Remeber that Stereo? Not so bad of a find...
 

I never finished this story... and I'm bored so I'll share

About two months ago I took off on a saturday night to drive to the Delmar Loop in STL to pickup this old vintage Sansui stereo rack. I liked the look of the speakers, they aren't top of the line Sansui, but they were 150W each and I figured a working turntable and the speakers were worth the $50 I talked the guy down to.

So I get there, which was hell... I don't know if anyone here has been to the wonderful area that is the Delmar Loop, but it's ****** crazy on saturday nights. Blueberry Hill has Chuck Berry playing every weekend, the Pageant has shows , etc etc..

The guy lives right on the back of Delmar, so this apartment is like the nicest rental place I've ever seen. I think the guy was moving because I walk in and the only thing in the place is a few packing boxes and this big assed stereo rack and speakers. I immediately get a bad feeling come over me as it looked smaller in the craigslist pics. And I'm driving the Porsche. But I figured I'd manage and we hauled it downstairs (no small feat). I didn't really inspect it, I mean, for 50$, I didn't care...


Well I get it home and hook it up... the amp needs work as one of the channels is sickly but other than that, it's nice. Both speakers sound great. And when I switch the speakers over from the cheap early 80's sansui amp to a newer THX-certified Sony I had laying around... and it was pretty damn good. Not up to the quality of my 90's JBL LX's but pretty good, really warm.

At this point I could care less about the rack. But the turntable works, and sounds decent, and the tape deck makes one of my old Genesis tapes sound like a CD.

I wrote down the model numbers of some of the components... and did some ebaying thinking it was all pretty much worthless (except the speakers).. turns out I was only half right. While the amp is your run of the mill early 80's japanese kit, I found an identical tape deck just sold on ebay for $45, an identical EQ that had sold for $60, and an identical tuner that was going for around 65$.

I paid $50 for all of it.

So I'm feeling pretty good right about now :)

I'm hanging on to it all, because, with a different amp and some nicer cables, it will make a nice bedroom stereo for my new house, along with my more audiophile grade JBL/Yamaha combo.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260351364.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1260351382.jpg

Nice score...'course I know nothing about stereo's since I'm literally deaf in one ear and moderate loss in other ear. Years of racing cars/bikes and shooting with no protection. Get your secret Santa PM?

jim

sure did Jim.


Yea, I was initially a bit unhappy I spent an entire night, the drive, and 50$ to pickup what is mostly sub-par Sansui stuff... they made some excellent amps in the 70's but switched over to cheaper component stuff in the early 80's... which is what made up most of ht US market stuff. They still continued to make a few models that were high end, but they are not cheap to come by now.

I'm considering finding a period-correct Sansui amp of nice quality, like a AU-D607X, and use it to amp this stuff, and keep the cheaper reciever for a pre-amp, as it has the 'computerized' contros that enable function switching of the tuner, deck, and turntable.

Never hurts to have an extra and at this price you can always use it out in the garage or office.

I have no less than 6 sets of floor-standing speakers now, ranging from 1976-1996. Sansui, JBL, RCA x2, Sony, Grandeur, plus assortments of other smaller bookshelves.

I'm moving to a new place in about 3 weeks with a 2 car garage that is going to get 'the treatment'.

I think the old RCA's will be going out there. I've had them the longest and they still sound good.

i found a pair of magnaplans in kc, had to look for an old amp to power them. wow, talk about high end speakers. i hear stuff i never heard before on hendrix.