The Vintage HiFi: Sansui AU-9900

Welcome

Hello and welcome to The Vintage HiFi.

This site is all about my love affair with big old speakers and silver amplifiers.

From the age of 4 I had always enjoyed accompanying my dad to the local boot fairs and was always good at finding hidden treasure. When my love for vintage hifi started, It was clear the two would go together perfectly.

Ever since, I've always been on the look out for these vintage goodies and when I find one I share it on here for all to see.

From the age of 15 I have been collecting all kinds of vintage hifi equipment. Mainly vintage amplifiers and speakers.

I have a now collected a fair bit of stuff but the idea is to eventually get it all on here. Hopefully with decent photos, a review of some kind, and any technical information I have.

While hopefully posting useful content, I'd also like to share my personal experiences as my journey into vintage hifi deepens.

Why go Vintage?

Hifi technology hasn't really changed a great deal. OK, maybe digital amplifiers are new but on the whole its all transistors, resistors and capacitors. After decades, speakers still use an electric motor vibrating a cone to move air and create sound. Amplifiers still have a transformer, capacitors, a bunch of resistors and transistors. The resulting performance is a question of build quality and designer skill. So its a question of how well made a device is that determines the resulting performance (plus a bit of lucky voodoo magic).

"They don't make 'em like they used to"

When something is built these days, it has to fit within certain build costs and be aimed at a target audience. "how can we maximise profit" rather than building the best we can or poring money into research and development.

Personally, I feel the best innovations happen at the peak of an industries success, which in HiFi terms has to be the 70s, with a rival in the 80s, the birth of the Compact Disc.

I have to admire this old gear because its better made, sounds great, and if your lucky, can be had cheap. It also looks cooler in my opinion and that's what captured my initial interest.

A real boost to my obsession came from the Lampizator and his modifications. A site all about the best sound reproduction via sensible means. Speakers, cd players, amplifiers. All personal ideas and experiments documented. Ideas like valve stage outputs for cd players and speakers using vintage 1960s paper drivers. His site can be found via the "links" tab.

The chatter tab is for everyone to share their tales and opinions on all things vintage.

The info tab shows some interesting posts with detailed information on popular topics.

Have fun

The Vintage HiFi

Tabs

Sunday 23 February 2014

Sansui AU-9900

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