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JVC 4VR-5456X Quad

Jenkster

Jenkster

When I had talent
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I guess this comes under the "What the heck do I need this for?" category. I'm a sucker for vintage SS, aren't we all, saw this on Craigslist and couldn't resist. Original owner, great condition, factory box, manuals and schematic, no remote though. He threw in a Garrard GT55 table (w/issues) and a working Philips dual cassette deck. He did have to mention he sold his quad albums a couple of months ago:dammit:! It works, pots etc. need cleaning, don't they all! Since I have no quad sources, I need to figure out if I can run a CD player to the 4 ch. Aux. inputs, maybe with Y connects? Also a bit confused on the "BTL-Double power 2-channel sound" feature. It alows this thing to play two channel at double the power using all the amps. I guess it is done automatically? Would love to hear from someone with quad experience. Oh, supposedly the Garrard table had a quad stylus. It is a Precept PCN220 by Audio Technica.

Thanks!
 
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Read the manual. I used to sell those units. They do, indeed, strap 2 of the 4 channels together to get about double the power per 2 channels.

You do need to take care, in that case, to use nominal 8 ohm speakers. Lower impedance loads tended to cause the amps to be more unstable. This applied to most other 4/2 channel amps of this vintage.

Outside of that, the CD-4 feature worked quite well with CD-4 LPs and most TT's today should be able to handle them and get the pilot light for CD-4 to engage. I'm not clear that the old Garrard would do it without at least a replacement of the interconnect cables.

BTW, JVC bet heavily on 4-channel taking over the world and had to repackage the entire product line of receivers that this one was a member of. You may find or see the same receiver but with a different model number and badging indicating that it was a regular stereo receiver that was '4-channel ready'. I cannot remember the model # designators of them, though. What they did was to pull most all of the stock they had coming into the US and installed new front panels and had new boxes and owners manuals made up for the US market.

Cheers,

David
 
Thanks for the info. David, I appreciate it! Do you know if I can connect a CD player to the Aux. inputs which are 4 ch. inputs? My thought is I can get away with using Y connectors to hook it up. Do you think there would be any issues with that? The speakers I have are 8 ohm so that shouldn't be an issue. I am looking forward to getting it up and running but I will likely have to wait until after the weekend to do much with it.

:beerchug:

Mark
 
Seems to me - its been over 30 years since I saw one of the little beasts - that for 2 channel operation, run the CD into a line input (AUX, etc) for front L/R. Then switch the unit into bridged/2-channel mode then connect 2 speakers to the front L/R connectors. That should be in the manual.

The alternative is to, indeed, use a Y-adapter to steer the audio in to the back channels if in 4-channel mode. Check the owner's manual as there may be a way to do the steering inside the unit with some sort of matrix or some such mode.

Cheers,

David
 
dshoaf said:
Seems to me - its been over 30 years since I saw one of the little beasts - that for 2 channel operation, run the CD into a line input (AUX, etc) for front L/R. Then switch the unit into bridged/2-channel mode then connect 2 speakers to the front L/R connectors. That should be in the manual.

The alternative is to, indeed, use a Y-adapter to steer the audio in to the back channels if in 4-channel mode. Check the owner's manual as there may be a way to do the steering inside the unit with some sort of matrix or some such mode.

Cheers,

David
Click to expand...

Thanks again David, I will try both connections hopefully soon. Nothing I could find in the manual about hooking up a two channel source to the four channel aux. inputs. It does make sense that the top connections would go to the front and the bottom to the rear. I did open the "hood", pretty dusty in there. I may go ahead and blow it out and Deoxit the pots, switches and connectors just for drill. Don't think I will mess with the tuner section, our local radio stations SUCK anyway!
 
In reading your post, I am unclear as to what you are trying to do. Are you trying to play back ordinary two-channel stereo sources using two speakers? If so, then dshoaf's advice is right on the money.

If you want to use your two-channel stereo CD player to hear pseudo-quadraphonic using four speakers that is also easy to do. In that case you use the AUX front right / left inputs to receive the two-channel signal from your CD player then switch to the matrix position on the front panel. The matrix decoder will synthesize quadraphonic sound. Just hook up four speakers to the appropriate speaker terminals. Have fun and good listening.
 
tcdriver said:
In reading your post, I am unclear as to what you are trying to do. Are you trying to play back ordinary two-channel stereo sources using two speakers? If so, then dshoaf's advice is right on the money.

If you want to use your two-channel stereo CD player to hear pseudo-quadraphonic using four speakers that is also easy to do. In that case you use the AUX front right / left inputs to receive the two-channel signal from your CD player then switch to the matrix position on the front panel. The matrix decoder will synthesize quadraphonic sound. Just hook up four speakers to the appropriate speaker terminals. Have fun and good listening.
Click to expand...

Hello,
I appreciate your input as I am mainly experimenting with different options. This is my first quad amp/receiver save for the modern surround stuff so any suggestions are most welcome. I have my own man-room so I can pretty much do what I want. I don't think this will replace my Sansui AU-9500 but it is an interesting piece of equipment. For what I paid for it with the box, manual, schematic and other stuff, I don't think I can go wrong even if it blows up tomorrow. Oh, I just saw a Pioneer SX-650 on our local Craigslist for cheap. I may have to have it as well. Does it ever end???:no:
 
Pretty impressed!

Well, I spent some time late last night spraying deoxit on all the pots, sliders, switches, RCA's etc. Been playing it most of the morning, two channel only, and I am pretty impressed! In the "bridged" mode, front and back channels together, it has some very good low end grunt. Pushes the 15's in my JBL monitors very well. I even heard a few rattles around my room I haven't heard before. It's not the most articulate and accurate receiver I have ever had but it has exceeded my expectations that were not very high to begin with. I ran the CD to the top two Aux. 1 plugs, it's a quad input, and the front channel works great. I also used Y connectors to all four inputs, no change in the front channel sound. I haven't run a second set of speakers with it, maybe later this afternoon? Best $25.00 I have spent in a long time! Does the Sansui AU-9500 have some competition?:scratch2:
 
i have an HK50+ quad receiver that can be strapped to stereo mode. my unit has a switch on the back that you flip with the power off to tie the 2 channels together. you then use only two connections.
 
ke4mcl said:
i have an HK50+ quad receiver that can be strapped to stereo mode. my unit has a switch on the back that you flip with the power off to tie the 2 channels together. you then use only two connections.
Click to expand...

The JVC is similar but you rotate the speaker selector knob to "2 channel BTL" to tie the rear amps to the front. It is actually a pretty versatile machine. You can even use the matrix fuction on two channel. Doesn't do much however.:no:
 
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