When I sold HiFi stuff, from about 72-83 or so, I had periods where just about every brand had issues for a while. I remember a lot of Pioneer stuff had soldering problems, as did Kenwood. My own personal HK 330a receiver spent months being fixed several times before it was right (It sounded as if the treble was cut way back, intermittently). In the meantime, I came across a deal on the Panasonic SA-6500 for the insane price of 212 plus 10 bucks shipping (Locally, it was 500 bucks), so I grabbed one. When the HK came back and actually was working ok, I sold it and kept the Panasonic, the best built "mainstream" receiver I have ever seen, by far. I ended up getting a bunch more of them, I think 15 in all, and sold them to kids I went to school with for $350, in a matter of days. I had big bucks for a 16 year old kid. I wish I had stayed in the business, but the "quad" thing made it a losing proposition for a while, and I bailed out eventually.
It's only weak spot was those damn slider volume/bal/bass/treble controls, but it took about 10 years for them to start failing. Today, over 30 years later, a friend uses the power amps to run his back surrounds, the tuner, etc still work fine, but the sliders are trashed and even if they could be found, replacement would be a nightmare of a job.
This is just before the Technics brand really launched. The word "Technics" is all over the insides, and I saw in some store in LA a Technics SA-6500 that was identical except for the name.
Check it out, still looks good after all these years..
http://www.vintage-audio.com.ua/index.php?lang=ru&theme=cat&id_b=349
Even the dial lights are original and still work. I wish that they still made stuff that good.
My old Yamaha 2 channel receiver is over 25 years old, and still works great, so I just ordered a Yamaha HTR5860 receiver to replace my Sony that is unable to run 5 speakers at a decent volume level without tripping the protect circuit. Hopefully, I won't be dissapointed..
