Pioneer SX-780 Opinions?

[asoundhound]

my sx-780 is my bread and butter. i only wish they had put separate meters for the tuner....

[larryderouin]

Good general all around receiver. I've got a 790 (black dial version). Re-capped and it's doing yeoman duty in the bedroom. Kinda lacking in the bass dept., but otherwise sounds good with about any speaker you throw at it. The only thing I don't like about it is the vinyl "veneer". Got to get some wood veneer one of these days.

BTW the 790 is in my Avatar.
Larry.

[barkerd]

When people say "Pioneer Silver Series" this receiver is the archetype.
Excellent value : well built / darlington outputs are still available cheap (the one rare problem that occurs with them / in mho anyways) . Just a note : picked up an sx 737 for real cheap , and while I've always loved the 780 : the 737 sounds "tubey" : much warmer (again : IMHO) and I would highly recommend it as well. At moderate levels either one is an excellent value with great build quality. The other thing to value with the 780 is that the body of knowledge on these (this was pioneer's all-time receiver sales leader) is huge : I can't think of anything you'd need to know to use and maintain (and rebuild) one of these that hasn't been discussed in an AK thread somewhere. Definitely worth a re-cap if you want to get your "hands dirty" : the receiver is not built out of "unobtanium" parts (like many) ,spare units are plentiful and cheap : not a lot of risk as a unit to rip into for DIY activities. Good luck / keep us posted.

[AnalogDigit]

All of the Pioneer receivers are very good since Pioneer did not skimp on quality on their mid line or even BOTL units. Hope you enjoy yours.

[GerryC]

Thank You all for the information, I haven't really heard anything bad about it, or any vintage Pioneer for that matter. I'm going to pick it up today. For $40.00, I guess I can't go wrong. Do you think the 780 at 45 wpc has enough to effectively drive some 4311 JBL monitors? They sound amazing with my Carver, but at 100 wpc, I would think they would. Thanks again, Gerry.

[Mark Walters]

Originally Posted by GerryC

Thank You all for the information, I haven't really heard anything bad about it, or any vintage Pioneer for that matter. I'm going to pick it up today. For $40.00, I guess I can't go wrong. Do you think the 780 at 45 wpc has enough to effectively drive some 4311 JBL monitors? They sound amazing with my Carver, but at 100 wpc, I would think they would. Thanks again, Gerry.

That would probably depend on the size of your listening room and how loud you prefer to hear your music. In a small room, that would be plenty of power for my ears.

[asoundhound]

Originally Posted by GerryC

Do you think the 780 at 45 wpc has enough to effectively drive some 4311 JBL monitors?

i've driven jbl 4311b's and klipsch kg4.2's at the same time with mine. could've used a little more power for high volumes, but at 1 watt output on the meters, the house was rocking.

[Isotonic]

Originally Posted by ddanrr

I had a 780 for a while. I really liked the look of it, and that it had meters, usually not found on units of this wattage. The sound had very nice clear, detailed mids and highs, but I found the the bass output was lacking for the sound I liked. Compared to an SX-850, the 850 has a much warmer sound with deeper lows, the 780 was more sterile sounding. Not sure if the darlington power packs have anything to do with it.

I agree with this assessment of the 80 series compared to the 50 series Pioneer receivers, with a caveat or two.

What I like about the 80 series is that they have a lot of current with strong bass and punchy low mids. I find the highs to be glassy sounding and fatiguing. They can be very good if matched to a speaker that is voiced with mellow highs. I have a 980 that sounds really good with a pair of PSB Image 1 speakers. That was a very successful pairing for me. I wouldn't pair them with speakers that have forward high mids. I think 4311's would be a reasonable match.

That said, Pioneers from this era are quite robust, and built for service. Really solid beasts.

[CharlieBee]

I have had my SX-780 since the early 80's, bought it new at Service Merchandise.

About 5 years ago it died and I did an internet search and AK came up with a thread to look for a bad solder joint, complete with picture. Found the spot and it looked funny and heated it with solder gun. Fixed it like new. Been on AK ever since.

My SX-780 serves my computer closet and kitchen and is switchable to a pair of HPM-100's in the family room. No problem. Usually run it on the kitchen and family room for Christmas music during the Holidays. Normally the family room has a Sansui 9090db and the HPM-100s and a pair of JBL L-100. The JBL L-100's have to go during the Holidays to make room for the O gauge Lionel train layout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szGr4...eature=channel

Charlie