What is a Reverb? Pioneer SR 202w

A discussion about when and how the reverb sound started and the vintage home stereo reverbs that were somewhat popular in the 1970's.
I am a long time collector of vintage stereo gear like receivers, speakers, amps, turntables and cassette decks from brands like McIntosh, Sansui, Pioneer, Yamaha, Klipsch, JBL, Marantz and many others. Be sure to subscribe so as not to miss future videos.
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Channel: / @stereoniche
Video: • What is a Reverb? Pion...
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[@stereoniche]

The song Bill Putnam added reverb to was "Peg o' My Heart" by the Harmonicats. Also, just wanted to comment that reverb was certainly popular BEFORE the Led Zeppelin song "When the Levee Breaks", I made it sound like they popularized the use of it following the recording.

[@jakefiersing]

I would appreciate to listen to a demonstration of a reverb.

[@btbb3726]

Intersting. I didn’t know very much about the history of reverb. Thanks! 👍🏻

[@stereoniche]

You are welcome!

[@vida22aj]

I have two Pioneer SX-9000 and they have reverb built in, Awesome units.

[@ronaldrice2936]

I'm looking into getting mines fix later this year 👍🔈🔈😎

[@BobTrainor]

I’ve got an SX-9000 I love it. My dad gave me one when he upgraded to a Sansui AU2000 in the 70’s. The one I have now is not the original unit I had but one I found on EBay and I had it re-capped and LEDed. I never cared much for the reverb myself but as a kid it was kind of cool. I’ve been really amazed how great this unit sounds today compared to my modern amps. How about you? You said you have 2. It’s just a really great unit nobody ever really talks about.

[@stereoniche]

Ironic, while I have never seen one before, I saw two of them while on vacation this week!

[@chrislj2890]

I remember my uncle had some kind of reverb gizmo in his car when I was a kid around 1960. I have no idea how he did it, and I just recall that I thought it was very cool.

[@stereoniche]

Thanks for chiming in!

[@yardleybottles6025]

Very informative! Thanks!

[@richardwhite2344]

WOW!!! I know about Reverb units for Electric guitars and such but I was unaware about such things for Stereo Systems. Very cool!!!

[@stereoniche]

It is kind of like audio archeology around here! :-)

[@mikecampbell5856]

Thanks for this video on reverbs. I remember seeing these in stereo stores and the Navy exchange in the 70s and wondering what the heck would I do with one. Some of the guys in the barracks had them and they were just using them to make goofy sound effects. I just concentrated on trying to find better gear. They are really cool looking though. I would probably put one in my system just to look at. LOL I remember when Kyocera came out. They talked about their use of ceramics quit a bit and I wished I could have heard some of their products. Looking forward to that video, like always.

[@stereoniche]

I tend to think most got used very little, which is why most of the ones I have seen are in fairly good shape. 😀

[@EvansBrosRacing]

I remember one of my Mom's cars had a Reverb in it . I think it was a '64 Pontiac Catalina , or Bonneville . The Reverb was hardly ever used , None of us liked the sound .

[@stereoniche]

I can understand why, 🙂

[@sidesup8286]

The first time I saw anything with reverb was my late brother in laws circa early 1970s Pioneer receiver. His brother was in the service overseas and he could get stuff for about half price, buying it in Japan. He had a choice between Marantz and Pioneer and he chose for his brother to buy hom a Pioneer receiver The receiver had 125 watts per channel (a powerhouse then), and likely was Pioneer's top of the line model. He said he almost never used the reverb knob on it. Too much reverb messes with intertransient silences and fouls the clarity, making notes run into each other. When The Levee Breaks is the last Song on Zeppelin's 4th album.1969 was the year their first album was recorded, and they did one album a year. When reverb is done well, in a recording studio, it can be a nice effect. There's a track on side 2 of Weather Report's Mysterious Traveller lp with extreme echoes every time Josef Zawinull hits a piano key. It sounds like they were recorded in some kind of very huge space. Wayne Shorter on Saxophone plays back and forth with him, and the sound the sax makes doesn't reverberate with the same intensity as the piano. It's the one track I can think of where the extreme reverberation really makes the track. Usually though, excessive reverberation blurs the intertransient silences which aids the articulation of the notes. If the reverberation came off as completely natural sounding and convincing, people would have liked it more. Overkill might have killed it. Really good cables and phono cartridges are known for their excellence on portraying intertransient silences.The $5,000 top of the line MIT speaker cables I used for a while were champs at that. All other cables sounded like they had some kind of a ringing after the notes had stopped, one note running into the next note and especially blurring together notes of for instance fast piano playing runs. When I first started using a high end preamp which had a glass circuit board, I noticed a dramatic improvement as far as intertransient silences go. It really clarified the music. But still, reverb done professionally and in moderation can be a really neat effect. When you have ultra high resolution, one of the things that really strikes you is how there are so many little echoes you can hear in the recordings. Some of them can be real and some of them can be reverb. The echoes with the biggest delay are almost certainly reverb. Looking forward to the Kyocera video. For all the audio equipment that came out of Japan, there weren't many Japanese audio companies considered high end. Back in the 1980s I can only think of Accuphase.... Luxman wasn't considered a high end brand then, and neither was Yamaha, although Yamaha and Sony did introduce an occasional item that was considered in the elite class. Basically phono cartridge manufacturers like Koetsu, Kiseiki, Fidelity Research, Supex, Dynavector and upper model Sumiko cartridges like the Talisman series, those were the only high end kids on the block coming out of Japan. Very few Japanese makes of electronics made it into the ranks of high end audio here. Kyocera with better marketing might have been able to join Accuphase.

[@stereoniche]

I think Kyocera could have made it, but they just priced themselves out of the market before the brand could gain traction.

[@sidesup8286]

@@stereoniche Kyocera at one point bought and owned KLH. They also bpught another Henry Kloss company, Cambridge Sound Works. The employees quit after learning of the buyout. There was a fear back then about Japan buying out America. Now it's China. America's stock has gone down considerably. We are not a world leader in many things anymore. Bad leadership and people not doing nearly enough. Was there another mass shooting today?

[@stevezeidman7224]

Saw these around. I never heard one. I’ve seen the Sansui more than the Pioneer. If you have ADS speakers, I’d love to see a review.

[@stereoniche]

I've seen quite a number of the Sansui's as well. I have many ADS and will be doing some reviews of them fairly soon.

[@limomangeno]

I own of those Pioneer Reveb units...but i haven't hooked it up .I remember back in the 60s my Stepfathers console stereo had one built in ,it was a Motorola ,when i play WOR fm in NYC and hear the Stones,Turtles on it WOW it was crazy good....deep and you thought they were in the room with you,lol.

[@FoulOwl2112]

Just found one of these at a Rescue Mission Store. They're asking an absolute ridiculous price. Im gone give it a bit and see if they come to their senses

[@stereoniche]

Smart move, patience. :-)

[@johnnytoobad7785]

The bass drum track in the Simon & Garfunkel song "The Boxer" was recorded in a stairwell. There's a video around with Hal Blaine (RIP) who tells the story.

[@chinmeysway]

Dang was hoping to hear what it sounds like

[@davidyeager8524]

When you talked about the tremolo bar on a electric guitar and said that’s Reverb. Well, that’s actually not reverb. That’s Tremolo. Reverb is sometimes built into the guitar amplifier. Not in the guitar. There’s a few different types of reverb in effects pedals and in amps. Spring, tube, digital.

[@stereoniche]

Yes, I was "in the moment" and got that wrong, but what I was trying to portray was somewhat the sound effect, it was a poor example.

[@tlinrin887]

Reverb with guitar can be a very versatile effect, in very small amounts can thicken the guitar sound to making it siunf like your playing in a large room to over the top Dick Dale surf sound, I got my hands on a pioneer unit a few months ago and quickly decided it sounded like hot garbage, I dug it back out trying to make it work, that's how I found your video. Apparently they sounded bad from the start.

[@brunoprimas1483]

Spring Reverb was invented for use in Hammond Organs in the 1930s and went on sale in the 1940s. The first compact reverb effect was created by a division of the Hammond Organ Company which became known as Accusonics.

[@stereoniche]

Thanks Bruno!

[@jasongantz4899]

Can I hook this up to my pioneer SX636. I always though a little reverb sounded great on R&B music

[@stereoniche]

You can run it through your tape loop. You should be able to find the manual online, just do a quick google search for it.

[@michaellecompte1889]

“You know” is on reverb in this video.

[@vito_vitoid]

The whammy bar on the guitar is not reverb and has nothing to do with reverb, wtf? :D

[@stereoniche]

Well, clearly the intention was to discuss the reverb sound and not how it was created for a guitar, the 3 sec comment referenced the whammy with my hand motion and not a pedal, but the remaining 6:20 of the video covered recording studios and devices. I doubt the guitar playing crowd suffered much insult. :-)

[@vito_vitoid]

@@stereoniche it's okay, the other parts of the video were fine, just I didn't understand why you introduced the explanation of the reverb by referencing the whammy bar, which is the vibrato effect, not a reverb.