Why did the receiver war of the 70s end?

I have not seen a CDI system in years and years.........in the late 80s I had had it with points so I bought a Mallory Uni-Lite, took it to a speed shop, had it curved and threw it in. I have replaced the cap a few times and the wires about every 5 years since then and have not touched it. Funny all the things that were so cool in the 80s when I put them on my Mustang (Mallory Ignition, Walker mufflers and Trans-Go shift kits) one can barely even find now.
 
I have not seen a CDI system in years and years.........in the late 80s I had had it with points so I bought a Mallory Uni-Lite, took it to a speed shop, had it curved and threw it in. I have replaced the cap a few times and the wires about every 5 years since then and have not touched it. Funny all the things that were so cool in the 80s when I put them on my Mustang (Mallory Ignition, Walker mufflers and Trans-Go shift kits) one can barely even find now.

Using the stock dual point distributor I had the Mallory CDI with the two TO3 transistors on top.. they were the high voltage power supply, the invertor... it put out a high pitched whine. Ignition on engine off the spark would jump around inside the distributor cap.. pull the wire from the coil and it would jump to the case like a tesla coil. Engine running it would lock to the points. I was afraid of it but it would fire anything... high speed cutout/miss was eliminated. Heard people say it wasn't reliable but I never had any trouble with mine.

The first time I saw a monster receiver..when they got serious... was an SX 1250 fresh out of it's box sitting on a salesman's desk at the Anaheim, Ca., Pacific Stereo store. It looked very impressive... made quite a statement with it's new bold look and industrial power cord splayed on the table. It wasn't even plugged in and it looked awesome. As they grew though it became ridiculous... no matter the brand.. even a bigger is better guy like me felt that way about them.. just too heavy, that for me was the biggest issue. The power and features was not a problem... just the size and weight.

Chuck... I don't think it was disco. If anything Disco might have sold a few of them.
 
The large receivers in my mind looking back peaked at the SX-1250, Kenwood KR-9600 time period and must say the SX-1980 was truely over the top. The black stack came in and was cool at the time. Stereo still managed to take your breath away but in black and sleeker in design. The CD's, TV's, Betamax, VHS's, Cameras not to mention cars and you see that plus the rising cost of living put a strain on the stereo budget. Life got in the way one could say. Several years past at that time spending many thousand on a Plasma TV and a nice Denon receiver and lovely speakers only to find it was outstanding in DVD playing movies and such but rather thin in playing music CD's. I never was able to let go of stereo systems from the past and unpacked a KR-9400 out hooked up some old speakers pluged a Dual turntable in and there was the missing sound. Audiokarma was available on my dial-up modem on my outrageously exspensive Mac and I found others have gone through similar situations as me. I have had or listened most all of the greats from the peak that we talk about. They are still amazing to hear and lovely to look at even now. Of coarse separates can beat them sound wise or one can through tubes in the mix but they miss the point of why a receiver was loved so much. They had it all and sounded great and looked cool. Only you few know what a thrill it is to trip the on switch and wait for the click and turn the volume up to hear true stereo music rich and full.
 
Why is that sad?

At the very least, it means you don't get publicly annoyed when someone else's taste in music doesn't align with your own.

I notice the audiophiles among the young people I know tend to buy really, really nice headphones. Thanks to the Internet providing a breadth of musical experience we could only have dreamed of, musical taste tends to be much more broad and individual than when I was a lad, and young people tend to be more polite and disinclined to offend than they were in my youth. To many young people, a loud stereo is only a noisy way to annoy others by offensively imposing your taste on their ears. Why not put on some headphones and stop being so annoying?
You must have a very nice and polite young congregation going there ! A lot of what I have heard when visiting the city would be the in your face, vibrate the flower pots off the window sills variety as they drive by. Sort of a drive by music shooting . I can't be sure who listens to that window rattling noise but I assume it is a younger subset of the population as a whole.
 
The large receivers in my mind looking back peaked at the SX-1250, Kenwood KR-9600 time period and must say the SX-1980 was truely over the top. The black stack came in and was cool at the time. Stereo still managed to take your breath away but in black and sleeker in design. The CD's, TV's, Betamax, VHS's, Cameras not to mention cars and you see that plus the rising cost of living put a strain on the stereo budget. Life got in the way one could say. Several years past at that time spending many thousand on a Plasma TV and a nice Denon receiver and lovely speakers only to find it was outstanding in DVD playing movies and such but rather thin in playing music CD's. I never was able to let go of stereo systems from the past and unpacked a KR-9400 out hooked up some old speakers pluged a Dual turntable in and there was the missing sound. Audiokarma was available on my dial-up modem on my outrageously exspensive Mac and I found others have gone through similar situations as me. I have had or listened most all of the greats from the peak that we talk about. They are still amazing to hear and lovely to look at even now. Of coarse separates can beat them sound wise or one can through tubes in the mix but they miss the point of why a receiver was loved so much. They had it all and sounded great and looked cool. Only you few know what a thrill it is to trip the on switch and wait for the click and turn the volume up to hear true stereo music rich and full.

I have a very similar experience with them.. and stereos in general. I had a KR 9400... bought it brand new from Pacific Stereo Torrance store in 1974.. I believe, might have been 75.. paid $300 for it owing to a friends employee purchase. Also bought a KX 910 cassette deck same place. I used the receiver with three pair of original large Advents, two stacked and the other beside the stack. I ran all speakers in parallel across each channel and the amp ran a little hot when it was running hard.. which was often.. but it never had an issue. It had a great tuner and the signal strength meter could be switched to deviation mode for the FM.. which was very cool. I preferred the 9400 over the 9600.. much better looking in my opinion and sounded better to me... and it didn't have those large scale ICs for outputs which made some people uncomfortable. The 9600 was a good receiver, top of that line, but I liked the earlier 9400 with it's wood side panels.. much more living room friendly to me.
 
My first piece of audio equipment was a Sony receiver, early '80's. My Dad had a Tandberg receiver and most music systems I saw or noticed were all receiver based. By the time I could afford a system for college (83-84) I'd made the switch to components and bought a Hafler system- amp, preamp and tuner. Still have it. I did not even consider a receiver. As far as I can recall, receivers would have been "old technology" to me, while separates seemed new, interesting and modern. The silver faced receivers that we all love, seemed old and out of date. My Hafler tuner was digital with red LEDs. The components were black and modern looking to me. (No hate for the receiver fans, just describing how things were to me back then.)

There may have been actual reasons for the change to components other then style and trends, as posters have pointed out. But to my 18 yr old self, it was just changing tastes. Some trends last a long time (rock and roll), some burn brightly and then fade (disco).
 
They kinda reminded me of those asshats who knock on your door to sell you a security system, and when you tell them you're all set they ask what it is and how it's set up while they try and peek into the house.

If you're in Virginia ask to see their DCJS card and if they don't have one tell them to leave or you're calling the 5-0. There may be similar requirements elsewhere. It's kind of a racket but it does sort out the legit people from the trunkslammers.
 
I spent the day at a railway museum, so I'm sort of spitballing on a theme here.

The reciever wars sort of remind me of the "horsepower wars" for diesel locomotives. From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, the major manufacturers rapidly ran up the horsepower of their popular models. from 1500-2400 out of a single-motor unit up to 3000-4200. Each of the big players had to have something at the same competitive market segments, and they all kept trying to push the envelope at rhe top end.

In the end, the highest-rated models were very poor sellers that were little more than manufacturer experiments (the 4200hp Electro-Motive SD45X only had six examples made, and the 4000HP Montreal Locomotive Works M640 was only built once). Even "mainstream high-end" models (3600hp) fell out of favour for 3000hp models, in significant part for reliability and maintainability reasons.

Basically, they could make a reliable 3000HP unit, 3600 with compromises, or a science-fair project 4000+. It would take another 15 years of technical advancement before reliable, mass-production of 4000HP locomotives became a thing.

I wonder if under the covers, it's the same basic story with recievers. Every manufacturer who was somebody was able to put out a competent 80-100WPC unit. It was presumably within the grasp of the technology of the time. A fair number got 120-150, but you're usually looking at more complex and harder to repair units. Once you get past there, you're into short run semi-experimental designs with all the associated drawbacks.
 
The two highest power receivers I have are a Luxman R-1120 and a Marantz 4270.

Both are broken.

I have a hard time saying you're wrong. I don't know where the break point is though because the 4270 I believe is 75WPC strapped to 2 channel mode.

Everything else I have is 40WPC or less and is working save for two amps, a ST-120 (60WPC, also working) and a HK770 (50WPC, working)

The HK775 (monoblock in the same series as the 770) is busted.
 
The "receiver war" was seemingly over by 1980. I was born in 1982, so I don't remember any of this, but looking at the product released the difference is obvious and it isn't just technological advances.

I began to wonder why the receiver "bubble" so to speak popped. What prompted the receiver manufacturers to make such a big change and for the worse?

Logically this does not make sense, but I have to assume that people did not want underrated monster receivers anymore but instead wanted overrated bling. But that does not make a lot of sense either.

I'm from 1984 myself, so I didn't see it either. What I think happened is the market became saturated with some really good stuff. Also, around 1980 or so, listening habits and technology changed. People were getting more into video and spending less on audio equipment. :music:
 
I've noticed a new trend in the inner city. Walking around with a Bluetooth speaker with the volume maxed out is becoming popular. I wish they'd go back to boom boxes. They produced better sound.

Give it time. They are "discovering" all what has been discovered by previous generations. BT Speakers will get bigger, louder, better.
 
"Receiver wars" a/k/a "monster receiver" era ended almost two decades before home computers became mainstream.
The Commodore VIC-20 came out in 1980 and sold in the millions. It, along with popular game consoles like the Atari 2600 (1976), ColecoVision (1982), etc., and the growing popularity of the VCR took the spotlight off the stereo being the centre of home entertainment.
 
The Commodore VIC-20 came out in 1980 and sold in the millions. It, along with popular game consoles like the Atari 2600 (1976), ColecoVision (1982), etc., and the growing popularity of the VCR took the spotlight off the stereo being the centre of home entertainment.

Millions sold does not necessarily mean mainstream. In 1980, comparatively few households owned a Commodore which was for the most part a novelty; today it would be more difficult to find a household that does not own a computer - which has arguably become a necessity.

In any case, I do not see that computers et al as having direct impact upon the "monster" receiver market specifically, for which are far better explanations discussed in detail throughout this thread.
 
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The monster receivers suffered an equally abrupt and complete death.
By the very early 80s they were gone, replaced by digital displayed button festooned led lit units with 1/3 the power and 1/4 the weight.
I would guess the severe inflation/down economy had a large impact as well as emerging technology vcrs/vhs attracting $ away from hifi.

I only recall very few people with computers prior to 1985.
Really, only the very well-off.
By the time computers started to become more common, the monster receiver was long gone.

For an 18 year old kid getting ready to go to college in 1987, receivers were my Dads stereo. I wanted the new component rack systems which were popular. The monster receiver was a symbol of outdated technology by this time.
I spent my entire graduation gift money on a kenwood component rack system.
I had no idea the quality was subpar when compared to the older heavier receivers.
I was ecstatic to have a 125wpc rack system with oodles of led light meters and buttons.

Ignorance was bliss.
 
Also... 1981 was when MTV launched. The non-audiophile masses no longer wanted to just listen to music, they wanted to watch it, and the average TV was good enough -- no expensive and clunky special-purpose audio-only stereo required.
 
I still think it was portable music. The Sony Walkman was introduced about this time and other portable systems followed. A whole generation of young people declined to sit in a room and listen to music when they could take their music and their headphones with them. The trend continues today. Two or three generations have never seen the value in sitting in a room at their house and listening to an album when they can get a mix of any kind at the touch of a button anywhere they happen to be.
 
I still think it was portable music. The Sony Walkman was introduced about this time and other portable systems followed. A whole generation of young people declined to sit in a room and listen to music when they could take their music and their headphones with them. The trend continues today. Two or three generations have never seen the value in sitting in a room at their house and listening to an album when they can get a mix of any kind at the touch of a button anywhere they happen to be.

To be fair, I was part of that generation, and not all of us actively tried to kill hi-fi. Somewhere in my junk box I have the pair of Koss Porta Pros that I bought back with my first Walkman because they were a good compromise between cost, portability (I was on the varsity swim, track, and CC teams back then, so they needed to fit in a gym bag) and not sucking. Of course, being in HS, cost *was* the primary factor in buying them... but my memory is they weren't all bad. I haven't used them in years though as the foam long ago disintegrated. I should find them and see if replacements are still made.
 
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