1500A. I think I still have the AR-29 somewhere, but it's pretty much toast by now and not really worth fixing considering how many are on eBay in much better shape for a pittance. Probably the coolest thing I had was a Marantz tuner with a scope for tuning. I only had it for a while and it left in some deal or another (it wasn't the rare and valuable tube type). I also still have an SAE parametric equalizer, one of the first consumer rack mount lines, but it's seen better days. I still have my Carver C1 and M500T too, both of which are still perfect.