Living with a Pioneer SA-9800

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Gerry1965

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Having now lived with the Pioneer SA-9800 for a week or 3, I find it more and more impressive in its ability to generate an engaging sound that seems to be just a little more holographic and somehow "clearer(?)" than my previous modern amplifiers, from both source - Pioneer TX-608 tuner, as well as  the Audiolab 8000 cd player.

This past weekend my wife and I did some very early morning low-volume listening to 91.9 FM; perfect time to engage the Loudness switch...my wife doesn't really notice the difference until I switch it off again.  ?What did you do?? she asks, ?It sounds different now, something is missing.?
Well, there you go, the function of the Loudness switch to subtly enhance the low- and high-end frequencies does its job...apparently the human ear finds it harder to hear bass and treble frequencies at low volumes, my wife's ears have just confirmed that.
Switching the Loudness switch ON, I initially find the sound to be a little weird, not unpleasant; but the ears quickly become accustomed to the 'new' sound, we humans are amazing creations.

Well, that switch does have its downside...but, it's not the complex machine's fault, rather a human oversight.
You see, I left (read as forgot) the Loudness switch in the ON position for the day and Sunday evenings being music evenings and this past Sunday being my wife's evening to choose the artist and album, we ended up listening to the angry lady, aka Alanis Morrisette.  I couldn't quite figure out why the bass and treble seemed to be a little overblown, but it wasn't unpleasant even at the slightly elevated listening volume.  I don't listen to Alanis on a regular basis, so in my mind, it could have been part of the recording.  Plus, I was too lazy to get up from my comfy listening position to investigate and maybe twist a few knobs  :) ...sacrilege!
With reference to Mygoggies words of wisdom, I guess brain was engaged last night trying to figure out what ears were hearing last night - it tweaked on me this morning to check the Loudness switch...and there we have it, the switch in the down position, set to ON.

The SA-9800 is a very complex piece of machinery with tons of HPFM in its circuitry, it boggles the mind that this machine is 40-yrs old.  With complexity comes additional tasks...they need to be checked on a regular basis and compared to original baselines, let this be a lesson to me  :whip: ...check all settings before listening to the cd player!

Long live the world of complexity!  It brings its own joins when that complexity can be utilised for personal enjoyment  :dop:

More to come, I'm sure...
 

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