Bang for buck - japanese seperates from the late 80's early 90's offer outstanding value for money.

Very much like a mirror to the automotive industry - this period is the zenith of performance and design - over cost and accountibilty.

I give you two of my current systems

Massive 18kilo Technics SU-VX800 amp (circa 1991)

Kenwood KX 880HX cassette (1989)
Sony SA 3ES FM Tuner (1992)
Technics SL 1200 - with Rega RB250 arm (1971-2011)
Kef Reference Model 1 speakers (1991)

Humungous 21kilo Kenwood KA D1100EX amp - built in DAC (circa1989)
Rega Planar 3 - with Rega RB300 arm
Linn Kan speakers


What makes the amp architecture interesting (and heavy)?

See below

The beauty of running massive TOTL amps is that you're running them well in their comfort zone - and like a large capacity motor in a luxury car, these things just purr - and the oversized power supply in each enables the power reserves and quality to be on standby whenever required.

Whenever you're buying an amp - it's all about the power supply

that's why the more esoteric amps come with external PSU's - equiped with torridals and massive caps.

very nice indeed

Heavy stuff.It looks nice.

It must be expensive to use,i,m thinking about electricity.

Music is electricity

you want loud - you gotta dig up some coal first

new purchases . . .

not my photos
I will be getting my lens out later (missus)

I wonder if anyone can remember the name of a technics stack I used to own, it had a cd player, amp/spectral analyser, tape/radio and 2 black box speakers. The components connected by ribbon cables, and they had a removeable side panel which I think could join the units together. The cd player had a flip down front too

i've googled it for ages and found nothing

if it's any help I think the components were half sized, or at least they were smaller than the standard wide fitting used for hi fi separates these days

This sort of thing?

These are nice

it was't as good looking as those, it was more platic, and with more digital menu's than real knobs and buttons

it kinda looked like this

only much less ugly and less plastic

wow- I found out the name of it, technics sc ch900

think i've still got it in the loft somewhere at my parents house, might get it out and fire it up, get rid of the cd player and construct some kind of handle to carry it all about

i'm sure it's possible to rig up some inverter and run it from batteries?

Batteries for that?  It probably weighs 40-50 lbs already.

true it's probably hefty, but i'm not looking to carry it on the shoulder, I DJ and I run some parties outdoors every now and again, and it'd be nice to have a system that went loud and was battery powered, if we could get this running off batteries we;d only have to move it to set up, and then again when we leave

and that's only if I can't find a decent box for sale before the next party, if I do then I probably won't bother with this unit as I have a nice rotel hi-fi set up anyway

I know it doesn't have the same retro vibe but wouldn't it be better to buy one of those battery-powered mono PA systems, I know they're more sonically geared up for outdoor work.

I tested one out actually, and they have great clarity but little bass, even compared to a hi fi unit, I guess they're designed to be run with a separate subwoofer

they're pretty expensive too, like £350-400, maybe in our next party we'll get everyone to throw in £2 and maybe that will cover the cost

there's some nice pioneers like the above in a junk shop i call in from time to time, the owners asking £25 for tuner amp tape deck and turntable, i'm always tempted but pass em up, need room for future boxes, plus i never have a spare £25 lol

^ they're worth a punt if the stuff is middle to top of the range stuff
check the model numbers on line and find out