Scott 387 AM/FM Stereo Receiver (1971)
A big, gold-faced receiver with a tuner section that beat everything else on the bench, and a high-cut filter nobody could quite justify.
Overview
The 387 is a physically large receiver. It is seventeen and a half inches wide, five and a quarter tall and fourteen and a quarter deep. The lower half of the front panel is finished in gold. The upper half hides behind tinted plastic until the power switch is thrown, and then the dial scale lights up in three colors: red for the logging scale, green for AM, pale green for FM. It is 1971 industrial design, and it wants to be seen across a dim room.
The tuner is the reason to own one. Scott rated the FM section at 1.9 µV IHF sensitivity with 0.6% mono THD, 0.8% stereo THD, a 2.5 dB capture ratio, 80 dB cross-modulation rejection, 42 dB selectivity, and 40 dB stereo separation. Audio (October 1971, p.29) tested the 387 and called it "about the best performing and most sensitive tuner section we have ever measured" - full limiting and IHF sensitivity landed at 1.8 µV on the 300-ohm input. Signal-to-noise hit an "incredible" 50 dB at just 2.5 µV of input, climbed to 60 dB at 5 µV and topped out at 75 dB at 50 µV. The reviewer's point was blunt: any signal of 5 microvolts or better would sound as quiet as the strongest signal on an average tuner.
The muting circuit got specific praise. Audio (October 1971, p.30) noted that the mute threshold sat so close to the IHF sensitivity figure that scanning the dial with mute engaged and disengaged gave exactly the same station count, a first for that reviewer. The mute also acted positively, with no partial-effect region to introduce distortion or attenuation. Stereo separation measured 40 dB at mid-band and stayed better than 30 dB from 50 Hz to above 10 kHz, with left/right balance within 0.5 dB across the band. Selectivity came in at 45 dB, beating Scott's own 42 dB claim, and capture ratio and cross-modulation rejection confirmed the published figures.
Scott's trademarked Perfectune circuit replaces the usual zero-center meter with an indicator lamp gated by an IC in the FM i.f. module, fed from ratio-detector DC voltages. It lights only at the precise center of the channel, the point of lowest distortion and best audio recovery. The illuminated window is wider for strong signals than weak ones, which is the behavior you want. The stereo indicator, separately, proved completely positive in action and never false-triggered on interstation noise regardless of the mute setting. In listening tests the Perfectune lamp lit 57 times across the dial, with stereo engaging on 27 of those.
The amplifier side is respectable without being the headline. Continuous RMS power, both channels driven, is 85 watts per channel into 4 ohms and 55 watts per channel into 8 ohms, with 0.5% THD at rated output, 0.5% IM at rated power, and an IHF power bandwidth of 10 Hz to 38 kHz. Phono input sensitivity is switchable between 4.2 mV and 8.5 mV, and phono hum and noise is rated at -70 dB referenced to the 4.2 mV input. Audio (October 1971, p.30) measured residual hum as inaudible in all configurations, confirming -68 dB on phono and -80 dB on high-level inputs. The AM section is modest by comparison: 4 µV IHF sensitivity at 600 kHz and 32 dB IHF selectivity.
One design quirk affects how owners actually run the thing. When two speaker pairs are engaged at once, the 387 inserts high-wattage 2-ohm resistors in series with the output lines to keep the net load from dropping below the safe 4-ohm limit. That costs some available power to the combined pair. Audio (October 1971, p.30) judged it preferable to blowing speaker line fuses on a too-low impedance, and reported plenty of power remained in their test setup regardless.
The high-cut filter is the one weak spot. It follows a maximum-treble-cut curve at only 6 dB per octave, so it starts cutting well into the midrange. Audio (October 1971, p.30) called it "somewhat redundant" and noted the tuner's quieting was so good the filter was never needed for FM listening. Owners of scratchy 78s won't mind the treble loss, but anyone expecting a usable noise filter for FM will find it heavy-handed.
The front panel is dense, the way receivers of this class were. It has input selection, balance, dual concentric bass and treble controls (separate left and right adjustment on each), and a loudness control that doubles as the power switch at its furthest counterclockwise position. Seven push-to-make/push-to-break buttons handle two speaker pairs, FM muting, the high-cut filter, mono/stereo switching, tape monitor, and loudness compensation. A stereo headphone jack and a pair of tape in/out jacks on the front parallel the rear-panel connections. The peak-reading tuning meter and the large flywheel-coupled tuning knob round out the top section. The logging scale, calibrated 0 to 100 in tens, is decorative more than useful. The FM scale is accurately marked at every megahertz.
Pricing is the odd part. The 387 retailed at $359.90, pegged, as High Fidelity (December 1971, p.17) put it, at exactly $100 below Scott's top-of-the-line 3900 receiver. The reviewer openly wondered how much more quality another hundred dollars could possibly buy. Scott's own advertising in High Fidelity (December 1971, p.17) leaned hard on the review record, billing the 387 as having "received more favorable reviews than any other AM-FM stereo receiver in recent times" and quoting a $359.90 price in that same ad. That figure doesn't square with the $449.95 retail in the review, so treat the discount pricing as a promotional number rather than the list. Either way, the pitch was nearly the top model's performance for meaningfully less money.
What the 387 does not come with, in any documentation available here, is a repair history, a known-failure list, or a current market price. Collectors chasing one should assume the usual caveats for early solid-state receivers of this vintage apply, but nothing specific to this model can be asserted from the sources at hand. What can be said is that the tuner section is the reason to want one, the amplifier is honest if not spectacular, the high-cut filter is a design compromise worth knowing about, and the three-color illuminated dial is a small nightly pleasure that modern gear has entirely forgotten how to deliver.
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