I remember back in the mid to late 80's you could find these receivers at garage sales for $50 or less in perfect working condition. People didn't want them anymore. I snagged quite a few back in the day. Now this equipment can bring more than their original price if in good restored condition.
I didn't start seeing these big pioneers till the mid to late nineties. People weren't giving them up as much as one might think to the more modern digital tuner receivers of the later eighties era .
OMG! I have working on a restoration project on a 41 year old audio equipment for over 30 hours already. My project is at least 5x less complicated than this one. Watching this motivates me!! Kudos to you!!!
Hey Tony , had to leave a comment ,great content, this has to be your bread& butter, for your channel ! hats off to you ! the astounding level you go to , the level of detail ,the patience required , along with the very high level of knowledge . you are very rare and we really do appreciate the work you do, regards from all your friends in the uk.
I've been looking for one within reason, 3-5 grand last time I found one, hopeless, unless I stop paying all my bills, and buying my necessities, I might be able to save up. It is a very powerful pioneer receiver.
great work Tony, thks for the videos. I started refurbishing and repairing great classic retro hifi units too as a hobby, rewarding work! PS im an xray tech too in South Africa. I work on Philips xray, CT, and Elekta Linacs! ;)
Really happy to see you're doing a series on the 1980. I have one that seems to be working ok but need to know how to check it out correctly and replace caps, etc. that must by now not be at tolerance specs. Good to hear that about the power supply mod. Looking forward to the next video.
I love my SX-1980 thing is a beast mine has the AWR154 modded supply board . My dad bought it brand new and gave it to me when i was 16 . love to see these restored and kept alive . great video Tony
Do you have existing AWR154 Supply board... How much did it cost you to fix new supply board..I have this sx-1980 without both side power Amp Board assembly.it was a abundant one since 1992 to date..But I want to get restore it..Thanks and Regards..
Great start to what is going to be a cool restoration series. Nice to see you using Kemet for your big filter capacitors. I have been using them in the restorations of large power supplies used on old Minicomputers at the computer museum I work for. Those old big can capacitors are not known for their reliability, now.
I have a working SX-735 that I’ve had since the 70s. Also have an Allied 485 receiver, which was released a few years before Allied was divested from Radio Shack. It was also a Pioneer based system adopted by ARS.
Good to see you rock'n one of these on your bench Tony, I've done one, they are a lot of work!! If you think thats big, wait until you get a Sansui G33000/22000 on your bench!!
Great series so far Tony. Looking forward to the rest of the vids. For the caps on the capacitors, you should buy white ones and paint little American flags in them. Why? Because YOU can. It's America! Lol
Wow!! I have a SX 880 from 1981 that still works great, I had it serviced and tested once and the guy told me it was pushing over 80 watts a channel and pioneer claims it`s only 60 watts but that SX 1980 is huge.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom I learn something new even when I look at videos for a second and third time. I bought a SX1280 and I need to rebuild most of its circuits. For example: a previous owner removed and bypassed the softstart resister with a simple lead. What damage might that cause? I pulled a softstartresister out of a SX1250 that I plan to use. It is a 6,2 ohm resister 20 watt. Is this Ok?? and what are the limits for resistans in this mashine for softstartresister? As per your advise I haven't yet connnected it to power. Hoping to hear from you, sincerely Thomas in Sweden
hey. like the video, but the part I am want to see is cut out. how can I remove the cover off? do we have to take the metal plate behind Venner off 1st? thanks
Awesome !!!! An SX-1980...... sweet!! A friend of mine had one of those back in 1980/81......... bought it brand new from a local Stereo Store. He paid $800 for it brand new. Awesome unit !!!!!!
Funny how there's always someone who has to comment about it being done in a not prefect way. I bet that spraycan you used wasn't the right paint code as the original paint from the manufacturer. OMG what a shame. But you could have used some primer or filler to get a smoother finish. But what the heck, it will sound just the same, and probably not be at display at Pebble Beach. Thumbs up Tony 👍
You may well find the large capacitors do NOT need to be replaced. In 20 years of restoring vintage solid state audio gear, I have never had to replace the large can caps. You can take that to the bank.
Tony, I have a Pioneer SX-9000. It's all original untouched and nonworking. You interested in taking it on as a follow up? It has some unique features including spring reverb and microphone inputs.
by the way, a common problem i encounter is battling to clean corroded RCA sockets (females) on the back of old units? sometimes replacing them isnt an option, yet they need to be clean for good connections! Any ideas!?
This beast is beyond! Most are basket cases like this. Some are worse than this. What a challenge these things can be. Get it right and nothing else is like it. Absolutely the Pioneer of Receivers. Worth the effort. Good luck!
There is a lot of hours to do a complete restoration of all those boards just thinking about locating and replacing the FETs. 20+ hours here in San Francisco at our labor rate you’re looking at $2500 just in labor. I did one restoration on a Marantz a very simple small one only after watching 15 or 20 videos of Marantz restorations I can tell you I spent more hours if I was paid hourly I could’ve bought several Marantz brand new but my mom has a very nice sounding restored Marantz. I think I like building amplifiers and preamp’s from scratch by hand much easier
I use several methods, depending on the connector. Gold plated jacks can just be cleaned with alcohol and swabs, or a bit of contact cleaner. If I can get access, a pencil eraser also works well. Some plated jacks can't be easily cleaned, as the plating gets tarnished and worn off, exposing the base metal. Those ones just get replaced. solid metal jacks can be polished with a very fine brass brush wheel on the dremel, which will shine them up like new.
@@xraytonyb Thank you so much Tony, mine's not gold plated and it looks like some sort of metal jacks, I'll try these methods you mentioned. Loving this SX-1980 series. Stay safe.
Rodent urine is such a corrosive substance not only to metal surfaces but also to the PCB traces and the boards themselves. Looks like this one spent some time in a storage unit that had a mouse problem.
Couldn’t you just buzz off those capacitor studs with the Dremel? Kind of unsightly. Looking forward to this series. This is all about excess of the era.
That's what I thought too, but the stud area still needs insulating because it's connected the negative rail. A nice fitting plastic cap would probably be the go..
My neighbors have one of these in MINT condition, and they're not even that interested in music or audio quality. They just bought it back in 1979 for some reason, and mainly use it to listen to the radio on Sundays... Fuckers won't sell it to me!!! They've had it for so long that it's become a part of the family or something. AARRGGHH!!!
Go Higher WHY?? Do you know something that the Engineers who designed this for Pioneer ? When you take your medicine and it says take 1 every 4 hours do you take 6 every 2 hours instead?? John you are showing your ignorance to the world wide web pal...
For the time and attention to detail you put in the cost of these restorations must be massive that or you are not charging enough for your time and knowledge.
11:08 - Worse than I thought? I see rows of EMPTY wire-wrap posts on that tuner PC board! I can't believe all of them would be test points! UPDATE: Ah, I see it's wired on the bottom - weird!
Why didn't Panasonic not use DSP Processing instead of using discrete components and make the unit weigh around 10KG, it would not have been that hard just a fully digital chassis could have made for the best unit out and with Quadrature Sampling detector to feed the decoder board to recover the FM/AM stations then and multiple input switching to a high power PWM output stages that would have been perfect would it not.
Old junk equipment yet again! There is one good thing about this beast. It contains less plastic and more metal than modern receivers. So you'll get more money when you sell it for scrap metal.
I remember back in the mid to late 80's you could find these receivers at garage sales for $50 or less in perfect working condition. People didn't want them anymore. I snagged quite a few back in the day. Now this equipment can bring more than their original price if in good restored condition.
I didn't start seeing these big pioneers till the mid to late nineties. People weren't giving them up as much as one might think to the more modern digital tuner receivers of the later eighties era .
OMG! I have working on a restoration project on a 41 year old audio equipment for over 30 hours already. My project is at least 5x less complicated than this one. Watching this motivates me!! Kudos to you!!!
Hey Tony , had to leave a comment ,great content, this has to be your bread& butter, for your channel ! hats off to you ! the astounding level you go to , the level of detail ,the patience required , along with the very high level of knowledge . you are very rare and we really do appreciate the work you do, regards from all your friends in the uk.
I've been looking for one within reason, 3-5 grand last time I found one, hopeless, unless I stop paying all my bills, and buying my necessities, I might be able to save up. It is a very powerful pioneer receiver.
Looking forward to watching the restoration series on this magnificent Pioneer 😎 These are such a nice piece of equipment.
great work Tony, thks for the videos. I started refurbishing and repairing great classic retro hifi units too as a hobby, rewarding work! PS im an xray tech too in South Africa. I work on Philips xray, CT, and Elekta Linacs! ;)
I am really looking forward to this one Anthony.
What a blessing to have you work on this amazing and beautiful historical piece !!
Thank you !
Really happy to see you're doing a series on the 1980. I have one that seems to be working ok but need to know how to check it out correctly and replace caps, etc. that must by now not be at tolerance specs. Good to hear that about the power supply mod. Looking forward to the next video.
I love my SX-1980 thing is a beast mine has the AWR154 modded supply board . My dad bought it brand new and gave it to me when i was 16 . love to see these restored and kept alive . great video Tony
Do you have existing AWR154 Supply board...
How much did it cost you to fix new supply board..I have this sx-1980 without both side power Amp Board assembly.it was a abundant one since 1992 to date..But I want to get restore it..Thanks and Regards..
Thanks Tony! Man, that thing is a monster!
I'll buy it . My cousin has one...the power and sound from that unit is amazing.
Great start to what is going to be a cool restoration series. Nice to see you using Kemet for your big filter capacitors. I have been using them in the restorations of large power supplies used on old Minicomputers at the computer museum I work for. Those old big can capacitors are not known for their reliability, now.
Lots of work in that monster! Love old amps though, so worth the time to do it right.
Going to be a great series, looking forward to it!
I have a working SX-735 that I’ve had since the 70s. Also have an Allied 485 receiver, which was released a few years before Allied was divested from Radio Shack. It was also a Pioneer based system adopted by ARS.
You have your hands full with that one Tony. Nice to see you in front of the camera too! All the best from the emerald isle
that is Mahoosive!!!!!! looking forward to the series
Great video on a great unit!
Awesome video once again Tony, love them
What a monster! Looking forward to this series 😄
Amazing work sir!
Nice work. I like your workarounds.
Just clicked and subbed, I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this series!
Just did the same thing.
Excellent great work..Keep it up...
Good luck Tony, you certainly have a handful there. ;)
Tony, I think it would be great if you showed us noobs how to clean those super populated boards to that pristine state.
The witty humor is great!!!!👍
This will be great to see👍🎶
Sounds very interesting, I look forward to it.
Bonsoir, bravo pour cette restauration j'adore le look de ses appareil des années 70, je m'abonne.
I liked when you put text in the screen about it being too hot and "umid" in the shop. lol!
hours of fun,.lol,.cant wait to see the finished part,.
It kind of makes you appreciate the modern class D amplifiers
"Talk about rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic..." That actually gave me a bit of a chuckle. Looking forward to this series Tony.
How could anyone do this to such a beautiful piece of audio gear?
Good to see you rock'n one of these on your bench Tony, I've done one, they are a lot of work!! If you think thats big, wait until you get a Sansui G33000/22000 on your bench!!
Hopefully some day........
@@xraytonyb how can I get in touch with you? I have sx-1980 that need some work. Please share phone or email. Thank you!
Masterpiece 👍🏻
I remember seeing units like that in Japan in the 1970's and this one looks like it was on Okinawa for the last 35 years!
Yes loved the stereo stores on the rock!
Great series so far Tony. Looking forward to the rest of the vids. For the caps on the capacitors, you should buy white ones and paint little American flags in them. Why? Because YOU can. It's America! Lol
wow what a monster. I wouldn't know where to begin
One sold for $15k on ebay a few days ago. Another for $9800.
I just looked on Ebay and someone is selling the SX 1980 for 8000 dollars, another person selling it for 9000 and one more person selling it for 7500
Wow!! I have a SX 880 from 1981 that still works great, I had it serviced and tested once and the guy told me it was pushing over 80 watts a channel and pioneer claims it`s only 60 watts but that SX 1980 is huge.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom
I learn something new even when I
look at videos for a second and third time.
I bought a SX1280 and I need to rebuild most of its circuits.
For example: a previous owner removed and bypassed the softstart resister with a simple lead.
What damage might that cause?
I pulled a softstartresister out of a SX1250 that I plan to use. It is a 6,2 ohm resister 20 watt. Is this Ok?? and what are the limits for resistans in this mashine for softstartresister? As per your advise I haven't yet connnected it to power. Hoping to hear from you, sincerely Thomas in Sweden
I have me a Realistic STA2000 and it works just fine. Just it will blow speakers if not careful.
hey. like the video, but the part I am want to see is cut out. how can I remove the cover off? do we have to take the metal plate behind Venner off 1st? thanks
Tony, what is your personal process for rust removal before repaint?
Awesome !!!! An SX-1980...... sweet!! A friend of mine had one of those back in 1980/81......... bought it brand new from a local Stereo Store. He paid $800 for it brand new. Awesome unit !!!!!!
It makes me think something failed in the unit and it was put out in the garage/barn.
SX 1980... The Great White of receivers
Funny how there's always someone who has to comment about it being done in a not prefect way. I bet that spraycan you used wasn't the right paint code as the original paint from the manufacturer. OMG what a shame.
But you could have used some primer or filler to get a smoother finish. But what the heck, it will sound just the same, and probably not be at display at Pebble Beach.
Thumbs up Tony 👍
Rubber thread protectors (black) would work good on the top of the caps.
You may well find the large capacitors do NOT need to be replaced. In 20 years of restoring vintage solid state audio gear, I have never had to replace the large can caps. You can take that to the bank.
1980 my a__...That boat is from the 70's !. Looks like it was in damp basement for many years. The underside looks good though.
Tony, I have a Pioneer SX-9000. It's all original untouched and nonworking. You interested in taking it on as a follow up? It has some unique features including spring reverb and microphone inputs.
Get in line dude???
by the way, a common problem i encounter is battling to clean corroded RCA sockets (females) on the back of old units? sometimes replacing them isnt an option, yet they need to be clean for good connections! Any ideas!?
Some sandpaper outside and maybe vinegar (or similar) soaking them to get the insides?
This beast is beyond! Most are basket cases like this. Some are worse than this. What a challenge these things can be. Get it right and nothing else is like it. Absolutely the Pioneer of Receivers. Worth the effort. Good luck!
Old school power
There is a lot of hours to do a complete restoration of all those boards just thinking about locating and replacing the FETs. 20+ hours here in San Francisco at our labor rate you’re looking at $2500 just in labor. I did one restoration on a Marantz a very simple small one only after watching 15 or 20 videos of Marantz restorations I can tell you I spent more hours if I was paid hourly I could’ve bought several Marantz brand new but my mom has a very nice sounding restored Marantz. I think I like building amplifiers and preamp’s from scratch by hand much easier
I am looking for a SX-1980 I wish I had of seen this video last year.
Someone sales one locally for $1000. And is open to negotiating. If in mint condition, is that a fair price?
Someone put a plant pot on top of this thing then proceeded to over-water the plant.
It's a beast though.
Hi Tony, how did you clean those RCA terminals? Thanks.
I use several methods, depending on the connector. Gold plated jacks can just be cleaned with alcohol and swabs, or a bit of contact cleaner. If I can get access, a pencil eraser also works well. Some plated jacks can't be easily cleaned, as the plating gets tarnished and worn off, exposing the base metal. Those ones just get replaced. solid metal jacks can be polished with a very fine brass brush wheel on the dremel, which will shine them up like new.
@@xraytonyb Thank you so much Tony, mine's not gold plated and it looks like some sort of metal jacks, I'll try these methods you mentioned.
Loving this SX-1980 series. Stay safe.
Hi Where do i go an how much ? I don't think i can afford it but lit see love have something you work on !
it looks like some one had that thing in there garage...
Tony, I like your videos. Need to contact you for possible work.
They put LED lights in it while there was a mouse nest inside?...Rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic....lol
Rodent urine is such a corrosive substance not only to metal surfaces but also to the PCB traces and the boards themselves. Looks like this one spent some time in a storage unit that had a mouse problem.
Couldn’t you just buzz off those capacitor studs with the Dremel? Kind of unsightly.
Looking forward to this series. This is all about excess of the era.
That's what I thought too, but the stud area still needs insulating because it's connected the negative rail.
A nice fitting plastic cap would probably be the go..
How much
Its so fucking big!
Yes, a porn meme.
But seriously, absolute unit. One day I will have one.
My neighbors have one of these in MINT condition, and they're not even that interested in music or audio quality.
They just bought it back in 1979 for some reason, and mainly use it to listen to the radio on Sundays...
Fuckers won't sell it to me!!! They've had it for so long that it's become a part of the family or something. AARRGGHH!!!
What was wrong with the old capacitors did you even test them. And why stick to the same value go higher
It's already knocking on the door of 100kuf 😂😂😂
@@chrisvinicombe9947 what is 100kF per channel? That would be quite adequate per channel not so much if it's the whole lot
Go Higher WHY?? Do you know something that the Engineers who designed this for Pioneer ? When you take your medicine and it says take 1 every 4 hours do you take 6 every 2 hours instead?? John you are showing your ignorance to the world wide web pal...
@@exenx2995 so that's why the designers didn't put a 0.1uF pulley decoupling capacitor across the filter capacitors because they know everything
“Electronics Old and New by M Caldeira” ,
Having read all the opinions and dogmatic statements below I now know beyond any doubt that I am right and everyone else is wrong.
Give it to me !
For the time and attention to detail you put in the cost of these restorations must be massive that or you are not charging enough for your time and knowledge.
I would hate to drop this tank on my foot, and don't forget back problems!!!!!!😫
270W per channel into 8 ohms
Looks like it was used as a boat archer.
11:08 - Worse than I thought? I see rows of EMPTY wire-wrap posts on that tuner PC board! I can't believe all of them would be test points!
UPDATE: Ah, I see it's wired on the bottom - weird!
Why didn't Panasonic not use DSP Processing instead of using discrete components and make the unit weigh around 10KG, it would not have been that hard just a fully digital chassis could have made for the best unit out and with Quadrature Sampling detector to feed the decoder board to recover the FM/AM stations then and multiple input switching to a high power PWM output stages that would have been perfect would it not.
Want it
LOL....."mouse pee". The enemy of vintage audio gear the world over. 🐭🚽
And vintage computers spent hours cleaning mouse pee out of the power distribution/cable routing area out of a DEC VAX-11/780.
TOM PIPPS . FOAM - BATON ROUGE LOUISIANA USA . HI HELLO &
I am scared to see what the owner is going to try to sell this for, after paying for a full restoration!
@Martin M ..plus some don't want to do a complete recap, and restore and they ask for full retail price!!!!..some people just don't get it???
2:13 - Tetanus and GRIEF!
.
yuck.
Old junk equipment yet again!
There is one good thing about this beast. It contains less plastic and more metal than modern receivers. So you'll get more money when you sell it for scrap metal.
You've got no clue what you're talking about, do you?
@@CofeeAuLait
Well said.