Showdown

On Saturday afternoon, a friend of Seventies Stereo brought over an 80 watt/channel receiver from the nineties. He was curious to see how it compared to a seventies vintage receiver. We listened to a few tracks on his, with digital and vinyl sources, then switched to the Sansui 8080 and repeated the tracks. I was confident that we would both prefer the sound of the Sansui, but was surprised by just how much more musical it sounded. The music was more dynamic, sweeter, and had much cleaner, clearer and tighter bass. My friend's receiver is beautiful looking, appears well made and has good specs. It just sounds more like a piece of electronics and less like music.