Sansui SS-20 Headphones

[VinylHanger]

What era are these from. They have tone and volume controls, with the 70's white cups. How are they regarded as far as vintage phones go. My folks had a set similar if not the same ones. Any other vintage phones to look for? Even if they aren't Sansui?
Best part is that they cost 2 bucks and are as minty as possible, looks like they were never used. The cord is making a bit of noise, I will be pulling them open tonight and fixing that.

[BeatleFred]

Hi VH, I have a pair of SS-20's that I got from Ebay about two or three years ago. I already had AKG K240's & Grado SR-80's but I was curious about Sansui h-phones- how they sounded (as I did the same with trying out one of their speaker models, the SP-X8700's).

Maybe I can fetch them out of the closet and try 'em again, but the SS-20's as I recall, didnt really knock me out in any way. Certainly didnt offer any special sound qualitities that would make me stop using the AKG's or Grado's. Since owning my Infinity Renaissance 90 speakers in Jan. '01 Ive hardly done any headphone listening at all, but I digress).

The SS-20's date to the late 70's, they, along with about a dozen other SS models are shown in a German Sansui catalog I have from that time (where they are called "kopfhorers"). While the SS-20's are very bulky, I do notice some other models like the SH-5 and SH-15 which are much more sleek and stylish (dont have the white bulk) - now THOSE might be worth a listen to, but now that I think of it, I realize that I dont think Ive ever seen ANY for sale Online.

As for the question you mentioned, I imagine there must be quite a few sites dedicated to the glorious world of Headphones with ratings on the better sounding & made ones though not sure how many of them go bacjk that far to cover Vintage models.

http://headwize2.powerpill.org/ubb/forumdisplay.php?fdays=20&fnum=1

Regards, B/F.

[VinylHanger]

BF,
I haven't really done a whole lot of headphone listening. I remember my folks having this series of headphones though. I think I may be odd, but I enjoy the bulkyness of them. It allows me to totally tune out the rest of the house. Which with a four year old in the house isn't an easy thing to do. I did open them up last night to fix a loose/broken wire and there was a large capacitor in them as a crossover, I may switch it out and see if that helps any. I realize there are probably much better new units, I am looking for a Stax adaptor for a set I have, but the older vintage ones are so cheap and there are so many of them, it is easy to try the different ones out.
There is a set of SS-60's on the bay for under 10 bucks, I may try for those and see if there is a difference.
The SS series is the only ones I recall also, but I will keep an eye out for the others as well.