auddoc's Reviews

This amplifier sounds like crap- very low slew rate

Back in the mid 80's I was the systems engineer for Bryan Adams. His sound company for his first headlining tour was Jason Sound in North Vancouver and they had just purchased about 40 of these PM 1.5's for the PA system and monitors. I also did warranty service for Carver at the time. I brought one of these home, one day, to test after repair. My first wife, came out while I was doing a listening test, the only change being my Bryston 4B, replaced with the PM 1.5. We had a top-end Rega turntable, JBL 4311 studio monitors, etc. etc. She listened for a few minutes and said "What did you do to our stereo? It sounds like shit." She was not a techie or anything like that. I agreed. It sounded mushie, sorta. Kick drums sounded sorta puffy. The design of the power amp section was like an A/B (pos and Neg) with two vertical totem poles of transistors which would actively switch each vertical sections in or out, depending on the bipolar signal level. Since they were not active all the time, the resultant slew rate was quite low and the effect of this was audible. But they only weighed about 18 lbs each so cost less to ship from show to show. That power amp would be my last choice, based on my experience.