Sherwood S-7900A (circa 1973–1975)
Not much is documented about the Sherwood S-7900A beyond its own period advertising. The archive has no service manual, no independent lab report and no production figures. What survives are the print ads Sherwood ran in US hi-fi magazines, and they are specific enough to give a fair picture.
The S-7900A was an AM/FM stereo receiver, sold alongside the FM-only S-8900A. Sherwood's ads in Audio (June 1973, p.57) and High Fidelity (May 1973, p.87) argued that where a receiver is made shouldn't matter. They then pointed to dollar devaluation and currency fluctuations - a roundabout way of saying foreign-made competition had just gotten pricier. Both ads called the S-7900A and S-8900A highly acclaimed models.
A 1974-75 campaign aimed at buyers who couldn't stretch to state-of-the-art pricing. It listed the S-7900A's advertised specifications:
- RMS power: 60 + 60 watts into 8 ohms, 20–20,000 Hz
- Direct-coupled output circuitry with electronic relay protection
- Front-panel four-channel provision — doubles as a second tape monitor
- Ceramic FM IF filtering; FETs and microcircuits
- Four-gang tuning capacitor
- Built-in Dynaquad four-channel matrix circuit
Another Sherwood ad from 1974 described the S-7900A's construction as rugged. The chassis was thick steel, reinforced with side brackets, and both sides of each printed circuit board were accessible for servicing. The ad also touted Sherwood-made FM coils and Darlington fully complementary monolithic output transistors, each housing a driver and an output device.
That's about where the record ends. No reviewer measurements or original price have surfaced, so the 60-watt rating and the feature set above are manufacturer claims, not test-bench findings. The S-7900A appears to have been a serious, well-built mid-sized receiver of the mid-1970s, but the independent evidence for it is thin.
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