Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
As mentioned in a different post in a different group with a different Pioneer receiver, these things keep appearing on curbs, in damp basements, garage sales, attics, garage sales, unliked in-laws, and everywhere else in between!
How many hundreds of thousands of these things were made? They are quite collectible and sought out, but definitely not rare. In the last month, a few SX-1250’s have shown up in the Chicagoland area at various reasonable prices based on market value, so these are not unicorns.
That’s said I came across one in September on Facebook Marketplace and I got a really good deal, the seller was the second owner and mentioned everything was original, but a guy had “gone through it”. Most parts and switches were very clean, and there were LED dial lamps (which for the first time ever kept, these have a nice warm tone to them). Other than that, a heck of a lot of capacitors with shrunken wrappers.
Upon the first couple hours of using it, the protection circuit was kicking in. Getting a DC popping noise too. But was kicking in and out with no smoke or failure and of concern.
Initially thought the tone circuit might be putting out DC from a bad tantalum (I’ve personaly seen this three separate times on the x50 model line).
Decided to start from the back and recapped and cleaned up the stabilizer board, protection circuit, both driver boards and it’s working perfect. Tone could not be more brilliant & bassy, or better!
Gave it a good work out, and all problems are gone. I do want to recap the tone circuit and put modern transistors in there at some point.
For now, I’m happy and it’s gonna be put away for now.
Video contains a demo tonight, which is oversaturated due to the microphone of my iPhone, not keeping up with the loudness.
If you continue watching, you’ll see my quick restore on this.
I have an unorthodox approach to things but I’m consistent and ultimately end up with a better product even if everything has not been replaced. And my verbiage might not align to all “experts”.
Merry Christmas, coming up, everyone!
As mentioned in a different post in a different group with a different Pioneer receiver, these things keep appearing on curbs, in damp basements, garage sales, attics, garage sales, unliked in-laws, and everywhere else in between!
How many hundreds of thousands of these things were made? They are quite collectible and sought out, but definitely not rare. In the last month, a few SX-1250’s have shown up in the Chicagoland area at various reasonable prices based on market value, so these are not unicorns.
That’s said I came across one in September on Facebook Marketplace and I got a really good deal, the seller was the second owner and mentioned everything was original, but a guy had “gone through it”. Most parts and switches were very clean, and there were LED dial lamps (which for the first time ever kept, these have a nice warm tone to them). Other than that, a heck of a lot of capacitors with shrunken wrappers.
Upon the first couple hours of using it, the protection circuit was kicking in. Getting a DC popping noise too. But was kicking in and out with no smoke or failure and of concern.
Initially thought the tone circuit might be putting out DC from a bad tantalum (I’ve personaly seen this three separate times on the x50 model line).
Decided to start from the back and recapped and cleaned up the stabilizer board, protection circuit, both driver boards and it’s working perfect. Tone could not be more brilliant & bassy, or better!
Gave it a good work out, and all problems are gone. I do want to recap the tone circuit and put modern transistors in there at some point.
For now, I’m happy and it’s gonna be put away for now.
Video contains a demo tonight, which is oversaturated due to the microphone of my iPhone, not keeping up with the loudness.
If you continue watching, you’ll see my quick restore on this.
I have an unorthodox approach to things but I’m consistent and ultimately end up with a better product even if everything has not been replaced. And my verbiage might not align to all “experts”.
Merry Christmas, coming up, everyone!
