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Vintage Sansui 9090 Receiver questions


christ1

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So on a whim I bought a vintage Sansui 9090 receiver that has been rebuilt. I have always wanted to get a good vintage receiver to compare to the modern ones I have. I have grown up with CDs and mp3s - I think I had MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice tapes when I was a kid - so I have never heard the vintage sound. Now I have a couple of questions after a short listening session.

The first is regarding background hiss/noise. I hooked up my iPod and could hear hiss at all volume levels except the lowest (when I paused the music), and the level of noise scaled with turning the volume dial. I could not hear the hiss when the music was playing except for during quiet parts. If I turned off the connected speakers (using the dial on the receiver) the hiss went away (not surprising). For comparison, when using my Denon 3802 I did not hear any hiss even with the volume maxed out. I did this in my basement pool room, which is almost 20'x20' with a ~7' dropped ceiling using RB-15s.

I am also curious regarding the power. The specs of the Sansui are 110 W/ch at 20-20k Hz with 0.2% THD and the Denon is 105 W/ch at 20-20k Hz with 0.05% THD which seems to imply they have similar power. But to get the same volume, the Sansui is only about 1/4 turn of the dial and the Denon is well beyond halfway to the max. What am I missing with the power specs?

Finally, regarding the audio quality, I seemed to like the sound from the Denon better (I do not consider myself any sort of audiofile). It seemed to sound more "crisp" and "clean" (maybe due to the aforementioned hiss). I did like the sound better from the Sansui when playing an acoustic version of Foo Fighters "Everlong". That song sounded like they were in front of me, more so than the Denon. With that said, I often do not like music to sound like a concert because I find I like the "clean" and "crisp" (there are those words again) sound of the album better. Case in point, I recently saw Radiohead live and their songs generally sounded very muddled live, but the albums sound very precise - which I prefer. This was brought into stark contrast in the song "Kid A". Live the electronic singing sounded like noise, but on the album the actual words can be discerned. I am not trying to open a vintage vs modern sound debate but I do wonder if one reason vintage is considered better sounding is the nostalgia it produces when people were growing up in the 60s and 70s. I am just trying to decide whether I will keep the Sansui since it was a lot more expensive than the used Denon. I am too practical to keep something more expensive but not vastly better, but I want to give it a fair comparison.

Thanks for any feedback or thoughts.

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I just got a vintage Sansui 1000x receiver to use as a power amp with my LaScalas and Outlaw receiver. It sounds great with the LaScalas. There may be a number of reasons I like the sound of my Sansui and yours doesn't sound so great. The first, and most obvious, is that everyone's ears are different. What sounds great to you may sound awful to me and vice versa. Sansui and Marantz receivers from the 70s are known for their "warm" sound. They are not known for being great with detail. From your description, I would say you simply prefer a cleaner and brighter sound. I haven't heard any Pioneer receivers from that era (at least not in 35 or 40 years!), but from the way others describe their sound, you may be happier with one of those. As far as volume goes, there are two considerations. Volume controls aren't linear. At the 9 o'clock position, one receiver may be putting out half it's power when another unit is putting out a tenth of its power. The other is that amps and receivers from that period tend to be capable of more volume at the same power rating than typical modern amps. That is not true of all models but it is common and can be traced to the electronics used then and the way amps are rated now. The hissing noise is puzzling considering the receiver has been rebuilt. May be a connection issue. Someone else with more knowledge than me might have an idea on that.

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One thing to consider is the Denon may mute the channel if there is no signal present, thus quiet.I had a 3802 and it was pretty quiet anyway, the audio could not match my memory of the 9090, great sounding radio.There was a few decades in between so......The 9090 may or may not sound the same as an old untouched unit could have.

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I think this just confirms what I have always thought is that I like bright sound, which is why I have Klipsch speakers.

I just hope I did not get conned into thinking the receiver was rebuilt. But the interior is definitely clean, all the lamps work, and there is no distortion/screeching when I turn the volume knob. Plus one person's definition of rebuilt can be different from the next.

Like I said, it was a quick listen test so I did not try other speaker outputs and the other inputs, but I would like to hear it without hissing. I do not even know how much, if any, hissing is acceptable/unavoidable. By the way, can flourescent lights cause hissing because the lights certainly have audible "buzzing" themselves?

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You should not be experiencing hiss on that amp, or almost any other vintage amp that is in proper condition. So you have either a bad restoration, bad cable or maybe a hookup problem with your ipod. Try changing cable, dropping in a cd player, dvd player, whatever you can come up with and see if the hiss goes away. Then report back to us.

Also if you are playing back mp3's on a decent system they are going to sound crummy, because IMO the mp3 format is only capable of crummy sound.

If the Sansui was not recapped, then it's gong to sound flat. I'm not familiar with that model and it may simply not sound as good as the Denon 3208, which is very decent modern unit, and a nice step up over my well-regarded at the time, Denon 2802, which I do enjoy using for HT.

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I am thinking the rebuild was not a very good one. The seller had a lot of praise for the friend who worked on it. He did say the friend just restores them as a hobby. I am trying to get his info to hopefully get a better idea of what was (or was not) done and get a feel whether he knows what he is doing.

I will have to mess with the connections and source material this week. I have a SPL meter so I can quantify the noise with respect to the volume of the music.

Thanks for the feedback.

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I have been listening to the the Sansui more.

I started by hooking up the speakers to the three outputs, without any input source connected, and the hiss is noticible even with the volume turned all the way down. The hiss is more or less the same for all three outputs. Also, I disconnected the preout/main in cable and that did not really change the hiss--if anything it went down a little--although the noise did not increase as the volume dial was turned up. Plugging in an input did not make any difference.

Again without any input source connected, if I put my ear a couple inches from the speaker, I can clearly hear the hiss at any volume level. If I only heard it from this close then it would not bother me. But, if I am a few feet away it is difficult to say if I hear it at "low" volume, at "medium" volume I have to focus and/or move my head to hear it, and above that it is clearly heard. This translates into, at a minimum, hearing hiss after focusing on it at typical volumes during softer music (say an acoustic song). Basically there is too much hiss for my tastes, if it was a little less I could probably live with it.

The (likely) separate issue is that as I listen to it, I just do not like the sound as much as my modern receivers. I must like my music extremely bright, even if the average person's ears are bleeding. It is ironic because some of my favorite bands (Tool, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails) often add electronic type sounds and distortion to their songs. On the Sansui I was listening to "Black Swan" on Thom Yorke's (Radiohead lead singer) solo album, and there is slight distortion added to his voice, and I thought to my self it does not sound quite right to what I am used to. I played it through my Denon and the distortion to his voice is just a little cleaner. It is a little odd to me because I have always been content with the quality of mp3s in my car (factory installed speakers). I have gone from Synergy to RF-62s to now RF-83s (and RB-15s in my basement) and I have gotten pretty picky.

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According to the person who did the rebuild all caps on all boards, the speaker relay, and some bad resistors were all replaced.

I think the room the Sansui is in does not help. It is about 18.5'x19.5'x7' with a single doorway (and in the basement) with the speakers in two corners near the (drop down) ceiling. Thus, when hanging out in the room and playing pool my ears will often be within a few feet of one of the speakers. This makes me more sensitive to the hiss volume. If I had it in an open concept living room this would probably not be a big deal.

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  • 9 years later...
On 1/14/2013 at 12:08 PM, Fish said:

One thing to consider is the Denon may mute the channel if there is no signal present, thus quiet.I had a 3802 and it was pretty quiet anyway, the audio could not match my memory of the 9090, great sounding radio.There was a few decades in between so......The 9090 may or may not sound the same as an old untouched unit could have.

 Holy Moley, almost 10 years ago I just wanted to update this because at the time I had not heard a 9090 for a very long time.This thread popped up in a totally different web search so I just wanted to update it. I have since acquired some old radios, Pioneer, Kenwood, Sherwood, Marantz and some Sansui's. One being a 9090, in very nicely kept condition. I can add to this thread that there is NO COMPARISON in sound or output in the Denon and Sansui. They are so far apart they can't even be compared .The Sansui has a lush, full top to bottom, powerful sound I instantly recognized. No Denon, HK, Onkyo,Yamaha, Marantz modern avr I ever owned could compare. I wouldn't trade the 9090 for every avr I ever owned in a pile if I could not have the 9090. I've never owned a unit that brought me so much musical joy over the past year. There is not many over the past 25 or so years I have not owned in the mid fi mrkt, below 3k. I only wish I would have bought a 9090 decades ago....

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  • 1 month later...


 

Regarding "hiss" ( white or pink noise ),  it's easy to determine which amplifier is quieter.  Simply put a short across whatever input (I.E. line, aux, tape, etc"). Actually solder a short across a pair of RCA pin plugs, plug them into the input under test and crank up the volume. Listen (or use a scope to measure).   

Any additional "hiss" that may present when driven from your iPod or any other source  is in the source equipment, or in the program matter.   My crystal ball says you'll find both the Dennon and the 9090 will present no appreciable "hiss" under the above test conditions using the line input (aux, tape, etc). 

I tend to agree the 9090 is a “better” amplifier in a general way. The 9090 was around long before the Dennon. Chances are it will be around long after the Dennon goes up in smoke.

 

Other things .... You mention both amps have roughly the same specs. Published specs ? or actual specs ? 20 - 20,000. My 9090 is down only -2.5 DB at about 25 Khz.

 

My point is I think you'll find the “hiss” issue stems from the source.

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