My new receiver finally arrived-care and feeding

heiney9

Well to those of you who responded/followed my Ebay thread in the clubhouse, I finally received the Nakamichi SR-3A receiver I bought at the beginning of the month. That guy either was a deadbeat or completely clueless. I will say, after I filed a complaint with PayPal about non-receipt of goods, he responded more timely, but still wasn’t able to get me the item until after the resolution center ruled in my favor.

I will say the Nak was received as described. Cosmetically it’s in VG+ to EX. A few scratches on the top and sides, but the face plate is flawless. No nicks, dings or discoloration. All the lettering is intact. Not bad for a receiver manufactured in 1986. Will I need to break ‘er in…:p It is a bit dusty and needs a good cleaning. All the controls are as smooth as silk and feel very solid.

This Nakamichi SR-3A is built like a tank. It weighs in at just over 18 lbs. Huge transformer, nice size caps. Every switch has a weighty high quality feel. It’s rated @ 45 watts per channel, but I think that’s a bit on the conservative side. I have no idea if the Stasis circuit bares any resemblance to the original Threshold Stasis circuit. I’ve seen posts from Nelson Pass about the Stasis circuit used by Nak and he never gets very specific only saying they just licensed the name from him and paid a modest sum of money to do so. He won’t say, at least I’ve never read it, if he was directly involved with the design of Nak’s . I suspect not.

I’ve temporarily hooked it up in place of my Adcom GFA-545 and Nak CA-5 seperates. Everything else is the same in my main system. I’ve been listening for a couple hours now with all my fave/familiar music. It’s been a vey long time since I’ve listened to a “receiver”. I used sell this exact model of Nak’s back in the day and back then I thought nothing (receiver’s) could compete, except the Luxman. Naks always sounded better than Yamaha back then and I’d put this up against any Yammy today. However comparing this unit to quality separates like my Nak/Adcom combo, the SR-3A comes up a bit short in some areas, which was to be expected. It seems to be a bit on the bright side; a bit forward as well; certainly liveable. The bass is where the most diff is noticed. This receiver just doesn’t seem to go as deep and seems a bit sloppy and muddy compared to the Adcom. Soundstage is very good but not as good as the separates. Well those are my first listening impressions. This weekend I’ll be moving the Nak into my computer/office room which is what I bought it for. Hooking it up to the Athena AS-B1’s and an AMC DAC8 for a second system. I am a bit worried because the AMC DAC is a tad on the bright side too. Hopefully the Athena’s will be able to tame the brightness down a bit.

This thing needs a good cleaning. I'm not spending money on high tech cleaning fluids etc...I need some advice on cleaning the input terminals on the back. They have become pretty oxidized. I believe the input selectors and volume control, which are rotary,are sealed Alps pots. When I open her up how can I tell if they are sealed? If they are sealed I assume I can't clean them. If they are not sealed and not making noise should I still clean them?

One other concern I have is I can hear a fair amount of crosstalk when I switch from one source to another. It's been a long time since I've had a rec so I know a small amount maybe normal, but this is pretty noticeable. Chances are I'll only be using the one input. My question is this phenomenon due to age or is it because it's dirty.

Thanks

H9

steveinaz

Cool! I love Nak equipment. Crosstalk in receivers (at least 70's & 80's receivers) is the nature of the beast. Anything beyond 1983 I can't talk about, since I moved to seperates then.