I’ve been listening to music through the speakers in the house every day for the last 6 years. A few months ago, my receiver burnt up (literally). I obviously wasn’t financially prepared to run out and replace the broken receiver with the vintage Marantz I had been dreaming of. So for the last couple months I’ve had an IFTTT/Craigslist text alert running for vintage receivers and have stopped at every Goodwill I passed hoping to find a replacement that wasn’t an insult to the house and found nothing.
Today I found a Pioneer SA-5500 II amplifier that was handsome and affordable but I wasn’t sure if it would work for what I needed. Honestly, I didn’t even know what in the hell the amp’s role was in the vintage hi-fi setup so I texted my new friend that I had made on Craigslist (he sells all the vintage Marantz receivers I can’t afford) and googled it from the store. I found an article that sounded like it would work and that was good enough. I bought the amp, got in the car and got the text back from “Bret Marantz” telling me that it probably wouldn’t work if I didn’t have a preamp.
After hours of researching online about whether or not I’d need a preamp to play music through an amplifier with my bluetooth receiver to no avail I gave up, disconnected the burnt up Sansui and hooked up the Pioneer amp… AND IT WORKED!!
I swear it’s better than the first time I got sound coming out of the speakers (photo on the left)! There’s something wonderful about having something you enjoy every day, being spoiled by it for years, losing it for three miserable months and then (after much work and woe) restoring it!! The same sort of thing recently happened with the car I loathe — this is 1,000 times better than that! I can’t wait to get back to my regular work routine tomorrow with my old friend, Ludovico Einaudi!! Woo hoo!!!