good clean punchy powerful

tuner doesnt sound great large speakers please

a large and heavy brute{88 lbs} to get a power amp of this grade it could cost 3 grand Canadian. Able to turn most speakers into tobbacco, including hpm-150's.I'm driving huge Altec's {cast 15"-4.25"voice coil/6 cu ft/mantaray horns}BIG BIG FULL SOUNDand lots of SPL! the preamp section kicked ass over my pal's nad.Power amp was warmer than his Big carver too! All you have to do is replace that jumper between the pre/power amps with {kimber} high quality cable and BLAM huge improvement! Every time i look at replacing it or the speakers I decide to keep them Big big bucks to a small improvement.You better use a good c.d player it's pickey ,yamaha was too ronchie I settled in on luxman

Similar Products Used:

yamaha mx 1000u

Check this out: My neighbor bought a SX-1980 reciever back in 1980, used it for 3 months and bought Carver amps. The reciever was boxed up until I talked it out of him last year, what a find. A new reciever from the vintage years of the high power reciever wars. For those of you too young to know those years this reciever was Pioneers flag ship, 270 watts per channel, toroidal transformers with 22,000uf capacitors. I've owned many different amps but this one cranks and is very neutral. If the CD is a poor recording it sounds terrible (as it should) if the engineers spent any time making a good recording it will shine through this amp. There is no substitute for clean neutral power. Those who say power doesn't matter will probably tell you size doesn't matter either, poor guys!! They don't build-em like this anymore, all brushed metal front with brushed metal control knobs, analog tuning, conventional lights, an awesome sight and weight (80 lbs). They can keep their all black components with plastic knobs and face plates. This is a real component, 18 years old and I'll put it up against anything made today. You young boys need to learn what the real Hi- Fi days were all about!!

I got my non-working sx-1980 from the original owner for $20.00 and was lucky that it was repairable and have $227.00 in it total...it works flawlessly and is probably the cleanest sound I have ever had from a home receiver....I can crank it through my b&o beovox 150's and it sounds wonderful...this was my dream receiver and I am just happy that it came my way...it was well worth the wait at the repair shop. The styling is similiar to the 1280 but it does not have all those multi color indicators but leds and quartzlock tuning to boot...the 1280 did not have that feature.

My Brother bought one of these in 1979. I purchased his 6 month old SA-9500II and TX-9500II from him so he could afford the 1400.00 beast. He still uses it today as his main power amp. I was at a local swap meet last year when I ran across one that was in pieces. The knobs, buttons and faceplate were removed. So, the guy sold it to me as-is for 20.00. I took it home, cleaned it up, and reassembled it. Mind you, at 98 Lbs. this was no small feat. It fired up, works perfect, and I've been using is to power a set of Klipsch Chorus IIs. If you want to hear 125 db of Clean, Punchy, Live Concert Level sound this is an unbeatable combination. The Klipsch sensitivity of 101 db 1w1m helps a bit, but the power amp section of this receiver is no Slouch.

that receiver was a very strong amp it would make my speakers raddle i have some bose 901,s

The biggest of the big Pioneers! Fantastic sound and build quality!

You can't stop the effects of age on old components. Big and heavy- 85 lbs!

Great receiver but has been in the shop twice in one year for power supply problems adding nearly $500 to what initially seemed like a bargain at $650 on ebay. Buy carefully! Inspect first if you can and having your tech check it out first is even better. I'll keep it as long as it continues to work, but as they say, 3 strikes and it's out. Still, the sound is fantastic, the styling is classic, and the construction oozes quality not found anywhere now! No other receiver like it! I'm hoping to move to a bigger house so I can set up all of my big speakers and really let it loose!

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer SX-950, SX-838, Sansui G-8000, Sansui QRX-9001

Very big and powerful. Built like a Rolls Royce.

Very heavy, hard to move around.

Winner of the 1980 Receiver wars. Beat out Sansui and Marantz. Has the ability to drive low impedance loads. I am using 4 Infinity SM-225's hooked in parallel with no problem. (the Infinity's are 6 ohm's which means the SX-1980 is running at 3 ohm's.)Not bad for a 20 year old piece of gear. The A-27 can do the same thing but the SX-1250 can not. (kicks the circuit breaker at about 10 oclock). The SX-1980 produces great detail, nice highs and good mids and plenty of bass (depending on your speakers). I use the pre-amp out section of the SX-1980 into my Velodyne CT-120 and from the CT-120 back to the amp input of the SX-1980 using the crossover in the sub. Very tight and fast bass that way. Not High End but not low end, kind of in the middle. Produces a better quality of sound than my friends Carver and Martin Logan set up for about 1/3 the cost. (he has since moved on to Plinius, Wadia and B&W. now thats a system).

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer SX-626, SX-650, SX-980, SX-1250, SX-D7000, Series 20 A-27 and A88X. (still have them all)