Yamaha A-700
A model number that Yamaha has stamped on at least three completely different things — which is exactly why collectors have to ask "which A-700?" before they bid.
Overview
Here is the trouble with the Yamaha A-700: the name is not unique, and the sources do not agree on what it refers to. Search the period literature and you will find the designation attached to a seven-channel DSP surround processor, and — in the pages of the period trade press — to a Revox open-reel deck listed in a dealer's supplier roster as the "Revox A-700." That last one is almost certainly a typographical slip for the Revox A700 tape machine, but it is the kind of collision that makes a fact-checker wince, because it shows how freely the "A-700" string floated through 1970s and '80s audio advertising.
The most substantive period reference to a Yamaha A-700 in the surviving review material is not a stereo integrated amp at all. HiFi-Stereo (April 1990, p.60) covered the Yamaha DSP-A700 Digital Sound Field Processor, priced at $1,099, describing it as a complete seven-channel amplifier and surround-sound processor. That is a home-theater component from the first wave of Yamaha's Cinema DSP push, not a two-channel audiophile integrated. Anyone who has seen an "A-700" badge on a Yamaha and assumed it was a straightforward stereo amp should check the front panel twice.
The confusion deepens when the Cinema DSP timeline is laid out. According to Yamaha's own retrospective material, the seven-channel DSP-A700 was introduced in 1990, and it was the first time the company put DSP processing together with on-board amplification, adding Dolby Pro Logic for movie surround. That makes the DSP-A700 a genuine milestone in the Cinema DSP story — the point where the processing and the power amps stopped living in separate boxes. It is a surround processor first and an amplifier second, and it should be judged on those terms.
What can be said with confidence is that the A-700 name is a trap for the unwary collector. The DSP-A700 is a documented, dated, priced surround processor from 1990. Buyers chasing a two-channel A-700 should insist on photos of the rear panel and serial plate, because the badge alone will not tell you which machine you are looking at.
For the surround-oriented collector, the DSP-A700's place in the Cinema DSP lineage is its main draw. Yamaha's own history frames the 1990 DSP-A700 as the moment DSP moved on-board, and the HiFi-Stereo review (April 1990, p.60) confirms the $1,099 price and the seven-channel architecture. That is a component with a clear historical role: an early, expensive, ambitious attempt to put a movie theater's phantom-speaker effect into a single chassis. It is not a purist two-channel amp, and it should not be bought as one.
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