Due to rising prices, I haven’t purchased much vintage gear lately. I’ve been pretty happy knowing I own a Marantz 2270 receiver along with a McIntosh MC 2505 amplifier. And yet, in a moment of weakness, here I am, now the proud owner of a Pioneer SX-980 receiver.
The Pioneer SX-980 was released in 1978, almost fifty years ago, as a moderately upgraded version to their previous model, the SX-950.
My local record store posted this unit for sale, at what I thought was a price too good to pass on. Let’s highlight some of the receiver’s features next.
Have you ever set a personal goal and immediately realized your life is set up to operate in complete resistance to that goal?
I set into motion a plan to pay off some lingering debt. I’m tired of paying the same monthly bills and seeing the balances barely decrease. Let’s pay it off. I’m ready.
Back to having my life set up against my goals…if you decide to do everything possible to pay off debt and still subscribe to stereo magazines showing you fancy new gear that makes you want to spend money, you’re doing it wrong.
I have two options here: 1) cancel my subscription or 2) understand most of the gear presented is way out of my price range anyways, with or without debt, and continue to read for the educational aspects of it and maybe have a blog where you can write about what you’d like to hear even when it’s not affordable, ahem.
That final point brings me to the Micromega M-One amplifier which I first discovered in the most recent issue of Sound & Vision Magazine.
The first thing I noticed was a slim orange box that looked more like a weight scale rather an integrated amplifier. I showed the magazine to my wife and said, “Weird, this thing is actually an amplifier!”.
Image Courtesy of https://www.stereophile.com/content/micromega-m-one-all-one-streameramp
Receivers are historically nothing but large black boxes (at least these days) that weigh a ton and sit rather unattractively in an entertainment center. Every day our partners stare at that black box hoping for its demise. Unless you bring home a pretty vintage Pioneer, Sansui or Marantz, the black box integrated amps are asking to be kicked out of the house from day one.
Has Micromega solved this issue by offering a colorful slim design that looks like anything but an integrated amplifier? Perhaps.
More importantly, how does it sound?
With a price tag of $7,499 (and my debt pay off plan mentioned above), I will not be personally listening to a M-150 anytime soon. After all, I titled this post Need To Hear This, right?
I suggest jumping over to Sound & Vision’s great review to read more about how the amplifier sounds. All I can say is after reading their opinion, I definitely wanted to hear one myself. Maybe someday I will!
If interested, here are specs for the unit:
Class AB Stereo Amplifier
DAC PCM 32/768 and DSD256
DLNA
Ethernet
Bluetooth SBC and apt-X
S/PDIF and I2S digital audio inputs
Asynchronous USB input
Acoustic calibration by microphone M.A.R.S
Power: 2x150W (8 Ohms)
Signal-to-noise ratio: 100 dB (RCA), 103 dB (XLR) and >75 dB (phono)
Channel separation: 96 dB at 1 kHz and 80 dB at 10 kHz
Sensitivity phono input: 12 mV and 1.2 MV (MM and MC)
Line Input Sensitivity: 1.4 Vrms (RCA) and 1.7 Vrms (XLR)
Low Low Output Filter: 400 Hz
Inputs: 1x USB type B, 2x USB Type A (service), 2x HDMI I2S, 1x optical S/PDIF Toslink, 1x S/PDIF coaxial RCA, 1x trigger, 1x XLR, 1x RCA, 1x MM/MC phono, 1x microphone,
