After having spent 2 hours in the car to drive to Phoenix to hear this model. I have to say that I was sadly disappointed. I don't know if it was just the demo set-up or the amp is just that bad.
Demo set-up
Lexicon processor
Rotel single CD player
Legacy Audio Signature III speakers.

The first thing I noticed was that the dealer had an external fan blowing on this unit to keep it cool. I immediately asked him if this amp tended to run hot and he said no, however after only 30 minutes demoing the model it was too hot to touch. The next thing I notice was a significantly loud transformer hum coming from the unit. I have never heard an amp hum this loud. I again asked the salesman if this unit had problems and he said "No, that this particular model was known to hum".

I then went to listen to it.

Started out with some New Orleans style Jazz. At volumes of greater that -25 db the unit sounded fairly descent. Nice air in the instruments, fairly deep soundstage, and very crisp mids. I then turned the volume down below -35 db, and the music became very one dimensional. It was like listening to a flat white wall. No depth or color to the music at all. Very disappointing. In my opinion an amp should play well at all levels, not just mid to high levels. I then placed some Rush in the CD. I listened to the opening of Xandu. Again at the lower levels there was absolutely no depth to the music. The windchimes and the chirping birds had no life to them. At volume levels -25 db and greater the amp came to life and added considerable depth the music.

I have to say that I have not heard many amps in this price range up to this point, but later in the day I found another dealer in Phoenix who happened to have a store demo of the ATI AT1505 and the Nakamichi PA-5 (see reviews on these) and in my opinion either amp far exceeded the Sherbourn. Neither hummed nor did they get near as hot after listening.

I have had this amp for several weeks now. This amp should be plugged DIRECTLY into its own electrical outlet for the best performance. Maybe this is common knowlege for audiophiles but I only recently realized this. Prior to this I had my entire system, TV and all, plugged into one surge protector in one outlet, amp included. When I gave the Sherbourn its own outlet the difference was night and day. If you haven't done this try it NOW!!! This amp now sounds worth the $1,500 I paid. I am a satisfied customer.

Looks, blue leds & the brushed gun metal grey face are very classy.
Audio transparency & clarity yet still can be warm scares the hell out of my dog!

The manual is lame..describes features I don't have such as the 25 pin din connector for external devices.

Frankly, the biggest joy I get from this unit is when I demo my system for friends and family. It really does perform with jaw dropping reproduction. Private Ryan, Matrix, Star Trek 1st Contact, Jurasic Park, or even a court room drama is engulfing. Details in the quietest scene make you check the door for a visitor that isn't there and the Matrix takes you on a journey you don't want to come back from.

CD's are equally enjoyable; however now that I'm in the world of separates, I've found that some of the older 80's generation CD's don't sound as good as I once thought..keywords here "once thought". My musical tastes have always been quite wide, so I guess the first generation CD's from the 80's are just that...first generation.

In comparing to the others..Sunfire has too much of the tube sound for my taste and frankly boarders on sounding muffled; and for some reason the dealers always demo crappy music like Sarah McGloughlin, or Dido which makes it all the more irritating. B&K although a nice unit didn't do much more sonically than my Yamaha RXV2090. Arcam is over-priced and had the muffled sound quality also..funny thing here was the dealer compared it with a Sony piece and shockingly I prefered the Sony...must have been the cables!

In closing the Sherbourne 5/1500 is a keeper. I searched and listened to many other units and it is clearly the best value. THX? who cares!

System Components:

Sherbourne 5/1500
Yamaha RXV2090
Yamaha DVDS-795 (AC3 on-board)
Sony CDP-945 5 disc changer
RCA DSS DirecTv (NFL Sunday Ticket Rules!)
RCA 35" HT Edition TV
BSR EQ3000 ( I know I know but it looks cool!)
Adcom ACE 515 power conditioner for components.
Monster Power HTS2500 power conditioner for amp & pre-pro.
Mains - Paradigm MON9's
Center Paradigm cc-350
Rears Paradigm Mini's
Sub Definitive Tech PF15TL

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Sunfire, Adcom, Arcam,B&K.

Mainly transparency, details, and build quality

Front LEDs are too bright and may cause distracting while watching movies in dark room. Very small transformer hum while sitting in stby or idle mode. Signal triggering from the source causes a small pop noise that can be heard all across 5 speakers in h/t setup. The lower midrange is a bit lean.

This amp has now replaced my Denon multichannel amp for good as well as for several better reasons:
1) Stunning tranparency with yet very smooth treble or highs. Its ability to render mircrodynamic or nuances is something one would find in much more expensive amps.
2) With 200wpc@8ohm it can drive my very inefficient NHT-VT2 loud and clear without any sign of breaking up or clipping/distortion.
3) Price vs performance: Best bang for the buck. You cannot find or buy any other multichannel amps with this construction and design's quality for the price, let alone the sound of itself.
Sure the Sherbourn is probably not a very well known name but you simply cannot go wrong with it so I urge you to take a serious listen to it if you're shopping for a multichannel amp.

Similar Products Used:

Denon POA8200/SimAudioW5

If somoene has heard this amp, could you please review it? I'm most interested in purchasing this amp or the ATI 1505...Any insight would be greatly appreciated...
Thanks in advance

Very, very solidly built. Excellent design, runs cool and no fan! Very tight bass, and plenty of power. Nice, laid back, but wonderfully musical sound

Silly to put the left front speaker poles on the right side of the unit, and vice-versa!

My biggest concern in buying an amplifier was the effect it would have with my speakers - NHT 2.5i's - which are known to be have an extremely detailed (almost unforgiving) quality when attached to cheep or poor equipment. I was also concerned that the 2.5's, with their reputation as being somewhat "bright" might suffer if I chose the wrong amplifier.

Let me just put these concerns to bed right off the bat - the Sherbourn is one wonderfully rich, warm, powerful and blissful match with my 2.5's!

When I first brought the Sherbourn home, the pre-amp I bought for my system (B&K Reference 20) was on order, so the store let me borrow a Sherwood Newcastle 9080. I feared I'd made a poor choice with this amp, because the sound, while a huge improvement over my Kenwood 1080 Receiver, was awfully bright, almost to the point of being aggressive. Once the markedly superior B&K Reference 20 was upstream, however, this amplifier settled in beautifully, and I've been enthusiastically listening to it for a couple hours a day ever since!

The sound stage with this amplifier is very stunning, particularly with the NHT 2.5's. Sound placement in the listening field is very precise, and there is a wonderful height and depth to the sound, as well. It handles transients with seeming aplumb, and does extremely well on recordings with a very wide dynamic range (Try Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut", which is an extremely well recorded album, with an astonishing dynamic range).

Of particular note, I've been really, really pleased with the bass from this ampp. The NHT's don't go as low as some speakers (rated to 29 hz), but they can pretty well hold their own within most musical ranges. I use a M&K V125 powered sub, crossing over at 50hz just to round out the bottom end where the NHT's leave off, and run the NHT's full range. The Sherbourn can really throw these speakers around without ever losing control - the bass is very tight, never boomy, and frankly I've never had it so good.

This amp stands out alone in its class, having 5 separate power supplies and transformers, which is perfect for today's digital surround systems. For the price, this is a very hard deal to pass up. You get 200 wpc, and 100 amps of peak current that should be more than enough for a mid ranged system - I didn't find that combination of features and performance in any other amp in this class, including the ATI and B&K amps.

My system:

Nakamichi CA-4 Cassette (OK, it's 10yrs old and analog, but she's my baby!)
Pioneer DV-05 DVD player
B&K Reference 20 pre/pro
Sherbourn 5/1500 amplifier
NHT 2.5i main speakers
NHT AC-1 center channel
M&K V125 powered sub
Definitive bi-polar surrounds
BetterCables interconnects
BetterCables bi-wired speaker wire

This is my second evaluation for this great product. This Sherbourn is now completely broken-in and it sounds fantastic. The loud pop when turning the unit on/off is now gone. After a great deal of tweaking around, I was able to isolate this problem. If anyone here has this same problem, make sure checking all your connections of the up-stream components that connected to it and ensure they're properly grounded. After disconnecting all the RCAs to the Sherbourn and only leave the speaker cables connected, I turned the unit on and off lots of time and notice no poping noise, so the problem wasn't the Sherbourn. I then carefully connected all the RCAs from my preamp to the five channels input of the 5/1500 and reconnecedt all the analog and digital from my other components (DVD, DSS, VCR, CD, etc...)to my preamp. Turned the Sherbourn 5/1500 on and noticed no poping noise then I turned it off just to veify it's good. I heard nothing poping from my speakers any more.
This Amp makes my speakers sing beautifully. Check it out and you'll know you want to own it.