Preamplifier Reviews

Very clean sound, beautiful Vu meters (with backlights), direct input for cd players (preamp is not necessary), and speakers can be bi-wired, bi-amped directly from the back jacks (double jacks left and right). Wow! Sounds more powerful than 80 watts, conservatively rated. Excellent value!

i like this product, but i dont knows it, how many features i can enjoy with it

I bought this along with the Pre-Amp. In one word: mind-blowing. The quality of the sound, matched with the killer speakers from Edge Audio, quickly excelled my old Nakamichi/KEF set-up. Wow. Just the best investment for the money, bar no others.

Just got back from C.E.S. 2003. Spent a couple of days days at the High End Audio Show. Listened to dozens upon dozens of stratopherically priced systems, then heard this little integrated amp with the Spirit speakers. Wow! This little system produced more emotion, with greater clarity, than almost anything else I heard. It is extremely important that you suspend all your preconceived notions about price = performance.
In the right room, a fairly small one, this system will provide uncolored, superb sound. Needless to say I have ordered the amp and the speakers, in French sycamore, no less....can't wait.

Seems like Mark Levinson's storied past as a high priest of high end sparks some green-eyed problems for customers who haven't heard the more modestly priced Red Rose boxes, but enjoy leaping to conclusions. No, these four-figure units won't blow away the branded Levinson systems that fetch four and five times as much from no-holds-barred audiophiles with big stock portfolios, but the price-performance ratio is terrific. The Spirit amp matches the specs and sound of their original Rosette amp, but carries a slightly redesigned front panel, and foregoes some tweaks (like a remote) that are being made to the Rosette. At this price, the trade-off is still in the listener's favor. I auditioned a number of familiar CDs (no, NOT the SACDs that Levinson himself would prefer we embrace) on the Spirit system, and both amp and speakers sounded stunning, tackling everything from deep-dish chamber jazz to the Berlin Philharmonic to pipe organ with aplomb, and meeting or beating anything I've heard anywhere near this price.

To the skeptics weighing in against the designs because of Levinson's involvement (ironic, in light of his rep among high end merchants and consumers), a little research (ever heard of Google?) offers food for thought. The underlying design work reflects the innovations of a Swedish speaker designer, Bo Bengtssen, and an American electronics engineer, Victor Tiscareno; Levinson's primary contribution, beyond his name and investment, was pairing Bengtssen's ribbon-tweeter speaker strategy with Tiscareno's purist approach to amplifier design, and encouraging these collaborators to shoot for great sound at modest prices. (Red Rose can and does offer more exalted performance at substantially higher price points, via the higher end units they sell at their own boutique in NYC.)

You don't get this level of sound at these prices without sacrifices, but those I could detect were essentially issues of scale and convenience. The Spirit speakers won't fill a ballroom or a two-storey living room in a McMansion, and the ribbons are highly directional, but sampled in the sort of modest living rooms that real world occupants inhabit, on-axis, they reproduce music beautifully. The amp's minimalist input scheme won't support a wide number of sources, and vinyl loyalists will probably need to spend as much on a separate phono pre-amp as they did on the amp if they want to use a turntable; in other words, the Spirit resembles most of the high-end separates that pointy-headed alpha audiophiles applaud and willingly underwrite with even bigger checks. You got a problem with that?

I'm using this amp between my audigy 2 sound card and my axiom m22ti bookshelf speakers. It's a very nice amp - looks cool and the sound is great, no hiss even with everything turned up, just delivers the power, no muss, no fuss. I'm no audiophile but for playing my mp3s and playing games and dvds, this thing performs admirably and my speakers seem quite happy with it too.

I just bought this thing from Amazon and all I can say

is WOW!!!!

This is probably the best purchase I have ever made.

This thing is everything I ever expected and more!! It's

very easy to use as well!

I have bought other brands before, and this one just

blows everything else out of the water! I have to say,

everyone out there who is thinking of buying this, stop

thinking. I bought it and I am extremely happy with it

the moment I powered this thing on. YOU ABSOLUTELY

POSITIVELY CANNOT GO WRONG WITH THIS PURCHASE! I

GUARANTEE IT!!!

AudioSource is well known for providing good value for the price and they don't dissapoint with their 5-series amps. There's nothing in its price-range that has similar quality.

The output isn't quite as rich a Bruce Moore 70, but at 1/20th the price, it's a great deal.

I picked up one of these from Circuit City a few weeks ago. The first time I tested it I had the gain on a mere 3/5 of the way, and it wasn't a full 2 minutes before I had my neighbors coming outside and asking me to turn it down. This amp provides nice controls for the crossover, a good manual, LOTS of good clean power, and quality construction because after 6 hours of cruising around town at FULL gain it didn't overheat! I absolutely LOVE this amp, and I will recommend it to ALL my friends!

For those that aren't aware, the signal from a phonograph needs to be boosted by a "pre-amplifier" before it is sent to an "amplifier" which then sends the sound to your speakers. Some phonographs (especially newer ones) come with a pre-amp built-in, but others (especially older ones) do not. So if you hook it up directly to an amplifier, the sound is very weak and even if you turn up the volume, it does not sound right... it seems very tiny and scratchy. Older amplifiers like mine (or newer ones that have taken the effort/cost to add it) have the pre-amp built-in to the amplifier, usually labeled "phono input" instead of "AUX", "CD", "Tape", etc. But since most newer amps don't have this feature, that's where an external "pre-amp" like this one come in handy. (NOTE: Just make sure your phono doesn't already have a pre-amp built-in. if you aren't sure, it probably doesn't have it, but a simple test is to hook it up and listen to the sound)

I recently upgraded my stereo system to a nice surround sound package and the new system did not come with a phono input. You plug the RCA cables from the phono into the box and then from the box to your amplifier, and now it sounds the way it is supposed to. It comes with an AC adapter, so you don't have to worry about batteries as in some other models of this type. I do not notice a difference in sound compared to my old system other than the fact of it coming out of more speakers.

Another application that I have used this is for converting my records to CD. I use this same pre-amp to connect to my sound card of my computer. This gives me the advantage of using software to remove those "clicks" and "hisses" and once they are on CD, I can play them anywhere. I've already converted two albums and plan on converting my entire collection...

I bought this amp to drive a passive homemade sub and it has done nothing but please me. I'm running it at 4ohms to each channel, and it pumps out serious power. Despite the lower resistance, its heat dissipation is lower than my receiver. I do not believe Onkyo's numbers for this amp, they have to be higher. When I hooked it up to my main front speakers, it revealed an exellent range of frequencies at any volume. This piece is a great example of Onkyo quality for a low price, I'm still curious as to why they discontinued it.

This is a great power amplifier to give your surround sound great dynamics, and if you have never heard bass from your rear surround speakers, this amplifier will give them new depth and dimension with sensational speed. Compared to other amplifiers, and some that I have had for years, I could tell the difference right away, the impact and speed, for surround sound more exciting and compelling than ever before. This is a great match for the Sony TA-E9000ES processor, and together as some experts have put it, where the more expensive achievers of home theater have been lexicon and meridian, and others considering themselves as reference, they now have a mainstream rival in the form of the Sony processor TA-E9000ES and Sony power amplifer TA-N9000ES.

How can a low-priced amp possibly sound this good. This is the best kept audio secret of all time. I have mine connected to a SACD player through a ASL passive (tube)pre-amp. I turn the volume control on the SI all the way up and adjust volume with the pre. The sound that comes out of my high-efficency Horn Shoppe Horns is nothing short of amazing. Wide soundstage, incredible imaging and totally no audible noise. I own two and I'm looking for a third to hot-rod. Caution: If you are going to use in a home stereo rig, the speakers should have an efficiency of 90 or better to get the sound levels you'll want. Amazing!

I had some nice Polk speakers gathering dust, and had read good things about this little amp. It's all true - 8 AA batteries never sounded so good! I'm looking to add a AC/DC 12 volt power supply; I've read about people using a 13.8v controlled PSU for the extra power, but those appear to cost more than the amp did!

This cheap-o hunk of plastic sounds better than my $900 single-ended tube amp. No joke.