Non JBL, but serious bling-bling here...

[Regis]

Please put on your sunglasses before looking at the Ebay auction linkee

What went up last night was a super rare Sansui G-33000. There's very few G-22K's and even fewer of these. $1,900 back in 1977 and they weighed just over 100 pounds! But you got 300 WPC, baby! I've never actually seen one for sale in two years of perusing Ebay, etc. It's already hit $1,500 with six days left and I expect over $2K when it's done. There are trim diffs between my G-22K and the G-33K. The bottom part of the amp has a brushed finish vs. the dark grey on the G22 and there's polished metal panels on the side of the preamp-tuner.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=50592&item=5775928 323&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

[Figge]

thats the reciever of recievers...whatta monster! beutiful!

[Mr. Widget]

What an odd duck... Why not just call this a tuner preamp with power amp? What an oddity... never knew that existed. What ever happened to Sansui?

Widget

[Audiokarma]

What an odd duck... Why not just call this a tuner preamp with power amp? What an oddity... never knew that existed. What ever happened to Sansui?

Widget

The classicsansui site has some background

http://www.classicsansui.net/sansui-history.htm

[4313B]

Nice link Audiokarma!

[Audiokarma]

Thanks Giskard. You may have noticed but from the main page they have links to many of the brochures, etc from the golden days. Sansui always did turn out first class literature and documentation. For mainstream mass market audio, some of it was pretty decent.

[pmakres1]

The classicsansui site has some background

http://www.classicsansui.net/sansui-history.htm

Very Cool site Audiokarma!

Peter

[Alex Lancaster]

In the 70's and maybe early 80´s, Sansui had some sort of link with JBL, forget what, though.

[Regis]

What an odd duck... Why not just call this a tuner preamp with power amp? What an oddity... never knew that existed.
Widget

It is different in that it was so big, that Sansui decided to 'split' their two TOTL receiver's into two pieces. This allowed for flexibility in setting it up. You could go stacked, side-to-side and Sansui supplied four huge Metric Allen-head socketed bolts and you could actually bolt the two units back-to-back, but you'd better have some serious depth to your entertainment center for that option.

The main difference between typical 'separates' and this unit is that there's actually an umbilical cord between the first and second unit that's permanently attached to the tuner-pre section. There's about 8-12 pins or so in a square arrangement and the vu meters actually get driven off've this! The umbilical also came with a nice threaded locking collar too and you aren't supposed to run this amp without it.

I think this had to be one of the penultimate recievers ever made, along with the Pioneer SX-1980 and Marantz 2600. Power, beauty and class in one package. They'll never make em' like this again!

[Audiokarma]

As a former owner of the SX-1980, I can definitely see the logic of splitting up those monster Sansui's. The 1980 weighed 78lb. It appears the Sansui is even dimensionally larger, besides heavier, when bolted together. I know from experience, the SX-1980 was almost really too much of a beast for one person to heft without risking some kind of cosmetic damage. It was like 22 wide x 21 deep.

[Mr. Widget]

I think this had to be one of the penultimate recievers ever made, along with the Pioneer SX-1980 and Marantz 2600. Power, beauty and class in one package. They'll never make em' like this again!

I guess I'd go with the Marantz... it basically had a 510 amp shoe horned into the Receiver chassis and that cool little oscilloscope. I don't think it was quite the same quality as the 510, but it was very similar. These are certainly interesting from a collecting stand point, but for performance, I'd rather have the quality and flexibility of true separates.

Widget

[Audiokarma]

I guess I'd go with the Marantz... it basically had a 510 amp shoe horned into the Receiver chassis and that cool little oscilloscope. I don't think it was quite the same quality as the 510, but it was very similar. These are certainly interesting from a collecting stand point, but for performance, I'd rather have the quality and flexibility of true separates.

Widget

Widget,

That's a beauty too! You've probably been here before:

http://classic-audio.com/marantz/2600.html

BTW, I've never followed the market on this one on ebay. Do you have a feel for the going price? Just curious.

Thanks, AK

[Mr. Widget]

I haven't really followed them. They go for way more than my passing curiosity will allow. I'd get a kick out of owning one, but I would never pay over $1K for a curiosity... not when that will buy a damn fine tweeter from TAD.

Widget

[Audiokarma]

I haven't really followed them. They go for way more than my passing curiosity will allow. I'd get a kick out of owning one, but I would never pay over $1K for a curiosity... not when that will buy a damn fine tweeter from TAD.

Widget

I hear ya! I'm sure they go for well over that.

[Titanium Dome]

Nostalgia can be a very expensive habit, and I can only look at a piece of equipment for so long before remorse sets in.