Borrowed this to test fromTom's. Beautiful integrated amp from the mid-to-late 80s, with the unique Sansui look. Just looking at it while the amber-colored power column-chart meters dance up and down is soothing, and button selection indicators that light up in green look cool against the black faceplate.
In summary -hooked up to the Polk Monitor 5s: This amp has loads of juice in the 160 wpc claimed. It seems to beg for power hungry vintage speakers. I had to watch it - it sent serious current to the drivers in my Polks. The sound is clean if a bit forward in the mid-range and treble. Would match well with speakers that have tame mids and highs. The tone controls in this unit are particulerly effective - the bass/mid/treble turnover frequencies are at 50Hz, 1khz and 10Khz; just right, I found the bass and mid pots very useful.
The phono preamp is outstanding (at least on the MM side, which is what I had to test with), specially in combination with the -3db bass filter at 16Hz to keep things under control. Vey clean noise free.
The sound is definitely not on the tubey side: the transistors make their presence know - so if you are looking for warm tube sound look elsewhere. For hard rock listening this setup works great.
Very nice amp overall.
Pepe
