Location: nottingham
Posts: 328
I'm nigel.
I owned a Sansui 8080db for a few years in late 80s...although a thing of beauty and built like a tank the sound was pretty poor.
Although a huge beast with lots of power on paper it was properly shown up by a AND 3120 I owned....a LEAK 70 mentioned in a previous thread was also better.
Although the power supply featured a huge shielded transformer it was let down by a pair of pretty small filter caps....I remember the first time I opened the wooden lid to clean it up and thinking "bloody hell, where's the caps"?
Another big issue...the illumination laps were fuse style and sealed inside a plastic case with no venting.
This meant the wiring got VERY hot and dried out the joints....I had to reflow joints every few months as a lamp went out.
Not as good as you'd imagine.
I purchased a whole rack system from Sansui back in the mid 80’s, and it was the worst! The speakers were poorly made, the sound shrill and gritty, listening sessions were short. I bought it from an electronics store, and got a 5 year warranty, and within that time every single piece of it went in for repairs! I got it all working and sold it before the 5 years was up.
But I recall a friend’s older brother had a Sansui 9090 when I was a teenager, and was most impressive! And one of the systems that inspired me to Pursue Hi-Fi. I’m not sure when they turned the corner, but they did.
Russell