Not 80's, but Elite equipment is still going strong. SC85 receiver, BDP 23FD blu ray player, and Pro RO60U media receiver for a 50-inch Elite plasma tv. Love Pioneer Elite gear.
Yes, 80´s and ELITE isn´t like URUSHI in Europe as ELITE also sells less than top end models of components of any kind, you have more options with Elite, and this was released before 1990, it could be diferent in the U.S.
Great video Scott. I completely lost track of high end audio during the late 80’s because of fatherhood and work. Seeing this equipment for the first time just now made me feel really old. Remotes and ‘S’ video are two extremes of that era. No one would buy any new audio-video equipment today if it didn’t have a remote control. On the other hand ‘S’ video really didn’t last very long as a state of the art cable to connect all of your gear. The same thing will probably be said in 30 years regarding HDMI cables, but who knows? Great video and thanks as always for sharing your collection with us.
My McIntosh C31V is from a similar era. It also carries inputs for video and laser discs. I guess it’s a bit snobbish on my part but I don’t love the looks of my C31V. I prefer looking at my C26 even though the 31V is superior. I kinda feel the same re the Pioneer. I’m sure they’re great sounding. Very expensive gear. Give me their 70s separates for aesthetics. Although, the Elite power amp is pretty cool.
Some gear from the 80s was still good, like My Harman Kardon silver stuff, but you're right Scott. Most 80s stuff was a bit on the cheaper side. I'm glad we have you to keep teaching us about audio history. Thank you! BTW I remember in the 80s when CD players first came out, some people would buy a CD player with a variable output and a power amp and that was their entire system.
I picked up a 1988 Accuphase CD player & DAC separates off eBay that retailed for over $10k back in the day. It actually sounds great even though I was just a kid then. I’d actually put it up against today’s DACs. Likewise it was designed to be able to hook right into a power amp. It boggles my mind there was this high end equipment back then that can rival today’s stuff, I always grew up believing anything digital was going to be antiquated year by year.
Certainly! Just because it was somewhat early days, digital had to have equal or superior sound to the incredible offerings that came before it. Just look at all of the awesome stereo gear from the 70's, while CD's were convenient, if they were subpar on sound, they would have ultimately failed. But, that was not the case. High end gear of that era can certainly stand up to current gear.
i´m still using in other room , my home ofice , a matter of refering to it like that as i don´t work that much and even less at home but i love the sound of the SA-8800II integrated amplifier with some mission 761 i bought in late 80´s and sounds amazing ,before i use to have some HPM-50 if memory doesn´t fail me and in other corner of the room some JBL´s but not big speakers and in 79 i trade those for the excelent sounding SB-F3 from technics in 1979 only ,as they are totally diferent from what they sold in 1980 and 1981 , there i have a Pioneer PL-560 and a Technics SL-3310 with diferent cartridges , but today maybe factory´s think that no longer much people hears vinil or like i had call it all my life ,records, i almost forget the new receivers some only have one output to recording devices and others none and i have most of the formats and listen to them and record with them also like DAT and open reel decks, my favorite ones, i have a Akai tape monitor multiplyer from the 80´s and it´s good it allows me to conect either than this i already refered a cassette deck and a Minidisc deck.
Gorgeous "keep forever and ever" gear! This is without a shadow of a doubt the BEST Elite line Pioneer ever put out, hands down. The Combo LD/CD player from this line is also considered the best they ever put out. Brands like Pioneer & JVC were really going hard at this time to trump the likes of Sony. The Elite & Digifine lines really prove that.
About the best looking line of Japanese equipment of that period. The drop dead gorgeous Urushi finish( resin lacquer made from the sap of the Urushi tree) on the side panels is what makes these components jump out at you, not to mention excellent design/build quality. Do you ever run into Pioneers Exclusive line of horn speakers or turntables?
I love you said that it has the look of High end 😂 I bought my first Hi Fi in 86 or 87’ and I bought Onkyo and Nikko. I don’t remember what brand the turntable was but it was not high end but it was a great stereo. My speakers were home built and the brand Seas and great sound quality and awesome bass for the price
what i refer to earlier is that the one without video inputs seems to sound better at low volume than the one you showed, i can also add that no AV receiver has good stereo image or better say not so good in sound quality, and i only tried the top end model from diferent brands such as Denon, Onkyo ,Technics, Magnat, Yamaha and other i can´t recall the newer ones ,old i have tested a lot of brands but they are now old and cheap in 2nd hand , only wanted to refer the last ones, it´s real wood not simulated or if Elite does that , in Europe Urushi uses wood
Interestingly, the C-90 I use in my reference system has video inputs, but the User Manuals I have found do not have video inputs. In regard to AV receivers, I commented in an earlier video about Home Theater that I felt AV receivers, in general, were not great at stereo. Some took offense to that comment, but it makes sense, as they were focused on AV, not stereo. As well, I said "most", not all, but as with anything, it is a matter of taste and preference for what we hear.
bought it after selling a Sony Esprit series and was very good sounding with some mission Argonaut MKII , the 780 model , also had some big JBL´s from mid 70´s that i used to try both to see which sounded better ,even today i´m using the A-91D that one is boxed in my hi-fi colection room but sold this Power amplifier to buy the other without the power meters efects and i for some reason prefer the C-90a or C-91a(not sure now) ,as it had less inputs but seemed at low volume to have more richer sound, but louder were both good, i ended up buying some at-100 from Cerwin-vega for it and the sound was amzing good , even today tops most of the high-end material i tested . I had from the 70´s the Pioneer Exclusive series M6 mono Blocks with a C3 control amplifier and a Spec-1 and 2 and for some reason they seem to sound better, or just my impression as it were long time ago bought but still in use, i don´t remenber why i sold the power amplifier and bought the other without the nice looking power meters , just don´t remenber why i did it. I want to refer that i bought a lot of good material from diferent brands but returned always to Pioneer, in the 90´s a lot of good cd players were released said to be the better but compared with Pioneer cd players they weren´t better as in the specifications were very close or a litle higher but the diference is not heardable with the plus that Pioneer built always with better materials even when they decreased a lot in mid 90´s some electronic components they remain using as good as or better than other brands but i really like accuphase and phase linear from mid to late 70´s as Phase Linear was bought by pioneer but only when the CT-A1 cassette deck was released i knew about it as i had the 7000 series two phase linear cassette deck, so to speak i think is one of the best cassette decks ever made. My Father bought mainly Revox/Studer and Nakamichi , the only thing i notice in superiority to Pioneer was the number of time my father had to sent to repair all is Nakamichi components he bought, also can add that in 74 when i bought a car it had a radio cassette player and i as everybody at the time were using 8-track cartridges but i recorded a Sony cassette in the Nakamichi 1000 and when playing it in the car it sounded perfect , i at the time had no cassette deck in my stereo equipment ,only open reel deck and a cartridge recorder by Pioneer, but in any market or fair you could by very cheap well recorded cartridges pirated with the new releases and some compilations non-oficial ones, as an example the two singles songs from two diferent bands, even doble or triple singles were sold , recentelly i was looking to my singles and found a double Procul Harum single with very nice graphics, the music i don´t even understand why i bought it, sometimes i was high so it happened, already a lot of years ago a friend of mine asked Violent femmes to play in our city and for my surprise the keyboard player was the Procul Harum vocalist, after i talked with him and he said "even i don´t understand", this becaused he played whiter shade of pale alone with the keyboard when in the intermission.
I have a top of tbe line Pioneer Elite component. It's a totl Pioneer Elite cassette deck. I also have Sansui's totl cassette deck from back then. I know them both so well. The Pioneer weighs about a third as much as the Sansui. Sansui made their own transformers I hear tell. This gives the Sansui a bigger instrument size than the Pioneer. The Instruments sound bigger & that always happens with bigger transformers. It looks like the Sansui has twice as much circuitry inside. With bundles of wires crisscrossing each other galore inside. The Pioneer Elite looks minimal inside, with not many wires at all. The Elite can't weigh much more than 6 or 7 lbs. The Sansui could weigh not far from 20 lbs. The Pioneer has some features the Sansui doesn't, including recording cds using only your cd players digital out, and a feature that analyzes the freq. response of old weathered cassettes and brings it back up to normal, but the Sansui has some features like track search & programming that the Pioneer lacks. The Pioneer at 1/3 the weight has slightly better bass definition, but the Sansui sounds fuller, bigger and more palpably present in the midrange. The Pioneer's midrange is very laid back in comparison. It makes you listen a little more to hear details that comes through bigger and more obvious with the Sansui. Both are excellent decks. I like the perspective of one over the other depending on the recording. Cassette playback at this level passes by most vinyl playback; but it does not equal reel to reel. I suppose you could equal or best esoteric cassette playback with a turntable and expensive cartridge. But it probably would have to be something pretty special. Cassettes are very underrated for sound quality. I have real good quality playback equipment of all formats (except 8 track), and the only thing more open sounding than cassette is reel to reel. Although great vinyl and cd playback come close.For bass response, notbing beats tape; and the midrange and highs give you that analog genuineness & greatness, that smooth liquid sound without the noise of lps
Years ago I bought an Elite tuner, perhaps it was the F91 model as it was digital tuning. Worked fine for me, I passed it onto someone else and it eventually broke. It probably could have been easily repaired but we did not have the time to do it. Looked good, but I don't know if the F91 was worth the price given FM listening became a rare thing.
They look like souped up Yamaha M85 and C85, lol. I'm curious about the circuit design now.. I'm curious if you can get your hands on the Yammies sometime soon.
I have some other Yammy models, but not the M85/C85. Those Yammies look VERY similar to the Sansui B2101/C2101 models I reviewed some months back and tied in scoring to the Pioneer set.
The direct inputs on the amp are pretty unusual. How are these for repairability? Also, is there any chance you have a Kenwood Supreme 600 or similar? I'd love to see a video on one of those.
I've actually not seen much in the way of issues for them, but they are also not that common, so just may not have heard as much. Have yet to own a Kenny Supreme, but they are awesome models I would like to get into my collection.
The new elite stuff is good. Is the wattage weak a bit? Kinda yes. But the sound is truly good and must add a subwoofer. But anyone getting a chance to get one is highly recommend
I have many components from the 80's and early 90's that l really like! The build quality may have diminished, but l like the looks and especially the performance of them. I'm not a fan of the mirror black finish. Consequently, my only Elite model is my F-93 tuner. From my tuner collecting phase.
@@stereoniche yes it is not noticable in some ways of showing it , i have my room with low light and sometimes i have to point the light on my phone to show how good it looks , but you have a nice channel and it´s subscibed
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Not 80's, but Elite equipment is still going strong. SC85 receiver, BDP 23FD blu ray player, and Pro RO60U media receiver for a 50-inch Elite plasma tv. Love Pioneer Elite gear.
Yes, 80´s and ELITE isn´t like URUSHI in Europe as ELITE also sells less than top end models of components of any kind, you have more options with Elite, and this was released before 1990, it could be diferent in the U.S.
I love these late 80s models that still had the quality and looks we love!
They are still quite striking!
Great video Scott. I completely lost track of high end audio during the late 80’s because of fatherhood and work. Seeing this equipment for the first time just now made me feel really old. Remotes and ‘S’ video are two extremes of that era. No one would buy any new audio-video equipment today if it didn’t have a remote control. On the other hand ‘S’ video really didn’t last very long as a state of the art cable to connect all of your gear. The same thing will probably be said in 30 years regarding HDMI cables, but who knows? Great video and thanks as always for sharing your collection with us.
There were certainly some gems of the 80's. Soon though, no one will want any gear you can't TALK to and give it commands! LOL
@@stereoniche good point. Or at the very least- text message to the gear 🤔
Gorgeous set!
Thanks!
Congratulations for this vídeo!!! Wonderful!
Thanks!
My McIntosh C31V is from a similar era. It also carries inputs for video and laser discs. I guess it’s a bit snobbish on my part but I don’t love the looks of my C31V. I prefer looking at my C26 even though the 31V is superior. I kinda feel the same re the Pioneer. I’m sure they’re great sounding. Very expensive gear. Give me their 70s separates for aesthetics. Although, the Elite power amp is pretty cool.
I have some early Surround Mac units too. Agree, they just don't have quite the same appeal.
Some gear from the 80s was still good, like My Harman Kardon silver stuff, but you're right Scott. Most 80s stuff was a bit on the cheaper side. I'm glad we have you to keep teaching us about audio history. Thank you! BTW I remember in the 80s when CD players first came out, some people would buy a CD player with a variable output and a power amp and that was their entire system.
I picked up a 1988 Accuphase CD player & DAC separates off eBay that retailed for over $10k back in the day. It actually sounds great even though I was just a kid then. I’d actually put it up against today’s DACs. Likewise it was designed to be able to hook right into a power amp. It boggles my mind there was this high end equipment back then that can rival today’s stuff, I always grew up believing anything digital was going to be antiquated year by year.
@@mikeg2491 Nice, I would put an Accuphase against anything.
Certainly! Just because it was somewhat early days, digital had to have equal or superior sound to the incredible offerings that came before it. Just look at all of the awesome stereo gear from the 70's, while CD's were convenient, if they were subpar on sound, they would have ultimately failed. But, that was not the case. High end gear of that era can certainly stand up to current gear.
i´m still using in other room , my home ofice , a matter of refering to it like that as i don´t work that much and even less at home but i love the sound of the SA-8800II integrated amplifier with some mission 761 i bought in late 80´s and sounds amazing ,before i use to have some HPM-50 if memory doesn´t fail me and in other corner of the room some JBL´s but not big speakers and in 79 i trade those for the excelent sounding SB-F3 from technics in 1979 only ,as they are totally diferent from what they sold in 1980 and 1981 , there i have a Pioneer PL-560 and a Technics SL-3310 with diferent cartridges , but today maybe factory´s think that no longer much people hears vinil or like i had call it all my life ,records, i almost forget the new receivers some only have one output to recording devices and others none and i have most of the formats and listen to them and record with them also like DAT and open reel decks, my favorite ones, i have a Akai tape monitor multiplyer from the 80´s and it´s good it allows me to conect either than this i already refered a cassette deck and a Minidisc deck.
Gorgeous "keep forever and ever" gear!
This is without a shadow of a doubt the BEST Elite line Pioneer ever put out, hands down. The Combo LD/CD player from this line is also considered the best they ever put out. Brands like Pioneer & JVC were really going hard at this time to trump the likes of Sony. The Elite & Digifine lines really prove that.
Agree. I just hope we can find a way to repair the lasers on them to keep them going.
About the best looking line of Japanese equipment of that period. The drop dead gorgeous Urushi finish( resin lacquer made from the sap of the Urushi tree) on the side panels is what makes these components jump out at you, not to mention excellent design/build quality. Do you ever run into Pioneers Exclusive line of horn speakers or turntables?
Unfortunately not. I've seen pictures of them, but have thus far, not seen any in person.
I love you said that it has the look of High end 😂 I bought my first Hi Fi in 86 or 87’ and I bought Onkyo and Nikko. I don’t remember what brand the turntable was but it was not high end but it was a great stereo. My speakers were home built and the brand Seas and great sound quality and awesome bass for the price
Well, they were certainly a step up from the "regular" offerings of the day. :-)
@@stereoniche ok I don’t think I have heard that model before so I will not know that 👍🏼
what i refer to earlier is that the one without video inputs seems to sound better at low volume than the one you showed, i can also add that no AV receiver has good stereo image or better say not so good in sound quality, and i only tried the top end model from diferent brands such as Denon, Onkyo ,Technics, Magnat, Yamaha and other i can´t recall the newer ones ,old i have tested a lot of brands but they are now old and cheap in 2nd hand , only wanted to refer the last ones, it´s real wood not simulated or if Elite does that , in Europe Urushi uses wood
Interestingly, the C-90 I use in my reference system has video inputs, but the User Manuals I have found do not have video inputs. In regard to AV receivers, I commented in an earlier video about Home Theater that I felt AV receivers, in general, were not great at stereo. Some took offense to that comment, but it makes sense, as they were focused on AV, not stereo. As well, I said "most", not all, but as with anything, it is a matter of taste and preference for what we hear.
@@stereoniche you´re right and i agree with you
bought it after selling a Sony Esprit series and was very good sounding with some mission Argonaut MKII , the 780 model , also had some big JBL´s from mid 70´s that i used to try both to see which sounded better ,even today i´m using the A-91D that one is boxed in my hi-fi colection room but sold this Power amplifier to buy the other without the power meters efects and i for some reason prefer the C-90a or C-91a(not sure now) ,as it had less inputs but seemed at low volume to have more richer sound, but louder were both good, i ended up buying some at-100 from Cerwin-vega for it and the sound was amzing good , even today tops most of the high-end material i tested . I had from the 70´s the Pioneer Exclusive series M6 mono Blocks with a C3 control amplifier and a Spec-1 and 2 and for some reason they seem to sound better, or just my impression as it were long time ago bought but still in use, i don´t remenber why i sold the power amplifier and bought the other without the nice looking power meters , just don´t remenber why i did it. I want to refer that i bought a lot of good material from diferent brands but returned always to Pioneer, in the 90´s a lot of good cd players were released said to be the better but compared with Pioneer cd players they weren´t better as in the specifications were very close or a litle higher but the diference is not heardable with the plus that Pioneer built always with better materials even when they decreased a lot in mid 90´s some electronic components they remain using as good as or better than other brands but i really like accuphase and phase linear from mid to late 70´s as Phase Linear was bought by pioneer but only when the CT-A1 cassette deck was released i knew about it as i had the 7000 series two phase linear cassette deck, so to speak i think is one of the best cassette decks ever made. My Father bought mainly Revox/Studer and Nakamichi , the only thing i notice in superiority to Pioneer was the number of time my father had to sent to repair all is Nakamichi components he bought, also can add that in 74 when i bought a car it had a radio cassette player and i as everybody at the time were using 8-track cartridges but i recorded a Sony cassette in the Nakamichi 1000 and when playing it in the car it sounded perfect , i at the time had no cassette deck in my stereo equipment ,only open reel deck and a cartridge recorder by Pioneer, but in any market or fair you could by very cheap well recorded cartridges pirated with the new releases and some compilations non-oficial ones, as an example the two singles songs from two diferent bands, even doble or triple singles were sold , recentelly i was looking to my singles and found a double Procul Harum single with very nice graphics, the music i don´t even understand why i bought it, sometimes i was high so it happened, already a lot of years ago a friend of mine asked Violent femmes to play in our city and for my surprise the keyboard player was the Procul Harum vocalist, after i talked with him and he said "even i don´t understand", this becaused he played whiter shade of pale alone with the keyboard when in the intermission.
I have a top of tbe line Pioneer Elite component. It's a totl Pioneer Elite cassette deck. I also have Sansui's totl cassette deck from back then. I know them both so well. The Pioneer weighs about a third as much as the Sansui. Sansui made their own transformers I hear tell. This gives the Sansui a bigger instrument size than the Pioneer. The Instruments sound bigger & that always happens with bigger transformers. It looks like the Sansui has twice as much circuitry inside. With bundles of wires crisscrossing each other galore inside. The Pioneer Elite looks minimal inside, with not many wires at all. The Elite can't weigh much more than 6 or 7 lbs. The Sansui could weigh not far from 20 lbs. The Pioneer has some features the Sansui doesn't, including recording cds using only your cd players digital out, and a feature that analyzes the freq. response of old weathered cassettes and brings it back up to normal, but the Sansui has some features like track search & programming that the Pioneer lacks.
The Pioneer at 1/3 the weight has slightly better bass definition, but the Sansui sounds fuller, bigger and more palpably present in the midrange. The Pioneer's midrange is very laid back in comparison. It makes you listen a little more to hear details that comes through bigger and more obvious with the Sansui.
Both are excellent decks. I like the perspective of one over the other depending on the recording. Cassette playback at this level passes by most vinyl playback; but it does not equal reel to reel. I suppose you could equal or best esoteric cassette playback with a turntable and expensive cartridge. But it probably would have to be something pretty special. Cassettes are very underrated for sound quality. I have real good quality playback equipment of all formats (except 8 track), and the only thing more open sounding than cassette is reel to reel. Although great vinyl and cd playback come close.For bass response, notbing beats tape; and the midrange and highs give you that analog genuineness & greatness, that smooth liquid sound without the noise of lps
Years ago I bought an Elite tuner, perhaps it was the F91 model as it was digital tuning. Worked fine for me, I passed it onto someone else and it eventually broke. It probably could have been easily repaired but we did not have the time to do it. Looked good, but I don't know if the F91 was worth the price given FM listening became a rare thing.
Yes, you have to be a real die hard fan of tuners with access to good stations. That combination is getting harder to find.
They look like souped up Yamaha M85 and C85, lol. I'm curious about the circuit design now.. I'm curious if you can get your hands on the Yammies sometime soon.
I have some other Yammy models, but not the M85/C85. Those Yammies look VERY similar to the Sansui B2101/C2101 models I reviewed some months back and tied in scoring to the Pioneer set.
The direct inputs on the amp are pretty unusual. How are these for repairability?
Also, is there any chance you have a Kenwood Supreme 600 or similar? I'd love to see a video on one of those.
I've actually not seen much in the way of issues for them, but they are also not that common, so just may not have heard as much. Have yet to own a Kenny Supreme, but they are awesome models I would like to get into my collection.
@@stereoniche I have a 650 (the bronze version of the 600). If you can find one, definitely get it. I'm mostly surprised I have something you don't!
@@paulv22 Not.... YET! 🙂
The new elite stuff is good. Is the wattage weak a bit? Kinda yes. But the sound is truly good and must add a subwoofer. But anyone getting a chance to get one is highly recommend
I have many components from the 80's and early 90's that l really like! The build quality may have diminished, but l like the looks and especially the performance of them. I'm not a fan of the mirror black finish. Consequently, my only Elite model is my F-93 tuner. From my tuner collecting phase.
We all have our "phases". :-)
Thank You.
You're welcome
Laquered they are.
And lacquered VERY well. That mirrored finish looks great, but not great to video. :-)
@@stereoniche yes it is not noticable in some ways of showing it , i have my room with low light and sometimes i have to point the light on my phone to show how good it looks , but you have a nice channel and it´s subscibed