How to Connect a Vintage Receiver to an External Preamp or Amplifier

do you have a vintage receiver and are interested in using it as either a standalone preamp or a standalone amplifier and connect an external preamp or an external amplifier to the unit instead of using it just as an all-in-one receiver if so but you're not quite sure how to make those connections I'm going to show you two ways in this video to make those connections the first being how to connect your receiver to an external amplifier and the second being how to connect it to an external preamp let's jump into that next now not all vintage receivers can be used as a preamp only or a power amp only so the first thing you need to do is turn your unit around and see if you have a preamp out connection and a power amp in connection they are usually connected by a pair of jumpers or a pair of RCA cables if these jumpers have been lost over the years now some vintage units will work without these this Pioneer sx980 will not work unless these are included just a little random there but let's connect the preamp on the 980 to this Yola horn amplifier up here okay first thing we want to do is remove the jumpers on the 980 and then we're going to take a pair of RCA cables and let's see here connect those to preamp out like so and then you're going to take the other end of your cables and run those two your amplifier input just like that okay so at this point we're now using the 980s preamp and we're using the yellowhorn as our speaker amp so all of our sources will be hooked up to the 980 turntable we'll be using it for volume control tone control all of that here on the preamp but we'll have our speakers connected to the yellow horn and it will be powering the speakers so this is how you use it just as a preamp but let me take everything apart and I'll show you then how to use the Pioneer 980 as just the amplifier and we're going to connect a preamp to it okay let's set this up now as if you wanted to use the Vintage receiver as an amplifier but connect a different preamp to it for this example I'm using this Saga plus preamp right here so basically you're going to remove the jumpers like you did in the first example and you're going to take your RCA cables and plug them into the power amp in you're going to take the other end of those cables and you're going to connect those to the output of your preamp so you are now using your preamp to connect your sources like a turntable CD player whatnot to it you're using this for your volume control it's sending the signal now to the Vintage receiver which You're simply using as an amplifier and that is where you will connect your speakers well that's how you make the connection to either an external preamp or amplifier with a vintage receiver oftentimes in the manuals of these receivers they will also have this information so feel free if you have a vintage unit to go find them online oftentimes they're free and download that and it will also show you a step-by-step guide there I also have a Blog that I wrote with photos showing you how to make these connections and I'll include that link below in case you're interested in reading through that as well while you make these connections now the unit that I used for this is a Pioneer sx980 and I actually bought that at my local record store and at first I wasn't quite sure if I made a smart purchase or not if you'd like to watch a video about the 980 you can do so by clicking here

Channel: Forever Analog

Views: 33,560

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Id: 5ONtv9o2ImU

Length: 4min 0sec (240 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2023