POWER , FINESE , STYLE AND SOUND. IMPRESSIVE MUSICALITY

WITH A BIT OF ADAPTING EVEN THE SPEAKER BARRIERS ARE NO ISSUE

HAVE BEEN COLLECTING UNITS ON eBAY FOR 5 YRS. HAVE OWNED THE BEST FROM PIONEER , SANSUI , MCINTOSH , LUXMAN AND MARANTZ. I NOW SEARCH NO MORE THE E-202 IS SIMPLY BAR NONE THE BEST AMP I HAVE EVER HEARD PAID 370 US AND WONDER WHY THE GUY EVER SOLD IT. RETRO SILVER NICE METERS AND THE SOUND IS FAN FRIGGEN TASTIC. MATCHED IT UP WITH A T-101 AND I AM IN HEAVEN. YOU CAN SPEND THOUSANDS MORE TO EMPTY YOUR POCKET BOOK AND IMPRESS YOUR FRIENS ---BUT WHY? DRIVING A PAIR OF 300 WATT SANSUI SPL800 SPEAKERS AND AT TIMES A PAIR KLIPSCH LA SCALLA'S YEOW

Customer Service

NO ISSUES AS OF YET

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MC INTOSH 4100 - MARANTZ 18 AND 2325 - FISHER 400 TUBE - PIONEER SX 1980 AND 1050 - SANSUI 9090DB AND MANY MORE

Ample power, retro styling and meters, strong bass and soundstaging. Weighs a ton, and sounds excellent. 3 line level inputs, 2 phono stages, 3 tape inputs. Awesome look and sound.

Speaker connections-thats all.

I have recently reacquired this beautiful integrated after a 17 year upgrade itch that finally subsided. Bought my Accuphase in 1976 with a pair of Bose 901's (high-end at the time) from Apple Tree Stereo in Elgin, IL. Kept until 1988, at which time I purchased Creek, Exposure, Rotel and Bryston amps over the next 16 years. Recently visited the friend to which I had sold my Accuphase. He had relegated the unit to power basement speakers-his primary system is home theater. To make a long story short, it is now back in my main system, driving a pair of Meadowlark Swifts with a Rotel RCD-961 CD player. Still in perfect shape, cosmetically and sonically. Am grateful to my friend for keeping this great amp pristine.

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Bryston, Rotel, Marantz, Creek and Exposure integrated.

Musicality. Superb focus. Goes with any speaker.

Speaker terminals. Speaker terminals and Speaker terminals.

This is indeed a great amp. My newly bought integrated Bryston is for sale. The E202 simply spanks the Bryston in every aspect. Espesially its pin-point focus is terriffic, not to mention its musicality. Just go buy one on the second-hand market. Goes for 100 - 350 £.

Superb sounding amp with lotsa detail and musicality. Beefy enough to drive anything out there.

The meter pilot lamps are easily blown and the replacement parts are extremely difficult to find.

This is an superb sounding integrated amp that needs no further introduction. It actually sounds more smooth and focus than the E203, and has more muscle than the E205. And the meters are very nice! The power rating (100W into 8ohm, 160w into 4ohm) is misleading. It simply drives whatever speakers I throw at it! The terminal strips are like hell as usual. Recently I have been told that you could get the adaptors at http://www.jaytronic.s.com/connectors.htm and I got several pairs of banana to strips adaptors and they are GREAT!!!!! ***** The only advice I have is the fuses. The unit actually has an circuit breaker and 3 fuses inside. The stupid thing is those 3 fuses (250V 1A) are hard-wired. So to replace it, you have to take the unit apart and remove the existing one by unsoldering it. I ended up putting in fuse holders for those 3 so no more hassle! Also, the amp uses those hard-to-find pilot lamps that look like fuses. The pilot lamps simply look like an regular 1" x 1.25" fuse. To make my story short: One day one of the meter lights went out. I opened the unit and saw an blown "fuse". So I put replacement "fuses" in and the unit never came up again! No light, no meter, no power. Without schematics, I did not know what to do. People in AudioAsylum think the amp is in serous trouble but how replacing an fuse would blown up an tank-like amp such as Accuphase? So I got myself an schematics and AHHHHH! Those 2 "fuses" are pilot lamps! And by putting in an true fuse, it blown the other pilot amp plus one of the 3 hidden 1A fuses. The that 1A fuse - which controls the meters only - is so stupidly designed that it would cut off the output relay! So you'd think the unit would work without the meters? Gotcha! So I put the replacement pilot lamps back in (they have fuse holders so it's piece of cake to replace) and the replacement 1A fuse (I don't understand this one - it's hard-wired and I had to do some solder job to replace it). And everything comes back as normal! You wanna know why I want to say so much about those fuses/pilot lamps? An local, reputable company (who also kinda well-known on the web) wanna charges me $160-$180 minimum to replace the 1A fuse ($0.40 at radio shack) and the pilot lamps (8 for $5 in eBay). Lesson well-learnt! If you wanna get vintage amps like this, make sure you have the schematics and be handy, or get ready for some serious rip-off.

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Accuphase E203, E205; Musical Fidelity; NAD S300 (shame!!); ICL Softone 300B; McIntosh MA6850; Krell 300i; and many more that I can't remember

Flawless performance, enough power to drive the Magnaplanars (but too little wattage for my Hales Rev III, 86 db @ 4 ohms). Impeccable build quality.

I believe my output transistors may need replacing, as the unit will occasionally turn on and off when powering up, but it has never failed to turn on and stay on.

When I purchased the Accuphase along with my Magneplanars, I promised my new wife that this would be the last stereo system I ever purchased. Almost 30 years of marriage to both my wife and my Accuphase, and I am still in love. I think I'll keep both a while longer! Unfortunately, I have to let my wife know that I am going to upgrade my electronics, keeping the trusted Accuphase for the bedroom system.

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no other integrated units, plenty of receivers and separates.

It just sounds better than almost anything else, and it''s superb build quality. What other 30 year old transistor amp is worth buying?

this would be nit-picking. The fiddly speaker connections, the not very solid pickup earth screws, the power-on relay. Nothing at all performance wise.

I bought mine in 1974 when I was a bit rich, so it is certainly one of the very first available. I had no idea what a good investment I was making, as I''ve had it ever since. I also got some Acoustic Research LST ''speakers which made a wonderful combination. I have some Avance Dana 2 now which are also a great match - and a lot smaller than the LSTs. Not surprisingly, not every ''speaker goes with the E202 - I tried it with ESS ribbon speakers but they unfortunately didn''t match at all. The only thing to ever go wrong with the amp. is the power on relay, which seems to oxidise over the years. I had to replace it once. Also, a few years ago, the French importer in Paris resoldered the principle connections for me. This is very worth doing, as the connections oxidise over time and resoldering improves the treble quite a lot. Sound? Amazing! Fast, rythmic, detailed with some of the warmth of a very good valve amp. Suits absolutely every kind of music too. I sometimes listen to very expensive systems but none has made me wish I could afford them - I always come home to the Accuphase with pleasure. This must be the unrecognized classic of all time.

Superb sound. Lots of power to spare. Great finish. Looks like new after 20+ years.

Small speaker bindings.

Have not had this amp for long, but it is simply the best sounding amp I have ever heard. The sound is crystal clear, with lots of power. Everything's just perfect.

It's so good that it still sounds great using cheap Aiwa speakers.

I am now using it to run a pair of AE Aegis One. I'm not an audiophile, but I can easily tell that this amp is superb.

A friend gave this amp to me, and yet after being about 20+ years old, the sound quality and finish is simply outstanding.

Six stars if possible. I wonder how much it can fetch on the market these days.

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None

Although the Accuphase seems to present a very complex electronic structure, it is so, so beautiful (The apparatus is made to be opened and visited: you may take off all the faces you want, only removing some little screws and, in a few seconds, you walk between all the components, aligned on plugged cards, on optimized circuits, connected by incredible cables, directly coming from the "seventies days": it's a little factory, like a Revox A-77, for example)... Although that intricacy, the Accuphase add to the music this indefinable subtlety, this finesse, this softened sensuality: the more aristocratic machine I ever heard. Without its presence, the sound always seems suddendly to be so sharp, so digital, cold, dehumanized...

It's very strange: in French, we say always that the ideal aplifier must be only "un fil droit avec du gain" (a right wire with gain only). Here, we have the complete opposite: a lot of components in the signal's path. But, however, the great sound result spring immediately to "His Majesty the Ears" (but the ears need to be royal, here!: the Accuphase is not built for "musical illiteracy").

The Accuphase E-202 I own was the first machine of this Kenwood High End division exported to the States. But, the first mystery come from the fact that the sound signal is absolutely not perturbed by the acrobatic/complex trajectory it go trough... I have listened to many complex valves or transistors preamplifiers and often, the signal emerge from them softened and less informative. So, till now, I always used the more simple passive preamps & amps poisssible in my installations. They presented two great advantages (the information is preserved & they don't reduce the signal to noise ratio) & two big disadvantages (often, no gain at all, except with some models using transformers & a sharper/harder sound). Since I discovered the Accupahse...

The Accuphase E-202 which was built around 1970 produce, of course, some background noise but the s/n ratio follow the output level: I mean by this this too rudimentary explanation that when the entry volume potentiometer is at its minimal position, you will hear nothing in the speakers...

Now, what is this exceptional quality improvement given by the Accuphase, on each system with which I used it. Surely, it's quite difficult to find the adequate words to describe... So, it seems to be a real and marvelous mystery

Well, well...

I will try to use an other metaphor: Some people love a landscape... the sea, the horizon when they are strongly illuminated by a direct sun, on a hot and clear summer midday: the objects are then perfectly defined, clearly separated from each other but without transition between them: blue sky, green pastures, houses solidly planted on the ground seems to live separately, only being next to the other (I think here to the David Hockney Californian "A Bigger Splash" painting). That is more precisely the direction that take the oftren the most transistor amplifiers.

When you use the Accuphase, you obtain an other image: like a nuanced, rich, dense & complex sky, at the sunset, when a lot of different clouds are walking in the air from the fine padded ones to the deep and darkest: The landscape objects begin to establish subtle liaisons between them with some kind of fusion (but never confusion: they keep all their own identity). Here, take place some chiaroscuro (like in the famous Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" ).

So, I have given you my painter comparison trying to help you to divine at distance the difference...

I hope this little colorized summary will be a bit more clear & useful for you :-). I apologize for the English approximations: I'm a French guy!
Friendly,
Michel

Ability to separate amp/pre-amp sections, built like a tank, 2 phono inputs, quality machined knobs, 3 speaker pair connections, meters to monitor power out, quiet operation.

Do not know where to procure parts, can anyone help?

I purchased this unit way back in 1977, paid approx $500 for it, salesman convinced me this would be a great long term purchase, this unit has never required repair, still utilize, albeit in the sunroom, secondary listening area. Unit remains quiet, powerful, has excellent headroom. Have been looking (in vain) to replace the power on/off switch (since worn out), the speaker terminals need replacing (lent it out, bad move, user essentially stripped all the speaker connector screw threads), also needs one turntable ground wire connector. If anyone can help, please advise, my intent is to restore to near-perfect cosmetic condition. I am proud to have owned this E-202 for 24 1/2 years, has anyone had one longer? Thanks for reading. I cannot (in good faith) be the first to offer less than a five star rating.

Quality second to none; great phono stage; great sound.

That barrier strip! God, is this thing heavy!

One of your reviewers asked if anyone had owned one of
these things longer than he had. Yes. I bought mine new
27 years ago.

After all these years without trouble, it refused to
power up the other day, and its in the hospital as I
write this. I actually thought about buying another
amp for, oh, 10 seconds. You don't throw away an
Accuphase.

The only way to describe it (the sound, the features,
the feel of the controls, the build quality) is first-
rate. Its a pleasure to own and a pleasure to use.

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Nothing like this