johnacurtis
pfm Member
Must say that my a400 drove my Compasses nearly as well as a bare supernait 2!!, when the naim was away for repair!
Seems to be getting a fair bit of hate on this thread. I’ve never heard one (I was a fair way up the Naim tree at the time), though I certainly remember the rave reviews. What is it folk don’t like? On paper it just looks like a fairly nice mid-level Japanese amp, I can’t see anything obvious to hate in the specs. Seems fairly powerful too so I’d have thought it could deal with the ports and heay plastic drivers of the era.
The A1 and, much less so A100, are not amongst my favourite MF designs (although their unreliability before rebuilding has helped pay the bills!).
.... it tends not to over-egg...
Great. I also hoard but my collection is less impressive. At least I know I'm not alone in this..Because of hoarding and not selling, my garage has an original Cyrus 1, Audiolab 8000A (not working), Pioneer 300R, 300R precision, A400, A400X and A445.
Great. I also hoard but my collection is less impressive. At least I know I'm not alone in this..
Interesting thread, along with the the other BEST sounding thread.
All ears are different. Different surroundings and mated ancillaries.
Based on this thread, I'm doomed
Because of hoarding and not selling, my garage has an original Cyrus 1, Audiolab 8000A (not working), Pioneer 300R, 300R precision, A400, A400X and A445.
During lockdown, I fired them up into my Monitor Audio S8 (currently run by a Yamaha A-S500).
The Cyrus makes the bright speakers brighter. Quite lean too. When on the end of Ruarks Talisman 2s, it sounded much better.
The Pioneers all drove the MAs well, with the A400X the brightest. But the surprise were both 300R and precision version. Just beautiful.
Due to my hearing deficiency, the A445 won through due to the tunability of having tone controls.
Horses for courses I guess.
I'm sure neither of us are alone
I felt ashamed to mention I have 6 more amps, 6 CD players, 10 cassette decks, 4 turntables and a lot of other stuff.
I'll go and hide now.
I'm sure neither of us are alone
I felt ashamed to mention I have 6 more amps, 6 CD players, 10 cassette decks, 4 turntables and a lot of other stuff.
I'll go and hide now.
well you never know when you might need them or they become lumps of gold
Can't comment on the first 4 but the Sony, really? I think the 5650 you listened to must have been broke! I'm biased admittedly as I have one but frankly I'd put this in amongst the best integrated amps I've ever heard. Almost valve like in its presentation.
Quite. I had a Ravensbrook. It was a budget amp (hence my purchase) and since it was my first amp, It sounded GREAT.I had a basically NOS Ravensbourne and really rated it. So much so I was recently thinking of buying it back from a mate I sold it to back in the late 90's.... Sadly it was my mate who recently passed away suddenly so that ain't happening...
The mush cheaper Ravensbrook was pretty poor yes.
My worst experience was a home demo of a Pass Labs INT-150. I couldn’t wait to return it.