Price Paid:  $500.00 from ebay

Summary:
My friend recommended this amp to me and I was finally able to get one on ebay. I have gone through many amps including parasound, adcom, van alstine, and acurus. I never felt a need to post a review for these amps, but for the PS audio I felt the need to post a review. The sound from this amp is better than any other amp I have had in my system and paying only $500 was a steal. The detail this amp brings to the highs and mids are awesome. The bass response and control is pheonomenal when compared to the other amps I have had in my system. You won't get a hint of listeners fatigue with this amp at any volume. My Mirage M3Si have never sounded better. I own a CD store and all types of music play well on this amp from techno to jazz and classical. I think once I upgrade my preamp the system will sound even better. I plan on purchasing another one to power my centers for a first class home theatre. I would recommend buying this amp to anyone you won't be disappointed. The only bad thing about this amp is a hissing and poping sound through the speakers when the amp is turned off. I think I can live with that as long as it doesn't hurt my speakers.

Strengths:
Sweet highs and mids, bass response is phoenomenal, no fatigue at any volume, high power output

Weaknesses:
Heavy as hell, though this isn't a weakness just a backbreaker

Similar Products Used:
adcom, parasound, acurus, van alstine don't even compare to this power house!!

Price Paid:  $650.00 from Audiogon

Summary:
This is an update to my previous post. This amp runs dual mono from the bridge rectifiers forward, meaning they have 2 bridge rectifiers. Standard bridge rectifiers ring, they are not quite, and this imposes noise upon the B+ rails, and ultimately it effects the music. Both bridge rectifiers should be replaced with ones made using Fred diodes. It makes these amps arguably the best SS amps I have heard. I cannot say this in absolute terms because I have not heard all the other amps in my system, but if it is not as good, it is VERY close to the best.

Price Paid:  $300.00 from two separate deals a

Summary:
It''s not often that I own a piece of equipment that I later am persuaded to sell when I really don''t want to, and less often that I actually buy another of them, but this is such a product! OK, both amps are 200C''s not CX''s, but close enough... One I bought from its original owner, and the other (the one I have now) I bought off of ebay, and this particular one happens to be the exact one reviewed by Harry Pearson for The Absolute Sound magazine some years ago! A little piece of history! I paid 300 bucks for the first one, and 450 for the second

Strengths:
The first one of these amps met with a little gold-plated ''accident'' (a spade lug shorted a pair of speaker terminals...boom! Oops!) and was rebuilt with the superior Motorola output devices in both channels to replace the NEC original devices, though only one channel was damaged. This mod was well worth doing and I intend to do it to the unit I have now. It was a significant improvement. The 200C is a GREAT amp in the 2000 dollar range. It is sometimes known as a poor man''s Krell, and it deserves that description. I know. I own Krells, too. (KMA-160 monoblocks) The 200C is fast, detailed, authoritative, smooth, and POWERFUL. My Krells ARE better amps, but admittedly, not by a whole lot. I use this 200C strictly as a subwoofer amp in my usual configuration...but WHAT a configuration! The 200C can deliver a genuine FIVE HUNDRED watts per channel into four ohm drivers, and my custom designed and built sub has two separate four ohm drivers that can take the power. I''ve driven this subwoofer system to the edge of clipping, at a full kilowatt, and read 120 dB at 20 Hz with my sound level meter. That''s world class performance for single box subwoofers in a home

Weaknesses:
Well, it''s heavy and not every part is really easy to find if it should need to be repaired, but as long as you don''t turn it on with a gold-plated spade lug shorting the output terminals (note to self...hook up cables only where you can SEE your work in the future!), I don''t think these amps are very likely to fail. It''s a heavy amp, too, at about 75 pounds.

Similar Products Used:
Krell KMA-160 monoblocks (Main speaker amps) Carver M400T cube amp (gone) Pioneer Spec-4 power amp (gone) Acurus A250 power amp (Use it..as a spare!) The 200C is better than all of these amps ex

Price Paid:  $650.00 from Internet, private purchase

Summary:
The one fault this amp has, is a slight tendency toward being a bit dark. It's not so pronounced that it is a real issue, but you would not want to mate it to other dark gear. Other than that, it holds it's own VERY well against the amps above I have owned, and many others I have heard. It's not a Mark Levinson, but it is the poor man's version, IMO.

It's not a tube amp, so if that's what you want, that's what you should consider buying. For what it is, it is top knotch.

As for repair problems, the older 200C mdls initially shipped with a real problem, they liked to cook speakers, but they had good taste, they liked Apogees best of all! That problem was quickly fixed and the 200CX never suffered from any such issues.

I have heard from some using silver interconnects that they think the amp is bright, silver cables are generally bright and are generally used to compensate for very dark amps, or tube amps which roll off the highs. This is NOT a bright amp.

While currently I am using a Moscode 600, I have no intention of selling any of my 200CX's in the near future, I do swap amps from time to time because both have their own strengths.

Associate Equipment:

Acoustat Spectra 3300 speakers
Perraux SM-2 or Minuet in A or Superphon DM preamp
Sota Sapphire turntable with an AQ 6PT arm, and Denon 103 cart.
Sony ES CDP 707ES CD Player from the 80's buy I have not heard one that was worth buying since.

Strengths:
Capable of very high current out put, Stereophile Class A for years, and it deserved/s it.

Weaknesses:
Large and heavy, but it has to be....

Similar Products Used:
B&K Sonata 442, B&K 4420, Hafler DH-500, Moscode 600, Amber, PS Audio 2C+

Summary:
Great amp for the $$$. Ive paid a lot more for worse. Parasound 2200 for example. Huge detailed focused soundstage. Well controlled precise bass. Can be a little unrelenting with digital front end as it is dry sterile from upper midrange on up. But nonetheless captivating in its ability just present the music and not color it. Maybe just dry it up a bit, but this is typical of solid state at this price range. Some turn on pop and hum usually noticable on every one of these Ive heard. Reliability is a ??? according to some.

Strengths:
Balanced from top to bottom. Great soundstage. Lots and lots of detail. great bass

Weaknesses:
A little sterile and dry sounding but not harsh.

Similar Products Used:
Parasound 2200, Nak PA 7, Warner Imaging VTE 200s, AR D130