Sansui G-9000 Receiver Demo, 1978, 160WPC

Hey guys, I normally post the in the 80s and 90s groups, but I’m also into some 70s equipment. Tonight, I am giving my Sansui G-9000 a workout, if you would like a bedtime story to read… DANGER, long story ahead if you’re interested because that’s the way I roll.
I was at a preview estate sale about three years ago in Naperville, Illinois. An older engineer that worked at Bell Labs had passed away and I had a chance to preview everything that was in his house… his neighbor was one of my friends growing up and was a caretaker at his old age and was somewhat in charge.
When going through the basement with the estate selling auction rep, I came across a number of electronic items. The basement was completely moldy, There was no use for the wood rotten pool table, or any of the other tools and such which were completely rusty. The brick walls were completely brown and black and paint had decayed because of moisture seeping in. The 1950’s era small house has since been demolished.
During my visit, I came across some specific stereo receivers which were of great interest to me, including a Sansui G-9000 (and a few other 70s/80s/90s which I likely have not posted here in this group before). They were filthy and I mean completely filthy, so I just made a $50 offer and filled my trunk. Ended up with a Commodore Amiga, oscilloscopes, Victrola console, and many many many 60s Heathkit items which I have previously sold on eBay because I’m really not into the 60s stuff. I can’t tell you how many paper towels and bottles of Windex I went through to clean up to make saleable. And even after cleaning up it was still putrid.
So I got home on that first night, and I threw the G-9000 down on the kitchen counter and plugged it in, filled with spiderwebs in the tuner dial, and what was absolutely amazing was seeing the protector light blink for 8 seconds and then turn off and seemingly work. It tuned a local FM station not needing an antenna in stereo perfect based on the meters and LEDs. Only a couple of the dial lights were burned out. When bringing it down to my bench, I had audio. I must have spent two days removing cigarette smoke tar and cleaning this up internally and externally, and when connected to good speakers I could not believe how well it worked. And I really don’t understand why this older gentleman took it out of service and why it was left to rot in the moldy basement.
So here’s where things took a turn for the worse - I have many many receivers, over 50 different from different decades. Instead of using a 6 switch speaker selector with a single receiver, I thought it would be interesting to have my best six receivers hooked up to a single pair of speakers! (reverse logic of what you’d use the speaker select to switch for). Well, a couple weeks later I accidentally forgot to disengage the G-9000 while it was on concurrently with a JVC RX-905V 120WPC receiver. And I blew the G-9000 out. At least a number of output transistors and it was dead even after replacing fuses.
I reached out to Crossed Path Vintage in Texas and elected to have this sent 1200 miles for a restoration. It was a very stressful, long, frustrating repair. Was supposed to take 30 days with another 30 days to ship.
15 months later, after a lot of persistence, my G-9000 arrived back yesterday.
I am in absolute ecstasy with this unit, it’s working so well, and I will never reverse engineer a speaker selector switch as I previously did to kill the unit.
This is an example of excellent 1970s engineering, when things were built like a tank, and when the parts were designed to last. I’m still reading more about the technical aspects of this receiver, but I will tell you these higher end Sansui, Pioneer, Kenwood and Marantz units are a work of art. There is something about this era of technology which is just astounding. These units are like a good golden retriever - they want to please their owner.
So that’s what is going on here tonight, I feel it is more interesting to tell my story then to just post a video.
Decoded the serial and she’s from May 1978.
Have a great night everyone!

[@crafty2978]

Lovely isn't it , i have the same one and others 😊

[@lovehorses2669]

What is your favorite?