Price Paid:  $3000.00 from Studer-Revox

Summary:
My Revox B250 seems to differ from Dave Ruel's:
it *has* gold plated 4mm banna plugs for both pairs of speakers, and binding posts for thick bare wire (I'm using 30 amp). Also, its power output is way more than 60W.. more like 2x 120W (8R) and 2x 160W (4R) [could he have mistaken it for the B150?] The promo leaflette for the B250 quoted it at 2x 300W, but that is peak power, not continous.

Sound quality is *very* good, excellent solid bass performance, and totally silent when on & no signal present - even if you press your ear to the tweeter!. Its got a very 'natural' sound.
I bought this amp new (in 1990) without auditioning it in my own home first, but when i listened to it first time my reaction was "THIS is the sound i've always been trying to get! It's like really being at the concert.)
Even now, often when I get a new CD, my reaction on first listening is "My God, I can't believe I'm really hearing this in my own home - its too real" (and i have done work in pro recording studios)

To me, its most intelligent feature is that when you plug headphones in, the stereo signal is partially blended, left and right mixed, so you don't get that disconcerting effect of too wide a stereo soundfield.

An intelligent amp - it has a microprocessor in it, & has neat features like it will fade the volume down before switching the speakers from A to B, then fade the volume up, and if you drive it hard into clipping, it will automatically turn down the volume. Full IR remote control (including tone & balance), & it can interrogate other Revox equipment (just in case you want to display the CD track details, or the RDS name of the current radio station in the amp's FL display !!). Individual input sensitivity adjustment on ALL 10 inputs, and you can program 'max volume' for each set of speakers, beyond which the volume control is ignored (A great plus for those with teenagers into rap!). Separate recording and listening circuits let you listen to any input and record any other (3 line outs for recording, 5 if you count VCRs), or you can reconfigure the record output to allow you to listen to 2 sources in 2 different rooms if you have another power amp and speakers located remotely.

Moving coil input is a option, but it's basically a matter of adding (soldering) the necesary components to the circuit board - all pretty standard parts (no esoteric ICs, although transistors are gain matched) so nothing that needs to be ordered specifically from Revox.
MC and MM exist side-by-side, so you can permanently connect two turntables.

Independant powers supplies for L & R, with 4x 22,000 uF resevoir caps. *Fully* symmetrical bipolar (not mosfet) output stage.

This amp is ESSENTIAL if you have other Revox B2xx series equipment, since they all talk to each other by serial link (Philips RC5 protocol i *think*), so for example, just pressing CD on the amp will power up & start the CD player. Or if you press PLAY on the tape deck, the amp will switch over to tape monitor.
Optional B200 module allows video switching as well, and a 9-event clock timer to control the whole system. It's the ultimate 'convenience' amp, with 'professional' quality sound so lacking in much (all?) of the Far East equipment with similar 'convenience' features.

You can use it with an external surround sound processor (Revox make a surround decoder, the S20) since it has pre-out / power-return connectors. I tried it with a Yamaha DSP-1000E, which works fine technically, but the Yamaha is just not in the same league sonically.

I've recently replaced the 4 power supply electrolytics (they are Philips types, high spec, not exactly easy to locate either). Since the amp is energised 24 hours a day (no true power off, only standby) and it's now 10 years old, so these electrolytic caps are nearing the end of their specified life. If you're buying one of these amps, you might want to consider this maintenance procedure to keep the bass response 'tight' and distortion at a minimum. (dried up caps will cause subtle distortion and edginess at higher volumes - don't assume its a fault in the design)

Its a pity they stopped making the B2xx series... the current line up (B4xx) isn't any worse in terms of quality, but they have streamlined them, and I think they are not as ergonomic. They are certainly an odd shape!

The B250 came in 'silver' aluminium with black trim, and a B250-S variant: anodised black aluminuim with gold trim (fortunately those horrible gold feet are easily removable!) If you can find & are planning on using the B200 video module, be aware that some of the early aluminium-finish B250 amps require a software upgrade to talk to the B200!

Strengths:
Very intelligent control, excellent & realistic sound

Weaknesses:
Transformer blew up in the first year, but since then, no faults AT ALL in ten years, and it's on 24 hours a day.

Similar Products Used:
Revox B215, Revox B77, Revox B260, Revox B795

Summary:
Excellent amp... Been going strong for over 15 years... Great sound... Only problem with it is lack of banana plugs.