After reading this information provided by rishguru. I ended up aquiring all 3; the dsp-a1000, 2070 and 3090. All costing less than £200 on Ebay. Just wanted to see how it would compare to my M&F A5. Remember I am not ineterested in its HC - this is dated. I am only looking at the 2 channel side. The good news is that they all sounded positive. The sound was lot bigger than there watts rated (80W pc). Delivery was big bold and very smooth like NAD amps - but slightly more detailed. When compared to my A5 the sq lived upto it. Out of the 3 ; the DSP-1000 is the best for audio. I will continue with further testing and keep you updated.


After further testing all of the units go far beyond there rated power. It simply blows away my Quad 303 pre-amp and 404 power amp - not enough reserve. Audiolab 8000a, Marantz 7200 KI, Cyrus 8Vs2 with PSX and Finally Musical fidelity B1 - All these amps mentioned (previously owned)could not produce enough slam to satisfy my needs but however all the yammys produced earth shattering bass which was bit of a surprise - this is probably down to that titanic power supply connected via those large capacitors. Not even once the yammys sounded out of steam you could basically turn it pass 11 and it kept on going - was scared after. The sound is nice and silky smooth with good authority especially on the bass side. Next will compare with my M & F A5.

Yamaha A1000, 2070 and 3090 - which one?

The story continues with these 3 Yamaha’s that I recently acquired from eBay. All 3 Yamaha’s sounded great but I found that especially the 2070 and A1000 had even more headroom than 3090. Between 2070 and A1000 there was very little differences but I noticed A1000 was touch more refined which suited to my taste but this can be subjective. They all had similar characteristics; warm, smooth, big, bold, dark, energetic approach very like valve sound which I particular fancied .

Amps generated - front channels only

A1000 - 149 amp continuous peaked at 190 amps
A2070 - 143 amp continuous peaked at 184 amps
A3090 - 127 amp continuous peaked at 167 amps.

Current ratings are high, so in respect all 3 Yamahas should able to drive even difficult loads. Since A1000 had the biggest drive I continued with my research around this amp.

Musical Fidelity A5 versus A1000 - Battle of the titans.

Sound Quality

Both amps had huge presentation that could fill a medium to large room. Although both amps
had immense drive but their sound properties were some what quite different. The A5 was more open but less wide and had solid state feel While the A1000 was more neutral and natural which leaned more towards a tube like feel. The A1000 had more drive in low frequencies without masking mids and highs. The A5 was quite even throughout the spectrum but occasionally lost focus on highs - strange but through. The Yamaha felt more relaxing and pleasing to the ears and yet it was opposite with A5. However they both performed well in all types of music and handled complex pieces with ease. The timing, dynamics, and clarity on both amps were Excellent - I could not separate them. My heart goes towards Yamaha because it had more civil and sensible approach.

Power and drive

The A5 (250 watts per channel) on paper seemed a lot more powerful than A1000(80 watts per channel) but this wasn’t the case in reality. I had this funny feeling that Yamaha only based this calculation on average rating but the huge one box solution had lot more muscle under that bonnet. My guess would be that A1000 was at least hitting in the peaks of around 160 watts per channel and wasn’t far behind the A5. I still felt that the bass was deeper, tighter and fuller on A1000 than the A5 but on the other hand the A5 had the extra drive which put A1000 to its limits. Nonetheless, the Yamaha had enough guts and reserve to even challenge the mighty A5 in the power department. The A5 carries the extra current and charge which beats the A1000 in this area but not by much.

Damping factor under test

A5 - better than 130
A1000 - better than 137

Technology

A5 is a pure audio amp that is based on dual mono technology. A clever design.
A1000 is over- engineered AV amp that performs quite well with both audio and AV.

Conclusion

Both amps performed well in their own rights. But however Yamaha A-1000 will never be recognised as a true audio amp as the product was purely designed for HC. The logo “AV” will put many audiophiles’ off and in no way would have this at the heart of the centre. For mass market this would be an ideal amp as this would cream many sub £1000 (audiophile standard) amps. On eBay this can be picked up for merely £50. Highly recommended.

Equipments used:

Marantz CD94 mkII
Jamo oriel speakers
kimber speaker cables
Wireworld interconnects
Box standard power cable (A5) as A1000 is equipped with captive power lead.

After reading this information provided by rishguru. I ended up aquiring all 3; the dsp-a1000, 2070 and 3090. All costing lest than £200 on Ebay. Just wanted to see how it would compare to my M&F A5. Remember I am not ineterested in its HC - this is dated. I am only looking at the 2 channel side. The good news is that they all sounded positive. They sound was lot bigger than there watts rated (80W pc). The sound is big bold and very smooth like NAD amps - but slightly more detailed. When compared to my A5 the sq lived upto it. Out of the 3 ; the DSP-1000 is the best for audio. I will continue with further testing and keep you updated.


After further testing all of the units they go far beyond there rated power. It simply blows away my Quad 303 pre-amp and 404 power amp - not enough reserve. Audiolab 8000a, Marantz 7200 KI, Cyrus 8Vs2 with PSX and Finally Musical fidelity B1 - All these amps mentioned could not produced enough slam to satisfy my needs but however all the yammys produced earth shattering bass which was bit of a surprise - this is probably down to that titanic power supply connected via those large capacitors. Not even once the yammys sounded out of steam you could basically turn it pass 11 and it kept on going - was scared after. The sound is nice and silky smooth with good authority especially on the bass side. Next will compare with my M & F A5.

Yamaha A1000, 2070 and 3090 - which one?

The story continues with these 3 Yamaha’s that I recently acquired from eBay. All 3 Yamaha’s sounded great but I found that especially the 2070 and A1000 had even more headroom than 3090. Between 2070 and A1000 there was very little differences but I noticed A1000 was touch more refined which suited to my taste but this can be subjective. They all had similar characteristics; warm, smooth, big, bold, dark, energetic approach very like valve sound which I particular fancied .

Amps generated - front channels only

A1000 - 149 amp continuous peaked at 190 amps
A2070 - 143 amp continuous peaked at 184 amps
A3090 - 127 amp continuous peaked at 167 amps.

Current ratings are high, so in respect all 3 Yamahas should able to drive even difficult loads. Since A1000 had the biggest drive I continued with my research around this amp.

Musical Fidelity A5 versus A1000 - Battle of the titans.

Sound Quality

Both amps had huge presentation that could fill a medium to large room. Although both amps
had immense drive but their sound properties were some what quite different. The A5 was more open but less wide and had solid state feel While the A1000 was more neutral and natural which leaned more towards a tube like feel. The A1000 had more drive in low frequencies without masking mids and highs. The A5 was quite even throughout the spectrum but occasionally lost focus on highs - strange but through. The Yamaha felt more relaxing and pleasing to the ears and yet it was opposite with A5. However they both performed well in all types of music and handled complex pieces with ease. The timing, dynamics, and clarity on both amps were Excellent - I could not separate them. My heart goes towards Yamaha because it had more civil and sensible approach.

Power and drive

The A5 (250 watts per channel) on paper seemed a lot more powerful than A1000(80 watts per channel) but this wasn’t the case in reality. I had this funny feeling that Yamaha only based this calculation on average rating but the huge one box solution had lot more muscle under that bonnet. My guess would be that A1000 was at least hitting in the peaks of around 160 watts per channel and wasn’t far behind the A5. I still felt that the bass was deeper, tighter and fuller on A1000 than the A5 but on the other hand the A5 had the extra drive which put A1000 to its limits. Nonetheless, the Yamaha had enough guts and reserve to even challenge the mighty A5 in the power department. The A5 carries the extra current and charge which beats the A1000 in this area but not by much.

Damping factor under test

A5 - better than 130
A1000 - better than 137

Technology

A5 is a pure audio amp that is based on dual mono technology. A clever design.
A1000 is overly engineered AV amp that performs quite well with both audio and AV.

Conclusion

Both amps performed well in their own rights. But however Yamaha A-1000 will never be recognised as a true audio amp as the product was purely designed for HC. The logo “AV” will put many audiophiles’ off and in no way would have this at the heart of the centre. For mass market this would be an ideal amp as this would cream many sub £1000 (audiophile standard) amps. On eBay this can be picked up for merely Rs5000. Highly recommended.

Equipments used:

Marantz CD94 mkII
Jamo oriel speakers
kimber speaker cables
Wireworld interconnects
Box standard power cable (A5) as A1000 is equipped with captive power lead.

I bought the Yamaha DSP-A2070 from an audiophile priced at $160 when I took an audition at his home & the power, the pulse, the depth, the dynamism, the roar, the elegance, the simplicity, the complexity, the coloring, the naturalism ...... every aspect of sound from those B&W floorstanders paired with this beastly 7.1 channel amplifier in pure stereo mode......my goodness, in those moments you just forget about everything and enter into a different dimension.

Mind you this DSP-A2070 had a list price of whooping $2000 back in 1993. It was Yamaha's most costly & coveted amp back then. The Yamaha sound engineers have put every thing they have learnt for the past 100 years in this product. So, the amp is always going to be something special in terms of SQ & product quality. Yamaha is also the manufacturer of musical instruments. While having this expertise since 1887, it was from 1970’s onward they started venturing in designing concert halls for accurate sound reproduction. They also started custom fittings of audio gear in many famous churches & clubs. While designing these concert halls Yamaha sound engineers had to study and carry out a lot of tests regarding how their audio equipment should be placed inside the hall in order to get the best possible sonic experience. Tests regarding sonic fidelity, echos & reverberation patterns not to mention the liveliness of music as it reaches to the back of the hall and many other parameters related to sound technology were performed. From all these cumulative experiences they gathered huge amount of raw digital measurement data.

Back calculating, the sound engineers of Yamaha thus came to know how the echo & reverberation patterns along with many other audio parameters should be in order to recreate the same "sound field" on sonic environment in a room. If some portion of their proprietary raw digital data is calculated in real time it will recreate the same kind of ambience or “sound field” as felt in by a person sitting in a concert hall, church, club etc.

It has Dolby Pro Logic and all kinds of Yamaha Sound Field Processing (DSP) options. The DSP settings are incredibly complex and you can spend half of your life in those settings. I am currently using the DSP-A2070 in a six speakers configuration(no center channel still) and really enjoying the Digital Sound Field Processing that this amp comes laden with. By heart I am purist, but when the mood is right I really start enjoing these DSP modes!!!

I have minutely studied the DSP unit of my DSP-A2070 and became quite impressed with their work. In plain words these are tiny computer with dedicated CPU, RAM, bus, cache memory, storage memory, memory bus.... Pretty impressive work back in 1993 using Cirrus Logic ADC's and Burr Brown DAC's.

Mind you both A1000 & A2070 had the option for the main left & right stereo speaker channels to pass through this DSP unit having the added "sound filed" effects and A/D to D/A conversions, or to bypass this DSP unit and remain pure analog or in other words "pure stereo" mode. This can be done with the "Front Mix" switch located a the back of the amp in off position.

There is something magical in the sound of the DSP-A2070 especially in true stereo mode that spells in my ears that it is staying with me for a long time. I am going to keep this Yamaha beast around. Sometimes I will also need to check whether I am going the right direction with my main setup.

If I want, I can also connect new or guest speakers to it, just to see what would happen. It is just fun to play around with DSP-A2070. It has got so many options. I can also use it as a separate pre-amplifier or power amplifier according to my wish. There is simply something magical to its sound that just makes me sit up and pay attention. It has immense power and drive; really making you part of the music. It had mind boggling BASS & SLAM, this comes like a big tidal wave and simply washes you out. Tight, precise and solid with exact timing. The detailing of mids & highs is also spot on and man it could really rock. The detailing and high frequency smoothness and extension, even in the context of a music setup(stereo mode),

It is a very powerful sounding amp. When used as a power amplifier (bypassing the internal pre-amplifier) it is amazingly dynamic and spacious and even more brutal in force than a pair of Bryston 7BST's(as auditioned). Ultimately of course it has less power than the 7BST's, but when used within its limits it makes up for a perfect stereo setup or a perfect home cinema amplifier(minus recent 7.1 channel effects) with its thunderous bass and powerful slam. The amplifier is very visceral and entertaining while at the same time maintaining great fluidity and refinement.

It is so incredibly heavy at 21 kgs, you need real muscle to put it in a rack. The internal electronic & mechanical components used are of very high quality & Yamaha seems not to have cut any corners with their top of the range “Signature Amplifier” of 1993.

You have no idea how big the EI power transformer is, it weighs 18lb (8.5 kg) and seems to be a 800VA plus & is simply gigantic. The humongous power capacitors are a pair of Nichicon Great Supply Type-I 22000uF, 71WV capacitors for the main stereo and center speakers. This caps are 4 inches tall and 1.5 inch in diameter and very heavy. This is the reason why Yamaha uses clamps to hold this caps to the chassis. And there is another pair of Nichicon Great Supply Type-I, 8200uF, 40WV capacitors for the four effect speakers.

So we end up with an almighty power supply consisting of a giant transformer & 60,400uF of pure HiFi grade Nichicon power. Mind you the above transformer & caps takes care of the power amp module only and are dedicated to power output. There is a separate smaller power supply unit with separate power caps that takes care of the DSP & other modules.

This power supply also allows Yamaha engineers to add an additional bass feature namely “Bass Extension”. While the bass knob allows you to add +/- 10db (50 Hz) the bass extention adds another +7db (70 Hz). So now you can get +17db over the reference, which is a tremendous achievement from the bass boosting point of view. All of this due to its “King Kong” power supply.

The power amplifier module of this DSP-A2070 is discrete/solid state as it uses a pair of Toshiba 2SA1302/2SC3281 power transistors in push pull mode for each of its right, left & center channels. Each of these pairs has a rated 150 watts of peak dissipation and can easily pump out 100 watts of continuous power. So a minimum of 300 watts & six power transistors here. The four effect speaker channels uses a pair of Sanken 2SA1726/2SC4512 power transistors in push pull mode for each of the four surround channels. Each of these pairs has a rated 50 watts of peak dissipation and can easily pump out 35 watts of continuous power. So a minimum of 104 watts & eight power transistors here. These fourteen power transistors pump out a minimum of 404 watts in total.

All the electronic & mechanical components used in this amp are of “GRADE-A” variety, and are simply built to last for generations. The DSP-A2070 is supeflous with ultra high quality Nichicons and super high quality Panasonic capacitors. Even after 15 years of abuse they seem new. Not a single leak from a single cap. Just speak of quality. Same goes for transistors, IC's, diodes, resistors, control pots, PCB's, wires & even the nuts used to mount the power transistor to gigantic heat sinks are of aero space grade.

Total minimum power(RMS) : [20Hz-20kHz @ 0.015% THD, 6 ohms] : 100 (Main Left) + 100 (Main Right) + 100 (Center) + 30(Front Left) + 30(Front Right) + 30(Rear Left) + 30(Rear Right) = 420 watts

Total minimum dynamic power(RMS) : [20Hz-20kHz @ 0.015% THD, 6 ohms] : 160 (Main Left) + 160 (Main Right) + 160 (Center) + 42(Front Left) + 42(Front Right) + 42(Rear Left) + 42(Rear Right) = 648 watts

I found mine at a local pawn shop who had it priced at $250, I low-balled the hell out of em and got it for $100
out the door. Threw the Kenwood Amp I was using as far as I could! I am Highly Impressed with how clean the sound is. My problem with it is same as PeterA who has a review listed stating a problem with the source selector kicking some noise. I have tryed contacting Yamaha Corp. directly to get it serviced and I have to admit I am SERIOUSLY disapointed with them as they do not seem to want to support this Model. Which I found out was only Mfg. for a short time. Was replaced by the DSP A3090 which when compared to A2070 the only differance I see is the A3090 has like 40watts more power and a slight change in look.
I had it driving my home theater setup in whereby i have a pair of NHT ST4's,SC2 ctr.,SW12 sub,and a pair of Klipsch rears. I never had middle speaks which i have read to get the "full" sound of this amp. PeterA Should you read this can(or any1) you please let me no who you had fix your source selector sw.?I have had mine apart and it is no ordinary switch. Yamaha has offered me no help and most local tech's i contacted want more then the thing cost if new to service it. my e-mail is gmantcmn@yahoo.com if any help can be offered. I have seen them on Ebay going pretty cheap and have to say if you want great sound cheap go for it.Seen the A3090 go for as little as $340 which i no was retailing at $3995!

it's great to my heart. the cheaper i ever got for my home theater equipment. just $US 200.

it's great to my heart. the cheaper i ever got for my home theater equipment. just $US 200.

Very high quality product

NOT UPGRADEABLE/ NO DD, remote

I initially bought this unit because I saw no need for digital inputs at the time. What a mistake!!! This is a solid amplifier with a very good, clean pre-amp section. The enhanced Pro-Logic was useful but the rest of the DSP settings were not. In the final year of its use in my theater, I combined it with a Vantas DPA 87 add on DD decoder. If you have got one of these monsters and would like to keep using it, try to find one of these (tough since the company went under). I have seen the DSP A2070s go for cheap on ebay. They are a very good deal if you absolutely know that you will not be using any digital sources. I eventually succumbed and bought Rotel separates last year. This amp is currently driving my bedroom system but I think I might bring it to the office. THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS: DON'T BLOW THIS KIND OF MONEY ON A RECEIVEER OR INTEGRATED AMP!!! BUY SEPARATES IF YOU YOU CAN AFFORD THIS TYPE OF PRODUCT!!!

Similar Products Used:

Rotel separates

more power than I can use and still have undamaged hearing. Clean sound, great surround in 7.1 setup. enough inputs to keep anyone happy. I agree that the remote is a pain. I use the Phillps Pronto as a remote control, if you want a remote control and can afford it this is the way. Just don''t fall into the trap of crowding the LCD screen. Look at your usage patterns and design your bitmaps and buttons to reflect that usage.

No digital, AC3

The base of my surround system. I needed an amp that would drive lots of speakers. It distroyed my wharfdale centre, now replaced with an M & K centre. I have the VCR & DVD connected to the amp via S-video interconnects. The TV is connected to the monitor output via S-video. I a get very good quality picture, and use only good quality interconnects. This amp will show the difference between cheap interconnects and good quality wiring. I have now had the amp for 6 years and the source selector gets noisy, I have had it replaced.

Great power, trouble free operation&easy to setup

lack of dsp - DD

I own a European version of this heavyweight champ.
It can simply pump up virtually any kind of system.
Electrostatic, subs, it doesnt matter to a 2070.
When it comes to musical approach, a 2070 gives a great phono stage (w/o coil specification), multi analog inputs of 20-20khz. And sounds pure, musical in all domains.
Lot`s of svhs inputs.
Lacks in digital inputs, but via an outboard decoder,
and a good DAC it will simply pump up everything you drive.

Similar Products Used:

sony`s, technics`s, lot`s of PL receivers

The DSP-A-2070 has 4 surround channels @25watts plus main L, R& C @ 80 watts, also L&R or combo subwoofer & a bevy of analog A/V inputs. A great sounding piece....BUT......The lesson to be learned from the 2070 is that if you are wanting high end equipment with an eye towards longevity, then buy separate components as much as possible. The 2070 is no longer current production, but consider my dilemna... a high end 7 channel plus 2 subwoofer system that can't readily accommodate AC3 or DTS or any digital source. Happily it does have pre-amp outputs so I can cludge something with perhaps a Technics SH-AC500D. This IS a massive 46lb quality piece, so if you can pick one up used from someone who can afford to keep up with the latest & greatest, then go for it.