Randy Reed's Tree House Design Studio Integrated Amplifiers

Pioneer, Kenwood, Sansui, Phase Linear, Marantz, McIntosh, Carver, SAE, HH Scott, Yamaha, JBL, Sony

                             Randall Reed Studios ▪ Motley, MN 56466 ▪ 218.575.2965
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Pioneer SA 9500
Sansui AU 11000

General

I was in one of the "Marts" again the other day and was really saddened by the loss of quality I saw on display.  Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic etc.  These are mainstream brands that used to have fantastic build quality for mass market audio.

Now everything on these higher quality brands is silver faced plastic.  Even the speaker enclosures! The prices were still running up to $700 but blah!

Frequency responses of the amps were running 100 or 200 Hz on the low end to a max of 20KHz.  Most of what I have here from the 70's will go from 0Hz to 10Hz on the low end up to 40KHz to 100KHz on the high end of the spectrum or better.  Even the low cost units I have are running 15 - 30KHz in the amp sections.

THD? What a laugher! Anything 0.1% and lower can't be heard by the human ear (supposedly). Every amp I have here meets or beats that.  The units described above ran from 1% to 10% total harmonic distortion.  I guarantee you that you will hear that as noise.

Supposedly our technology is getting better? Not in the audio mass market. I guess it must be a sign of the iPod generation.  If you think MP3 sounds great, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

 
Integrated amplifiers are a good compromise from having a separate power amplifier and pre-amplifier.  They take up less space than components and retain most of the input and output functions for hooking up your gear.

Usually there are tape dubbing functions to copy between two or three tape decks, a tuner connection, two phono sections, DAT or CD connection, one or two aux connections for general inputs, and switched and unswitched 120 VAC connections for external gear.

Some units have adjustments for phonograph loads and sensitivity of the phono cartridges, various filters for adjusting sound quality and sometimes a mid-range tone control.

Of course they all have bass and treble adjustments, volume and balance and usually volume attenuator switches for decreasing the volume to a preset level without turning the volume knob.

My personal integrated amp (Not for Sale) that I use in my studio is a near mint Sansui AU-X1.  165 wpc of extremely clean power and good looks.  Very rare.  This one came into the country via the military in 1980.

11-09-07

A long time dream finally came true for me.  I picked up a Sansui AU20000 integrated amplifier for my personal collection.  (Sansui kind of combined the CA3000 preamp and BA3000 power amp in one package).  It runs and looks fine but this will be a project amp for me to try and bring back to 'like new' condition. It's not for sale but I may post some notes on here as I work my way thru the restore.

 

As time goes on, I will list more pictures and specifications. These are the units that I have gone through and are ready for sale.

 

Some Prices not including shipping:

  
Pioneer SA 9500 tank-like integrated amp from the 70's - look out!  Very close specs to a Pioneer Spec 1 pre-amp! $495 - $650
Sansui AU 11000A one of my all time favorite integrated amps!  120 wpc and more knobs for audio control than a 747.  Temporarily SOLD OUT! $595
   
Kenwood KA-7100, 60 wpc, nice looking unit - sounds stronger than it's ratings and very clean. $150
Pioneer SA 710 and TX 710 tuner. 45 wpc. Excellent shape, original boxes.  Nice thumper for the shop home or office. Blue LED readouts for wattage, $350
Pioneer SA 9500 w/wood case ditto as above but dressed up a bit more.  SOLD! $595

Email me at mailto:randyr@randallareed.com for any questions.

  

Copyright (c) 2001 - 2008, Randall Reed   Randy Reed