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In the late 1970's I was working in a very busy audio store in New York City. Our main product line
was Yamaha. Although there were 3 other audio stores right nearby, peeople kept coming in
to buy Yamaha - which none of the other 3 places sold.
The biggest sellers were the receivers, particularly the CR620 and CR820.
Just about everybody swooned over the superb sounding, gorgeous T2 tuner,
but few were sold. Very pricey, and the general sense among the buyers was
that the T2 was better than most of the gear used in broadcast studios as the time.
Perhaps only WNCN, a great classical music station back in the day was using
equipment worth the purchase price of a T2. Though, as noted, the slim, minimalistic
and matte black styling - along with the obviously superb build quality - drew
many favorable comments and looks of leaving a loved one behind.
I listened to the C4 a lot, day to day, in the store and at home, and I thought that
sonically, it was a middling preamp. Not great with dynamic range, and a lack of
real clarity. Overall, though, it was definitely respectable and had the benefit of
looking good. It was a bit too large (vertically) in my view.
Probably the C4's biggest fault was with respect to the rather large square
buttons on the face which lit - green or white, depending on the function.
It was a soft type of internal lighting (the buttons were plastic) which many
found to be attractive and even useful.
The problem was - and yes, it was definitely a problem - was that these
lights were continually going out. Not all the time, not on every unit, but
much more often than they should have been. And because they were
specifically a Yamaha design, they could be serviced (at the time, anyway)
only by repair shops licensed by Yamaha. Which were few and far between,
in keeping with Yamaha's tightly controlled retail distribution (again - at the time).
Moreover, although not to make too big a deal about this, since these "lit up"
square switches were so large (relatively), and placed so prominently on the
face, when one went out it corrupted the entire look of the preamp. It looked
very obviously "broken". Had to go out for service, which took a while...
We saw way too many of these relative to the number we sold - and of course,
conversations with our fellow Yamaha dealers confirmed that we were not alone.
I simply cannot imagine how these lights could be fixed today except perhaps by
a gifted hobbyist or electrical engineer able somehow to source these 30 year old
parts or perform some type of custom workaround.
It's the main reason I wouldn't buy a C4 today if I saw one used (and I do see them;
I guess we all do). But also the look never really grabbed me, and neither did the
sound. Other than those lighted switches, though, it was very nicely made.
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Now the C2...(but that's a different story for another day...)
Rating:  [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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