wkas

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Price Paid:  $750.00 from Audiogon

Summary:
A terrific piece of gear. I bought this for a second system, based on my positive experience with a Simaudio P3 preamp at home, and I have not been disappointed. Built like a tank, with minimalist design (other than the volume and source, you can only alter the balance (which is all I need).

The sound, with Dali Ikon 6 speakers, is incredible - clear but with a touch of warmth, natural sounding, terrific soundstage, Seems to produce substantially better quality bass than its predecessors (an Outlaw RR2150 and a Music Hall A25.2).

I've been searching for the right integrated for the office, this seems to be it. If you see one on the used market, snap it up.

Strengths:
Clarity and naturalness.
Bass.
Remote is unusually sturdy (and, BTW, will control Marantz CD players - a nice bonus!).

Weaknesses:
No phono (I didn't need it).
No headphone jack (an odd omission, but I hooked up a headphone amp to the tape output, which I don't use otherwise).

Similar Products Used:
NAD 325BEE
Oulaw RR2150
Music Hall A25.2

daydayyea

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $800.00

Summary:
One of the best solid state integrate amp i have... its a I-5 in old case, i either can't tell the differences between the newer I-5 with my ears, am pianist with a pair of kin ears. If you see a PW5000, pick it up! its more rare than I5, and the price you pay worth every buck, $ wise, you not need to pay more for I-5... really.

Strengths:
Simaudio I-5 and YBA DT are the solid state integrate benchmark to me, and this PW5000 is the same. The superb heavy duty remote can be a weapon if you ask me. Although i still thinks none SS equipment can do what tube amps does, but Simaudio I5 and YBA Integrate are one of the rares one. Bryston? Comon... the B60 is a joke, far from the block. I would rate the B60 an Class B amp if Audio Refinement and Classe are Class AB.

BTW, a good hell of 40-70 watts is good enough driven most difficult speakers. It did brilliant with my Hales Concept 5, which is a 3 way 100 pounder, 86 db in to 4 ohm.

Weaknesses:
Outdated style, light weighted, small binding post - comon, whats really important? its uesless even a product looks good only.

Similar Products Used:
Cary, Kr Audio, Simaudio, Classe, YBA/Audio Refinement, Sophia Electric, Mastersound, Cayin, Atoll ... too much to remember.

Price Paid:  $900.00 from Creative Audio

Summary:
This is a pretty sweet amp (considering I was upgrading from a H/K 730 (circa 1970's)). Had done a comparison with a rotel pre/B&K amp at the store, and I agree, the 5000 excelled in detail, transients and soundstage. Now that it's home, I look forward to listening to my collection all over again. This amp was the predecessor to the now superior i-5. As the previous poster has said, the i-5 has stabilzer feet (whereas I'm using 5 foculpods). Other differences are a transformer with a lower regulation factor (6% vs. the 5000's 10-12%), a better copper board, teflon wiring where needed to lower capacitance, Advance Renaissance feedback system which has a 10 Hz range extension over the 5000, Bipolar outputs vs. MOSFET's, a pre-out to link to a sub, and 10 watts more power at 8 ohms. It's certainly an upgrade for those that can spend that kind of coin.I'mm sure if I were to listen to it side by side there'd be slight differences, but it's all relative to the law of diminishing returns. I hear things that I've never heard before on my recordings and with an openess and speed that I'm unaccustomed to. Swapping between my Ixos bronze series Gamma Geomoetry interconnects and Ixos Silver series Gamma's, I can now hear huge differences in what these cables can do (the difference was less than stellar on my H/K). Considering I'm running it with a $400 CD player and $700 speakers, it's got me thinking about what I can do to start tweaking my system (e.g, balanced isolation transformer, changing phono cables) and buying some new equipment to see what the next jump will be. I know I've used it for less than a month, but considering I bought it used from the original dealer I certainly don't have to worry about break in so the amp sounds as godd as it's going to before I start adding other components, etc.. The bug has been planted. Yikes!!!

Strengths:
- Clarity (especially with teflon coated interconnects and silver plated copper). - Speed of sound. - Transients and timber which I have not heard before (perhaps this should be filed under clarity), not to mention the minute layers of detail I can now pick out. - Soundstage (it's huge compared to my very forward sounding H/K). - I especially love hearing the slow decay as I listen to songs end, cymbals fade, etc..

Weaknesses:
I only wish it had a pre-out to attach a sub to. But I guess I'll just have to buy better speakers. Oh well - it's a tough life. Doesn't make poor mixing and poor recordings sound particularly wonderful. It does change it though, usually for the better. Every recordings different, so it's hard to generalize.

Similar Products Used:
Nothing really comes close.

Summary:
This amp is a great value. Among the best integrateds I have heard. It also has an input that can be set to bypass the volume control of the amplifier and use your processors volume control. This is necessary for Home Theatre. It replaced a B&K ST1400 amplifier fed by a B&K AVP3090 pre/processor. The PW-5000 kicks the heck out of the B&K stuff. It is so much better in terms of imaging, soundstaging and realism. The only difference between this amp and the Moon I-5 is the volume control (the 5000 is an earlier version of the RBG control), binding posts (expensive WBT posts), and "footers" on the chassis. I can't tell the difference in sound between them. It is rated at 60wpc. 4 overall because it may not drive some inefficient speakers that well.

Strengths:
Good power output. Integrates well into a dual purpose Home theatre/audio system. Great remote. Almost as good as the Simaudio Moon I-5.

Weaknesses:
None.

Similar Products Used:
YBA Integre, Simaudio Moon I-5, Jolida tube integrated, Classe integrated (the 100watt one)

Summary:
I use this amplifier with the following equipement: Cambrige Audio CD4 and TDL 3SE speaker.

The sound of the unit was pretty deceiving during the first few hours of listening, but after the first nigth the sound is very clear and detailled. I listen to different style of music: Classical, Rock and Jazz.

Strengths:
Very detailled sound. Good base

Weaknesses:
No headphone jack