Wrinkles Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 My oldest daughter wants to play vinyl. Way to go girl !!! I am refurbishing a Technics Turntable SL-23 for her now with a Shure M97XE cartridge. I have an inefficient set of Spendor LS3/5A on 24 inch stands for her. They are 84 db/watt. So, I need some power, not grunches of power, maybe 35 to 55 watts per chnnel I think. I have not had a receiver in 20 years, so I am kinda out of touch with the receiver world. She lives in a small apartment in NYC, hence the Spendors fitting in well with her situation. She is not opposed to an AudioVideoReceiver, but it has to have a good phono section. She watches little to no TV. Are there some good receivers that are not so rare, that they come up for sale more often that once a year? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thankyou Wrinkles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twistedcrankcammer Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 My oldest daughter wants to play vinyl. Way to go girl !!! I am refurbishing a Technics Turntable SL-23 for her now with a Shure M97XE cartridge. I have an inefficient set of Spendor LS3/5A on 24 inch stands for her. They are 84 db/watt. So, I need some power, not grunches of power, maybe 35 to 55 watts per chnnel I think. I have not had a receiver in 20 years, so I am kinda out of touch with the receiver world. She lives in a small apartment in NYC, hence the Spendors fitting in well with her situation. She is not opposed to an AudioVideoReceiver, but it has to have a good phono section. She watches little to no TV. Are there some good receivers that are not so rare, that they come up for sale more often that once a year? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thankyou Wrinkles Wrinkles, Nakamichi TA-4A is has an excellent phono section and superb amplification. They are over 20 years old and still bring about $400. They come up about every 3-4 weeks on eBay. 100 watts per channel STASIS amplifier in stereo. I sold mine with my quartets to my sister, it was $1250 when new in 1989 money. Pa-2A is 40 watts per channel I believe and much cheaper, more comon $200 or less. Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.H.E. Droid Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 I certainly don't recommend any kind of A/V receiver. You even need to beware of some products advertised as 2-channel (like Yamaha's lower end receiver) which has a subwoofer output and really doesn't sound good with stereo sources. For some reason these products seem to have a lot of tone-altering crap in the system that wants to push bass out the subwoofer jacks, and if you're not running a subwoofer, you're not getting good audio. There is almost always a good supply of older and vintage equipment available on Craigslist and ebay at very reasonable prices with the caveat that older units don't tend to have remotes. Look on the garage sale area here, too. I recently bought an excellent Linn preamp which has a very good phono section and one of the best remotes I've used. The seller was also offering a matching Linn amp so the combo is an example of what I'd consider audiophile grade equipment for under $700. Most of the cheapie 2-channel systems at places like Best Buy have phono preamps but you probably won't be happy with the sound They usually have pretty crude monolithic amps that push 2% to 5% distortion at louder volumes (regardless of what the specs claim). The alternative is an outboard phono preamp which allows you to use the turntable with any line level input. My living room system has a Cambridge Audio Azur 640p, which can handle moving coil or moving magnet cartridges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Many AV receivers sound fine with LPs. The lower-end Yamaha receivers don't have phono pre-amps, so the ones that do have them are mid-range at least. Some vintage units are good, but the newer stuff is more reliable and often has much lower distortion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrinkles Posted March 7, 2012 Author Share Posted March 7, 2012 What about the Yamaha CR "Natural Sound" series? Or the Harman Kardon HK series with the dual power transformers? Are parts for these drying up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 First, for $150 you can pick up a set of Klipsch KG 1.5 which are absolutely killer small room speaks. Pair with a HK 430 or Marantz 2415 for about two more bills, and you'll be moving into her room,and kicking her out. Personally, my experience with Yamaha av and any Klipsch speaker has been very disappointing, producing strident, steely sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USNRET Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Where in the Republic of Tejas are you? You want to try a Pioneer SX-727 for grins? Got one gathering dust. Might be a little light in the loafers but it looks really nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrinkles Posted March 7, 2012 Author Share Posted March 7, 2012 It does look really nice. Wish I lived closer. Cleburne , 30 minutes south of Fort Worth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USNRET Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 I will be coming to Waco and meeting a Ft Worth member around noon this Sat to pick up some goodies. If you want to borrow it for a test I can haul it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Personally, my experience with Yamaha av and any Klipsch speaker has been very disappointing, producing strident, steely sound. Sounds like you might have been running the Yamahas with the impedance switch in the 4 ohm or 6 ohm position, rather than the 8 ohm setting. My receiver sounded like that at first, but sounds much better since I switched it to 8 ohms.If you Google "Yamaha impedance switch", you'll see lots of info on this topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoak Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 If you watch amazon.com and jr.com closely from time to time they run the Harman Kardon HK-3490 as low as $259. That's the price I got mine for and free shipping too. The HK-3490 is a REALLY nice receiver with a fairly decent DAC built in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USNRET Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Mike, the Pioneer will be on its way north on Saturday. Give it a test drive, if it doesn't work out we'll do something with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USNRET Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 and I have only one set of the 'special' speaker connectors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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