funny
I can't help but think that there is no answer to this.
I don't think anyone has heard them all.
I don't think everyone feels the same about the sound.
I know a lot depends on the speakers and the room and the music.
A lot depends on the condition for vintage gear, the stuff is old and things have aged.
A lot depends on the source, good TT/cartidge, decent CD, strong FM station.
I have heard incredible sounding gear where you wouldn't expect it.
I expect it at TOTL. Haven't gotten to hear most of that stuff.
I have heard a lot of MOTL that sounds really great.
I have only heard a few that seemed to suck.
Maybe I'm not critical enough.
Maybe that stuff wasn't working right.
I do know that I like almost every silver face receiver I've had the luck to sit and listen to. Marantz, Pioneer, Sansui, H/K, Kenwood, Akai, Hitachi, Toshiba, Technics. So far though I haven't had the luck to enjoy much Yamaha. The one I had, I didn't care for much. I have not had a good old Sony so I have no idea on those. I have not had a chance to really try other famous vintage gear, Phase Linear, Carver, SAE, (not sure if there ARE and receivers in that croud). I've seen things around here that I never heard of or actually seen, so I could be missing things.
I would say though, that if you like the H/K 330 (A very popular series model), you would probably like a Pioneer a lot too. A good working SX6xx has always sounded great to me. They seem very affordable and they seem to be everywhere. SX636, SX650, SX680. Bigger is better but the prices climb.
I would also add that around 50wpc seems to be a magic point for powering a lot of the older speakers. Smaller units sound good but the 50 range seems to offer up that next step is getting the speakers to perform.