Most Underrated/Overrated Component or Brand

I have a case of how something is both overrated and underrated.
Proceed amp5.
Underrated - cos @ 125 watt rated, it can push a set of carver amazing AL 3 (3 12" woofers and 48" ribbon) beyond belief. It also did exceedingly well on a pair of NS1000 yamaha's. If it would catch fire if I ran the Carvers for hours on end ??? no idea.

Overrated - cos WTF, steel chassis, 5 amps, 3 monstrous input transformers and simply ... WTF. 125lb of WTF.

I'd now give 3 of my herniated disks to someone who can make 2 stereo and a monoblock from this monstrosity. Put it in a audio rack, and the next loud crash you hear may not be in the soundtrack, it may be this thing crashing through the entertainment rack onto the floor.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
IMG_20180415_121026.jpg Underrated-Any 70's era Sanyo products. Especially the Sanyo 2050 receiver.
Overrated- 70's era Marantz. They sound good and are well built. But no more quality of a build than several brands in that era. Including my receiver mentioned above, Sanyo 2050, is IMO built better than a lot of the Marantz receivers of that era. Plus, that Sanyo is really nice to look at.
 
View attachment 1231461 Underrated-Any 70's era Sanyo products. Especially the Sanyo 2050 receiver.
Overrated- 70's era Marantz. They sound good and are well built. But no more quality of a build than several brands in that era. Including my receiver mentioned above, Sanyo 2050, is IMO built better than a lot of the Marantz receivers of that era. Plus, that Sanyo is really nice to look at.

Sanyo and Sanyo built Fishers are underrated! Got two Sanyo Quad receivers this year. My roommate in '73 had one. Bought for fun. One hundred bucks each. Nice sounding. Used as a bench amp for awhile. Still sound good! Recently, I found a Fisher 301 Quad on Eprey. Had one in the seventies. Was not impressed then. Paired to Fisher speakers. Not a good combination. This one is hooked to JBL Decade 26s. It sounds great. Shown in my avatar with a Dual 1219. FM is a little weak on the NPR station I listen to. The stations I don't listen too all come in well. No one bid on that Fisher. Got it for $96 shipped. Put a Pioneer TX 500 tuner with to get WMHT clearly. Not sure how long I will keep it here. Have a Marantz 2270 being refurbed. That Fisher is a tank, 39 lbs! May make it a bench amp. As is it's my daily driver for now.

For someone starting out in this hobby the Fisher 301 like its Sanyo cousins is a good way to get started for little money. Gave one of my Sanyos away to a guy with no money. His amp way dropping a channel. Gave him the Sanyo. The guy was so happy. It was great spreading good Karma!
 
Sanyo and Sanyo built Fishers are underrated! Got two Sanyo Quad receivers this year. My roommate in '73 had one. Bought for fun. One hundred bucks each. Nice sounding. Used as a bench amp for awhile. Still sound good! Recently, I found a Fisher 301 Quad on Eprey. Had one in the seventies. Was not impressed then. Paired to Fisher speakers. Not a good combination. This one is hooked to JBL Decade 26s. It sounds great. Shown in my avatar with a Dual 1219. FM is a little weak on the NPR station I listen to. The stations I don't listen too all come in well. No one bid on that Fisher. Got it for $96 shipped. Put a Pioneer TX 500 tuner with to get WMHT clearly. Not sure how long I will keep it here. Have a Marantz 2270 being refurbed. That Fisher is a tank, 39 lbs! May make it a bench amp. As is it's my daily driver for now.

For someone starting out in this hobby the Fisher 301 like its Sanyo cousins is a good way to get started for little money. Gave one of my Sanyos away to a guy with no money. His amp way dropping a channel. Gave him the Sanyo. The guy was so happy. It was great spreading good Karma!

It's nice to hear from a fellow Sanyo fan. I had actually forgotten that Sanyo did build Fisher stuff for awhile. I was shopping my local thrift a few months back and I saw my Sanyo 2050 in mint condition for a ultra low price. I took it home and was blown away by how good it's sounds. Not only a slight warmth but a open detailed sound that still surprises me everytime I listen to it. I would love to get my hands on a big 100 wpc beast. If Sanyo made such a creature.
 
I'll throw in my 2 cents, bearing in mind a couple things: 1) I don't have lots of money. 2) I am far less experienced than others here. My own system is not "high end," so a lot of my opinion is based on hearing stuff at friends' places, at audio shops, etc. and from experimenting with various inexpensive components (like <$300) in my own system.

Criteria here being that I think the current going price for overall enjoyability/musicality is inflated.

Overrated (aka: would still like to own it, but don't think it's at all worth the money)
McIntosh--it's been said, I know. But Mc is a cult, basically--with good reason in as far as they sound great. Price on some stuff is insane, though, $ per quality-wise.
Marantz & Sansui--Just by way of illustration, a Marantz 2220b routinely go for $200+. I would hazard a guess that any single one of us could put together a better system (especially using separates) for half that price from current local CL listings. As a matter of fact, on my local CL there's currently a kenwood basic c2 and any number of amps to pair it with that would come in under budget. Same goes for Sansui, though I think to a slightly lesser extent. As with Mc, really nice sounding gear, but not worth the price IMO. I basically feel this way about most receivers, to be frank, but even among receivers I think there are equivalent quality models from other brands at much lower price points.
Klipsch--Heresy, for instance, but among others. They sound nice to my ears, but only with some types of music, and they seem to add a lot of color to the sound, plus command a pretty crazy price much of the time. Most of the time, you could do better for the money, I think.

Underrated
McIntosh (again)--specifically, some of the AV processors. In general, the stuff without HDMI or 5.1 analog inputs undeservedly gets no love.
Advent 300--this thing gets plenty of attention online, but somehow has managed to remain dirt cheap.
Acoustat--not underrated in terms of respect they're given, but they can be had for a song because of their size and because people don't know about them as much as, say, magnepans.
Sanyo--because they've made looooots of garbage, a select few truly excellent products are massively underrated (some of the tp series turntables jump to mind, available on a reasonably frequent basis for under $50 around here with very good carts attached).
Hafler amps--to my ears, love them. I've only heard the dh101 preamp, which I thought was kind of harsh. The dh amps, though, are IMO a great value.
ARC SP9--Yes, I know, according to many they're not great unless mkii or mkiii and not nearly as good as the ARC tube preamps. But compare the sp9 with the MKIII pricing. Probably looking at like $500 price jump. SP9 and do the recap, you'd come out way on top.
JBL speakers--Granted, I'm not a big fan of the house sound. But still, for the price of a good many mid-level models around here, you could stack some Kloss-era KLHs (which I consider just "rated" in most cases, local pricing vs. the auction site).
 
I'm of the belief that there's no such thing as "overrated" gear - everyone's taste/ear for what is good or isn't good will be different. Pioneer, Sansui, Marantz, McIntosh, and a few others will be easy targets for claims of being overrated because they tend to command the highest resale values/brand reputation. But I think claims of those brands being overrated are more a function of being able to get more bang for the buck from overlooked brands than anything else. They all made good stuff.

Now that being said, there is tons of overlooked stuff out there! Just off the top of my head - Onkyo, Akai, Sayno, Toshiba, Optonica, Technics, etc. Tons of great gear from these brands that doesn't seem to get the same amount of love as stuff from the biggest names.

I'm tempted to say Kenwood is underrated too. At least underrated for being one of the most well known names in audio.
 
Onkyo, Akai, Sayno, Toshiba, Optonica, Technics, etc. Tons of great gear from these brands that doesn't seem to get the same amount of love as stuff from the biggest names.

I'm tempted to say Kenwood is underrated too. At least underrated for being one of the most well known names in audio.

+1 on this, could also add Sony, Hitachi and Realistic just to name a few.
 
+1 on this, could also add Sony, Hitachi and Realistic just to name a few.
I can vouch for Hitachi from experience. I had an SR-1900 at one point (20 WPC or so). Was a decent little receiver with good sound for it's power class. I did end up selling it, but enjoyed it for awhile - $30 well spent IMO.
 
I can vouch for Hitachi from experience. I had an SR-1900 at one point (20 WPC or so). Was a decent little receiver with good sound for it's power class. I did end up selling it, but enjoyed it for awhile - $30 well spent IMO.

No doubt it was a very nice little receiver they made quality gear. I missed out on a HA-1100 the other day, :(.
 
Overrated pioneer. I mean they are fine, but really don't get what's so special about those that make people run after them.

Agreed. I had a pair of RT-909s that I found in the trash. When working, the things are beautiful tape handlers, look nice, and sound good enough. But, they're complicated beyond all reason, the motors are delicate. Semiconductors? Look at it funny and you're trying to find some unobtanium transistor or IC. Wiring inside was routed with the care of a 70's GE TV set, poor shielding on stuff meant the noise floor sucked (among other annoyances, the VFD level meter electronics threw off lots of noise...). The answer to every problem was a SIP IC you can't get anymore. The transport was slick as hell, and built like an Italian sports car, just like the electronics.

Sure a Revox A77 doesn't look as slick, and is a bit crude. But it works every time and sounds better....
 
From my personal experience.
Over-rated- Pioneer SX750. Decent sound, pretty to look at. Weak power supply, crappy contact paper 'veneer', so-so build quality.
HK Citation 16- great sound, built like a tank. Not as magical as it's made out to be, but still an awesome amp.

Under-rated-HK Citation 22. Not a lot of info about these amps, so I would suspect they didn't sell alot of them. BIG clean power, great overall sound. So so build quality hurts its rep, but still an outstanding amp that flies under the radar.
The Kenwood L series. Once again not everyone has heard or even seen this gear, (especially the L-09Ms) so it gets dismissed because it's 'just Kenwwod'. I don't know if there's actually an Accuphase connection to the L-09M as there is rumored to be, but the build quality and attention to detail is impressive and the sound is stupefyingly good.
 
I made it a good way through this wonderfully long thread, though not all of it, but was astonished to see few mentions of Sherwood. Wonderful products from the 1960s and 70s. One of the best tuner sections on the market, and amp sections that were often overlooked because of unusually conservative specs. Because their pricing strategy was also conservative, I suspect some consumers garnered a misimpression that their products were not quite as good as the somewhat higher-priced offerings of competitors. Bottom line is that their vintage gear was of first rate build quality and was and is definitely underrated.
 
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Underrated

Voice of music, Kenwood, Otari, Technics pro gear, wharfedale, soundcraftsmen, mangavox

Overrated

Fisher tube gear, Marantz
 
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Another question. What in your opinion, is the most underrated vintage component or brand?

Just for fun, what about the most overrated brand or component?

:D

Overrated: Marantz. Don’t get me wrong, they sound wonderful, but not worth the outrageous price tags they command. Now mind you I’m a guy whose budget is in the low wattage end of the discussion.

Underrated: Sanyo (mid 70s), Sherwood, Toshiba (mid-late 70s), Sony (early 70s), and I just sold a Samsung ss-3390 that was a powerhouse and the sound was fantastic. Not the best looker, but it could compete against Pioneer, Sansui, Marantz, and some of the other usual suspects. Excellent build quality.

I have a massive, heavy Toshiba SA-420 that’s beautiful and built like a tank. Profile looks like a 100w receiver, and while only 25wpc, it gets LOUD with sound that’s a nice nexus between the Marantz warmth and the Pioneer accuracy and clarity.

I just got a pristine Sherwood s-2225 quad and the thing sounds wonderful, with all the warmth and listening quality of the Marantz 2238 I own.
 
Overrated my opinion marantz,
Comparing pioneer SX1980, SX1280 are overrated compared to the SX1250,
Underrated Toshiba, Sony, hitachi, these three brands are well worth owning,
Kenwood is underrated as well only because they didn’t overbuild them, thumbs up to Kenwood’s pricing many of us wouldn’t be able to collect a nice system when you’re in
high school, or financially strapped, they are nice looking above average tunners and sound just as good as more expensive brands
 
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