This joint needs some more vintage hifi

My ESS AMT 1s. Neat speakers

The ESS AMT 1A's are what I grew up listening to on my dad's system. Not for everyone, but it certainly pushed me towards a quality speaker with nice bass and detailed highs. He still has them, and I'm acquiring parts as I can to rehab them in the future. The HEIL tweeters are really nice and you see the same principles being applied to a lot of new offerings.

Just got my Yamaha CR-1000 & love it. Cant wait to use it this weekend

I recently got this minty Technics SU-A6 preamp, with MC phono.

I recently acquired and restored a couple of significant-to-me, Realistic receivers.


I would have been about 11 years old in 1981, and my dream receiver was the STA-2080. But I didn't get one, couldn't afford one, etc.. It took a few years but by 1984-'85 I had saved up enough to buy the "new for '84" STA-860. I ended up selling my original a few years ago, but almost instantly regretted it. Found one recently for $59 that I couldn't pass up. A few weeks later I acquired a working-but-overheating STA-2080. I worked it over and here it is along with the 860. I tend to like to keep the original look when it comes to dial lighting on these old receivers, but many of them- including this STA-2080- desperately needed cooler-running lamps, as the heat was taking a toll on the plastics. I tried and tried, but I just couldn't get the warm-white LED's to look right. I finally threw that approach out the window and went for a cooler look with blue tinted meter lighting. I think it looks nice. (The 860 lighting is all LED, too, but maintains the original look.)

Very nice Jason.

She's a beauty!

I think the 2080 has an FM stage with MOSFET, but the first advertised RS with MOSFET power outputs for amplification was the STA-2200 below. I could be wrong, but the advertising seems to tout these transistors in the '81 catalog? It's the only receiver that year to list that whereas the 2080 and others mention FM MOSFETS? Again, not a hundred percent sure here?



cnh

Thanks for the comments! So the consensus is that the lighting scheme looks okay? I do like it, but I feel a little bad about it not looking original. The original bulbs on the dial used a blue coating to make them less yellow, but the meters used a transparent blue filter to accomplish the same thing. With the yellowing of the plastics from heat, warm white leds just made everything look kind of sick yellow-green. That's pretty much how the incandescent lamps looked, too, when I bought it, but I remember the lighting looking a lot "whiter" when these were new. As shown above, I just used regular "cool" white leds, one on each end of the dial and two per meter.

And the 2080 used regular BJT outputs, 2SD745 and 2SB705. It looks like it's pretty similar to the STA-2000 in layout and construction, but was made in Korea instead of Japan. Most people seem to think it sounds better than the STA-2000. I don't know, but it sounds real good to me.

Despite being built a few years after the "peak", that STA-860 is no slouch either. Advertised as 65wpc @8 ohms,20-20Khz 0.03%THD. I drove mine hard, even being a dumb teenager and doing "DIY" Dj gigs with it on multiple occasions driving 4 Ohm (probably lower) loads with no problems. I'm not really what I would call an audiophile but I have been exposed to some nice equipment and I've spent a lot of money in pursuit of higher end audio. And I don't regret any of that, but when I got this 860 and hooked it up for a listen it was kind of like "ahhhh!" Perhaps it's just because it's what I grew up with.. I got a chuckle out of it, actually. Now if I had a set of Mach One's to go with it....

Always thought those Proton amps were cool, too! Never heard one though.