It's new to me

Mikey081057

Friend of mine told me his uncle was needing to have his visio soundbar installed and asked if we could leave work early and if I would help (do it for him) and I said sure. We headed out to south plainfield nj, about 20 minutes away without traffic so it took about an hour to get there.

I took about 15 minutes to do, and the guy wanted to pay me $50 and I said I didn't want his money.... He was insisting , and I said the only way I would take his $50 was if he took $50 off of his Marantz receiver (2252b) he had sitting on a shelf in his den. We started haggling, and I put it in my trunk for $150 out of my pocket. The thing is in pretty nice shape, and I was figuring it would need some work as he has had this since 1978.

Couldn't wait to get it home and fire it up as I have read how sweet these things are and I must say this thing is sweet. The fm tuner works nice, and I have my computer/dragonfly/lsi7's plugged into it and i am in vintage marantz heaven. I guess watts were rated different in 1978 cause this thing has big power... maybe not monster power but for my little 12x12 office I can blow the door off.

If i can make sure this thing is stable and will last me a few years, I just may hook it to my 2 channel rig and and see how it compares to my tube rig with my LSIM 703's.

great tone... I'm feeling a little guilty now..

Vintage **** pix below.

hochpt21

That's purdy.

Mikey081057

There goes my thread

boston1450

Congrats on you Marantz. Thats a great price. You will love it & they are built like tanks. Very conservative wpc. I cant put mine over 10 o'clock volume or i hurt my ears on Polk Monitor 7's. enjoy your new receiver its a beauty

Mikey081057

DSkip wrote: »

I do always aim to tease :cool:


You know how I feel about my Marantz. $150 for that piece is a damn good price. If its anything like the 2216, I don't see how you couldn't love it.

Ha

this thing blows me out of the room at about 10:00 on the pot.

Can't get over how this 35 y.o. stuff still works great. and for my buck fitty they look like a million $.

Mikey081057

Listening to the Tubes- She's a beauty...

soundfreak1

Mikey081057 wrote: »

Ha

this thing blows me out of the room at about 10:00 on the pot.

Can't get over how this 35 y.o. stuff still works great. and for my buck fitty they look like a million $.

My 2265b always sounded better at 10:00 when on the pot.
That is a sweet unit enjoy !

Mikey081057

boston1450 wrote: »

Congrats on you Marantz. Thats a great price. You will love it & they are built like tanks. Very conservative wpc. I cant put mine over 10 o'clock volume or i hurt my ears on Polk Monitor 7's. enjoy your new receiver its a beauty

So you have one too... Is there any mandatory love and care that needs to be done to a 40 y.o receiver? It looks real clean inside so I guess it has had some maint. the pots are clean, and the only thing I did was clean the rca jax with a little de-oxit gold, and everything seems fine... or do you subscribe to the if it ain't broke philosophy?

Mikey081057

soundfreak1 wrote: »

My 2265b always sounded better at 10:00 when on the pot.
That is a sweet unit enjoy !

It's 10:00 somewhere so let's burn one!

boston1450

You got it under control. Enjoy it. Like i said their built like tanks. One more thing. Mine is the same year.

cnh

Whether you love them or hate them; those old Marantz receivers are sure purdy!

Enjoy!

cnh

Mikey081057

So i pulled the knobs off, and gave the face, knobs and the tuning wheel a nice clean. only marks on this are about 4 little dings on the top rail of the faceplate.

She cleans up real nice...

EndersShadow

Very jealous Mikey!

Nightfall

Only thing it's missing is power meters

I love the silver face era receivers. One day I will get my hands on one of the big boys like the SX-1980, Marantz 2500 or 2600.

Mikey081057

Nightfall wrote: »

Only thing it's missing is power meters

I love the silver face era receivers. One day I will get my hands on one of the big boys like the SX-1980, Marantz 2500 or 2600.

I wanted a 2385, would have settled for a 2330 but they are so hard to find and they want big$$$ even for ones that are effed up. I am sure this 2252 can drive just about anything tho.

As for power meters, I still have my m80 which is like 5x the power of this thing, but this is so much sweeter and has all the ballz you need. got yelled at like 6x already tonite.

Mikey081057

DSkip wrote: »

Mikey, to be completely honest, I'm not too sure the watts on the vintage Marantz's are as important as overall condition. The 16 watts I've got do more than their share of pushing the Maggies and that is not an easy load. I'd have to get my ear on some other, higher powered pieces, but considering this to be lower-tier in the product line, I think any should be a winner.

Agree... I am sure they can easily drive anything I have with ease. I think I am going make a retro rig with my monitor 5b's, find a nice phillips ga312 tt, and a nakamichi tape deck (although I probably forgot how to use) and some lava lamps and a hookah...

Mikey081057

DSkip wrote: »

I'd be curious on your thoughts on the Marantz with those 703's. I don't think it'd be a great match for LSi9's, but I bet it'd sound pretty damn good on those 703's. Any chance you can give it a whirl?

i sure will this weekend

Mikey081057

OK so i patched it in in my listening room to the LSIM 703's, and used my laptop/jriver/dragonfly as the source. popped in a spyro gyra hybrid cd, and this thing is serious good. 52 watts is sounding huge. Now i am facing the dilemma of what to use in my rig, and will have to do some tests to determine wtf to do next. This thing has such a full rich sound that is really making me think. The 703's which are not especially efficient by any measure peaked at 102 db + with the vol at about 09:30.... So power is definitely not a constraint at all. I had read some commentary that many thought this receiver was excessive in the high range, and I don't find that at all. with this combo, the 703's sing and even without a sub, the bass is tight and responsive... no sub needed...I'm gonna try some vocals next and hear what they sound like...Saul you must be in heaven cuz this thing is really a superb piece.

brgman

Gotta love that old Marantz sound.I spent many a night in the 70's doing bong,er,uh, i mean studying and listening to a marantz driving Polk 10's.

Mikey081057

None of us could afford a Marantz tee shirt back in the 70's, perhaps that was b/c our partaking in the party atmosphere of the era. We had stuff from Radio Shack, I had an Onkyo (which was actually pretty nice) the rich kid up the block had a Fischer quad system... one kid actually had a JC Penney receiver and he didn't get no Levi's or Wranglers... he had to wear the Toughskins. My 1 friend used to get high on cough syrup, and when I was going to the store one day he asked me to get him a bottle of Tussin and I said "you mean Robitussin," and he said "hell no I want the store brand Tussin... I can't afford no Robi"

brgman

I couldn't afford it either.Went to my rich buddies house.
Sucker got a black Z 28 for his 16th birthday.I didn't come from money but I knew how to pick friends.