Monday, January 18, 2010

New Sony STR-5800 SD Photos


I veneered the fake wood side panels in real teak, as is my habit. This is a beautiful, great sounding receiver, produced from 1976-78. It's a solid 55 watts/channel, and at least as good sounding as the identically rated STR-V4.

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2 comments:

Kevin MacNutt said...

That is a great looking unit. I have one of those, I paid $25 for mine with the plug cut off the cord. I am not sure why they did that since it worked like new. Apparently these are very underrated units which loom in the shadows of similar spec Pioneers and Sansuis. The good news there is someone without a lot of cash looking to get a well made, attractive, nice sounding equipment without forking out the same amount you would have to for an equivalent Pioneer.

Buzz Windrip said...

I picked one up at Goodwill for $10, cleaned it up and it sounds wonderful. The dial lamps are european automotive bulbs BTW, my old BMW had them. Auto parts stores carry them.

I worked in audio retailing from the mid-70's to early 80's. This unit and its stablemates was the forerunner for Sony's Esprit/later ES series, and actually competed with Yamaha, H/K, Mitsubishi and other higher-end receivers of that time. I sold a lot of Yamaha receivers against this Sony series, and they were quite good in comparison.

Being in the middle of a move and home sale, I packed up my "real" system of separates to help "declutter" our living room, and put the Sony STR-5800 in the middle of the remaining system to drive it-- it honestly sounds as good as the separates it replaced, as least with more casual sources (FM, media player, video). The tuner in particular is excellent.