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Review 1 of 2
Price Paid:
$160.00
from ebay Summary:
Hello- I thought I'd write this amp up, as I've have it for about 2 years, and have done considerable work up to spec. Also, because when I was researching this amp, all I could find was cultish reviews of how great it is. The truth is, yes. Yes, it really does sound that good. However... nothing is free, so if you buy this sight unseen you're probably in for some surprises. These surprises are by no means unique to this amp, and are instead intrinsic to any amp over 20 years old. As the web will attest, electrolytic capacitors dry up, they have a certain life, and at the end of their life they are at best, not as good as they used to be, or at worst problematic, and will prevent you from using your equipment. Just like a car, certain parts wear out. If you park a 1932 Ford Roadster in a barn, and pull it out in 2008, you're going to need to replace the tires and the gas. In fact that may be the only thing you need to replace, and it will be back at 100%. So goes it with vintage amps. The one caveat is, this work, if done by someone else is EXPENSIVE. I bought my SA-9100 for around $200 shipped. It worked for about 2 days. It took it to the local electronics place and paid $89 to reflow cold solder joints. Then it worked for another day. Then I took it in again to ahve the pre-amp board recapped, for another $240. I brought home, and still have problems. I eventually went over to Audiokarma.org, did my homework, read and read, and recapped the rest of the entire amp myself. The results? Phenomenal! That said, the cult-like status of this amp, has caused the prices to become outrageous on ebay, and I suspect it's due, at least in part, to the fact that people don't know what they're getting into, and that a restoration will cost at least an additional $250 to bring it back to new. You may be lucky, out of the box and it will work for another couple decades, but even then you'll be listening to a great amp at only about 85% of it's potential. Eventually you'll fold, seeking to hear the best, and you'll have it recapped. Okay, so the value I got out of it was a little screwed, yet I wouldnt' hesitate to purchase another one IF it had been recapped in the last couple years, >OR< i could get it for less than $120 or so, and had the time to recap it myself. If you're a sharp person, go can stay organized, can work a soldering iron, have relatively good attention to detail, and about 6-8 hours, you can recap it yourself no problem, and it's a great way to get to know your amp inside out. OK, so that explains why I'm only going to give it a 3 for value.
On to the sound!!! The sound it great. I plugged this in, I put on a CD, and I COULD NOT BELIEVE the clarity, the punchiness, the rhythm, the soundstage, and the separation. It sounded to me that every instrument was coming from a different speaker in a different location in the room. That's pretty awesome. Up to that point, every stereo always had two channels, right and left, and then some instruments were on the right, some on the left, and some were blended together. This amp was totally different, and really made me feel that every instruments was actually in a different location in the room - I guess this is what peopleI had always heard people talking about when they used the term "soundstage". I'd heard good separation, and good clarity before in my previous amps, so that was nothing remarkable. The two other audiophile terms that I finally "got", when Iistened to this amp were "dynamics" and "rhythm". As an orchestra player, I understood dynamics to be quieter or louder, but with this amp, the detail, the clarity, and things I'd never heard before (instruments, vocals, overtones) were jsut as audible when the amp was extremely quiet, as well as extremely loud. The amp also seemed to be able to play something extremely quietly and then go to a sudden loud section, drum strike, etc much more "efffortlessly" than any other amp I had ever heard. Also as an orchestral player, I always thought of "Rhythm"
as being the count of the music, like 3/4 time, 4/4 time, or otherwise what you'd call a time signature. With this amp, I discovered that "rhythm" is more more subtle, and borders on indescribable. I could suddenly hear so many details within each guitar note that I could feel the music pulsing. So maybe it's generous to call myself an audiophile, if I'm so new to these "audiophile?" terms, but I think I have a good ear, and I can definitley hear big differences between equipment and setups. I didn't want to be a blind apologist for vintage stereo, so I gave myself a double blind test - I bought two NAD PE 2100's off of ebay, had them recapped, and ran them each as monoblocks to compare, running them off of the SA-9100 pre-stage. Yup, not even a comparison! I ran the same interconnects, same speaker wire, all that business, and there was something profoundly better about the SA-9100, and promptly disposed of the NAD's, which are, by all accounts very respectable amps.
The SA-9100 has some pretty cool features: It has a variable level for the B speakers, so that you can match levels, and do a blind comparison between different speakers to see which you like the best. It has two phono inputs, one with a fixed impedance, and then another with 3 different selectable impedances, so you can match different MM cartridges. It has A,B, and C speakers. I have it set up with some two sets of Boston CR-55 speakers on the A and B channels, and then CR-65's on the C channel. I have it hooked up to a Sansui SR-1050 turntable with a Grado Gold Cartridge, and retrofitted with some low impedance Petra Cables. As an amp, I give it 100%, as a pre-amp I give it 100%. It really is as good or better than all the hype would indicate, just be aware that you may have to renew the caps and clean the pots for the performance its capable of
Strengths:
clean, punchy, rhythmic, soundstage Weaknesses:
long in the tooth, so will most certainly require a recap, plan on a couple hundred dollars or more Similar Products Used:
NAD 2100's, pioneer sx-650
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