Price Paid:  $297.00 from DJdeals.com

Summary:
I bought this amplifier to drive a pair of custom-built dipole systems. The systems sounded great at the lab. But always veiled and somewhat muddy at home. Some other dipole afficionados said I needed more headroom than the 120 watts I was driving them with. My first test of this amplifier was with an OPPO dvd player, playing CDs in stereo. The OPPO is supposed to have some great DACs in it. And I had tried the same setup with the integrated amplifier I subsequently returned because it didn't perform to my expectations. To use it with an A/V receiver, you need preamplifier-outs on the receiver.
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For headroom (peak limits), this amplifier is a tough act to follow ... 320 watts at 8 ohms ... 480 watts at 4 ohms ... and 688 watts at 2 ohms. It's as musical as the original ... adding nothing, taking away nothing. It reproduces a piano, a full orchestra, opera, transients, flawlessly. It's neither warm nor cool. It's neutral. It's revealing in that I can discriminate instruments in the orchestra as well as I can at a live performance.

Fan noise is minimal unless you're next to it. To get the unit's full performance, you have to disable the low-frequency filters and the clipping controls with the dip switches provided on the rear of the unit. Connecting cables make a difference. Musical instrument cables didn't seem to perform as well as audio interconnect cables. I settled on 1/4-inch to RCA adaptors and regular audio interconnect cables. Although it's only a two-channel power amplifier, it weighs the same as most 7-channel integrated receivers. It doesn't even get warm after several hours of use.

Strengths:
Great neutral sound at an economy price. Remarkably low distortion. Great headroom. Great choice of speaker connectors in the rear. Short height. Stackable.

Weaknesses:
No remote control. Rack mounting ears are not removable.

Similar Products Used:
Many high end pre-amplifier, power amplifier, integrated amplifier, and A/V amplifier systems.