Having acquired the KM-209 Kenwood power amp, I knew I needed a pre-amp to power it. Since it would be in the living room hooked up to the cable box, I knew it also needed to have a remote control. I’ve never been super into surround sound, so I figured I’d look for something stereo-only. Naturally I wanted to get something older, hoping for a better build quality than modern products… and I didn’t want to pay much. After spending a decent amount of time searching for untis with those qualities, it became clear the best deal would be a receiver or integrated amp which had pre-amp outputs, since a strict pre-amp is overtly aimed at the hi-fi crowd who will spend money for discretes. Remotes began to appear in the early 80s so I looked there, and ended up zeroing in on the Yamaha Natural Sound series.
In short I was looking for a sleeper: something with great specifications that got lost in the mountains of A/V choices out there, forgotten by the advances of time and the piling-on of unneeded features. And I think I found it. The AVC-50. It’s got inputs from sun-up to sun-down, it’s stereo-only, has a remote, and a killer set of numbers behind it.
If used as a pre-amp, the AVC-50 has some astoundingly good specs. Specifically it has a 103dB noise isolation between channels and a Total Harmonic Distortion of 0.005% which is… stupifyingly low. That’s not a typo, there’s really two zeros before the 5 in that. That’s very formidible for any pre-amp, even at a snobbish level of audiophile haughtiness. Yet here it is in this obscure seemingly mid-level Yamaha. Sort of strange.
As to the sound quality, so far I’m very pleased. Between this and the Kenwood power amp that’s doing the grunt work, I can discern a notable improvement in the quality over the outgoing Aiwa. The AVC-50 needed some de-oxit spray to get rid of the crackling when the main volume control was turned, but that was it. I also like the switched power outlets on the back which feed my tape deck and the power amp. Hearing the relays inside all three of them go CLICK when you turn it on is neato. One thing I do wish it had is tone controls. There is no bass/treble control and I do miss that, although the speakers it’s driving are already balanced just about right anyway. It does have a bunch of functions I’m not in need of though: this thing would be amazing for copying VHS tapes back in the day. There’s a huge amount of video inputs, you can select any audio source while recording video, and it even has a video enhancing circuit with sharpness control. If you were copying tapes, this thing would have been stellar.
You could probably find one of these for about $50 if you were patient and persistent. Me, I paid a little extra at $75 to get this one off eBay which came with the remote (many didn’t) and manuals. Although the pictures didn’t really show me, I had a hunch that if it came with the manuals it was probably well-cared for. Indeed it proved to be, and not only did it come with the manual, it also had the receipt for extended warranty (long since expired) and, most interestingly of all, the promotional literature. Retro advertisements can be pretty entertaining to look at sometimes, so I’ve scanned in several pages of this for any who may be interested. The pictures date it. And there’s a lot of effort put into explaining the capabilities of the unit. It’s a long sell. Something that I haven’t seen for a modern product of equivalent standing. Below are all the interesting pages of the large brochure… Check it out:
Tags: gadgets, general nerdery, Music, vintage gear
I read this not long after you originally posted it and just came back to read it again. My Dad bought one when it came out and I still use it today. Your article is spot on. Built to last. Full of Nichicon capacitors, with some ELNA’S and Panasonic’s thrown in there too. I’ve started recapping mine recently, in stages, to keep it going for another few decades. Some small values replaced with film caps since nowadays they are small enough to fit. It’s just getting better. The old caps still test great, at least their capacitance, I don’t have an ESR meter. Just a neat, good sounding quality amp. Thanks for the scans of the literature, very cool!
I have one of these in use as an integrated amp. couldn’t be happier. pre outs and main ins and every type of hookup imaginable. just the thing I would have wanted back in the mid 80’s! i’ll be using it as a pre amp if I can find the right Yamaha amp at the right price, like an m-4, b-2 or b-2x. if you think this is what you might need and have a line on one, go for it!