Neat Beefy Find: AX-900U Integrated

absolve2525

Super Member
I found this top-of-line, late 80's beast on Craigs.... price was too low to pass up! Its really in nice shape. Its not silver-faced, but it has some nicely styled lines and a huge power supply. A college kid listed it with some Cerwin Vega RE-30s. I havent had a chance to hook it up at home yet. Does anyone have any experience with it? How do the power-amp and pre-amp sections compare to other Yamahas amps/receivers? It has pre-amp out/amp-in, which is nice. I already have a couple P2100 pro amps (95 watts) as well as a C-80 preamp. Thanks for any info! Last pic is an image from online.
 

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Should be able to make noise with that 130 watt Int.and the CV's.Looks pretty nice.
 
Haha thanks for the reply. I guess these are rare units? I passed on the CVs - I already have some CV AT-15s and DX-9 around here somewhere...
 
don't feel bad for your find!! this time of the year everybody on here is doing summer "things" I have a RX-1100u receiver from the early ages of lets incorporate AV into audio so they are kinda frowned on by some people here as not being Audio Pure units but it works for my daughters room at home
 
I have a Yamaha AX-1000U I totally lucked out on, just pristine.
It's driving my NS-1000M's and I couldn't possibly be happier with it.
You're sure right about the power supply, holy cow :).
Looking into the history of those integrateds I think we're both going to be very pleased with them. Doug
 
Cool beans, I still have to try mine out with some speakers. Ive been moving the past few days, and have to get a system hooked up. I would like to try it with my NS-1000Ms too, at some point! The manual actually shows them connected to a set of NS-1000s in the hookup diagram - kind of neat.
 
Have one but the power section is dead. Can't part with it, the potted xformer is too handsome. And it has MC phono inputs...

The U version may or may not have Black Gates. The non-U probably does.
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I have one I picked up for cheap off CL also, came with a T-85, TOTL tuner from similar era. I have the U version, it has Black Gates. They are 25 years old though. I've read the preamp section isn't as good as the power amp. It does use SIP9 package opamps in the pre, and is hidden behind the front face, so no use of DIP8 adapters without serious mods. I built a simple pre (sticky in the DIY section) and used it with and I *think* there was an improvement, but I was really *wanting* it to sound better being one of my first DIY efforts. The speakers I was using then were only average and I've since passed on the pre. I'm looking to build a nicer pre for it.

All in all though I enjoy mine, and use it as my main amp. I'm no audiophile and the 900 is by far the nicest amp I've had, so I can't compare it to anything really nice.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I wonder why the preamp section isnt as highly regarded as the power amp - is it much different from the electronics in say, a C60 preamp? It looks like its nicely shielded from the rest of the amp. If anything, I can try comparing it to my C-80. Im pretty sure mine has the Black Gates, from what I can tell without opening it up.
 
Only thing I don't like about the pre section is the solenoid switches. But they aren't as flaky as my R-117 so what the heck.

Age vs specs, it's at least as good as a C-70 pre, haven't heard the 80. But I'm more a fan of C-4 for the flexibility.

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I've had the AX-900 hooked up for about a week now...I'm really enjoying it! Its detailed, but not etched or overly forward. Great bass too. I've had it hooked up to some Klipsch KG4, and now some JBL HLS 610 bookshelves in the TV room. I'm going to try it with some Polks next. The loudness knob is neat for smaller speakers. I have the loudness at half of the maximum.
 
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