Sansui
Kosaku Kikuchi started a radio parts workshop in Yoyogi, Tokyo, in 1944, making transformers first, and founded Sansui on 3 June 1947. His stated rule was to make better products even at higher prices. Sansui began selling preamp and power amplifier kits and finished tube amplifiers in 1954 and introduced its first stereo tube preamp and power amplifiers in 1958.
The black-faced AU-series amplifiers of 1965 onward became the company's signature, and in the early 1970s Sansui pushed four-channel sound with its QS matrix system. Kikuchi resigned in 1974. Sales collapsed in later decades and the company went out of business in 2014; Grande Holdings acquired the rights to license the name outside Japan the same year.
The original magazine kept a Sansui page among its Japanese manufacturer profiles.
Sansui Electric Co., Ltd. is a Japanese manufacturer of audio and video equipment. Founded in Tokyo in 1947, Sansui initially manufactured transformers, but by the 1960s had developed a reputation for making serious audio components. Sansui’s amplifiers and tuners from the 1960s and 1970s remain in demand by audio enthusiasts.
In 1971 Sansui introduced the Quadphonic Synthesizer QS-1, which could make simulated four channel stereo from two channel sources. Sansui developed the QS Regular Matrix system, which made it possible to transmit four channel Quadraphonic sound from a standard LP. The channel separation was only 3 dB, but because of the human way of hearing it sounded relatively good. In 1973 Sansui introduced the more advanced QS Vario Matrix decoder with 20 dB separation. Unfortunately the SQ system developed by Columbia/CBS was the most popular so called matrix system. But later QS decoders could also play SQ records. Some Sansui receivers could also play the most advanced four channel system – CD-4/Quadradisc by Japanese JVC and American RCA. Most big record companies used either SQ or CD-4, but Decca used the Sansui QS system.
During the late 1970s the iconic matte-black-faced AU-series amplifiers were released. The first-generation ’07’ models included the dual-mono power supply AU-517 and AU-717, and the second generation featured the updated AU-719, 819 and 919. The separate pre-amp/power-amp CA-F1/BA-F1 topped the model range along with the AU-X1 integrated amplifier.
In the UK around 1982, the Sansui AU-D101 amplifier and its more powerful sibling the AU-D33, were highly acclaimed by audiophilesand were so well matchedto a pair of KEF Coda III speakers that they could be bought as a set from some outlets.These amplifiers used a complex feed-forward servo system which resulted in very low 2nd order harmonic distortion.