KingFD

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
4.33 of 5, 3.00 votes

Price Paid:  $600.00 from www.trademe.co.nz

Summary:
I had seen this come up on a local auction site and decided I needed to try it.

I have been looking for a matching Rotel power amp (RB870BX) to the one I have already so I could bridge them to get the power I wanted for my Cerwin Vega E-715. A couple of months ago I had a chance to listen to a friends system which consisted of two Denon POA-4400 and absolutely loved the sound and control they seemed to have. As soon as I saw this POA-2800 I called my friend straight away for advice as to how this would compare to my Rotel. After a few minutes of discussion it was decided that i should purchase it. If it turned out it wasn't for me I could quite easily relist it.

Well it's been a few days since Ive had it connected to my system and I've had it running in. This is an absolutely brilliant amp and I will not miss my Rotel at all. First noticable difference was that it sounded very smooth but without lose of detail, compared to the Rotel which is a edgey especially at higher volumes. Soundstage seemed more defined with better placement and depth. Bass is alot more definite and very controlled. There is oodles of power and have not had to turn my pre-amp past 9 o'clock. Even at this volume the sound is very clean and clear.

For an amp of this age (suspect early 90's) it has a classic design which matches my other Denon gear without looking 15+ years old. This is great value for money and would happily buy another unit if I found one.

Strengths:
Oooodles of power
Great bottom end control
Very smooth sound
Great soundstage

Weaknesses:
Binding posts not the best. Have had to insert banana connections through small holes at the top of the binding posts. Have looked to see if they could be replaced, but looks unlikely.

Similar Products Used:
Rotel RB-870BX

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I´ve bought this amplifier in spring 2000 and have not regretted it for a second. I´ve bought it because I only have owned integrated amplifiers in my past, and now wanted to go a step further. I connected it to my system, and got really amazed, the amplifier have a fantastic grip in my speakers, even when I played really loud, was my room filled of top class sound. My previous amplifer was also a Denon but a little PMA-480R model. It has a fantastic good price/value ratio and a respectabel sound. But besides this giant it just fades away.

Strengths:
capability to play with big speaker. Very good grip in speakers. Neutral sound through the hole frequense response.

Weaknesses:
No balanced inputs.

Similar Products Used:
Denon PMA-480R, Sony TA-FE 555

Summary:
The POA 2800 delivers more power to the speakers, then any other amplifiers in the same money-value. I will set the name on this monster of an amp "THE INCREDIBLE HULK"

Strengths:
I've had this amplifier for about 3years now. And the strenghtness of this monster is enormous in my opinion. I give this fighter full score for its good quality of sound.
The good thing about POA 2800 is the power of it.

Weaknesses:
You'll need a good preamp to get the best result for this monster amp. If you use a bad pre-amp, you'll miss the strengthnes of the bass level. When playing too long at a very long period, the fuse might pop, so you'll need to turn the amp off too cool it down before playing again.

Similar Products Used:
2x NAD 216 (bridged)

Price Paid:  $400.00 from Audio Review Classifieds

Summary:
Anyone still listening to a Reciever and wondering what's up with seperates might look for one of these or something similar. At $400 used a very worth while improvement in sound (looks cool too) Not just louder, the sound is cleaner, clearer, more life like with much more detail than a strained reciever can reproduce. As an amp will never sound better than the preamp it's connected to, spend more there!

Denon CD
Rotel RC 1070 Preamp
Denon POA 2800
Cat Five Speaker Cables
Advent Model One's

Strengths:
Very significant improvement in sound quality over a reciever

Weaknesses:
None at this price, speaker connectors seem to work well with Pin type terminals.

Similar Products Used:
Denon Reciever, Carver MT 400 (borrowed for comparison) Carver was "warmer" Denon has cleaner sound with more detail

Summary:
This amplifier does two things very well. First, it sounds natural with no undue emphasis on any frequency. What may be mistaken for a somewhat leaness of bass to me is better described as iron fisted bass control with no artificial mid-bass muck. Second, it is quiet with very little background hiss and that seems to give sound that stark black background that impresses when the source material has the same ultra-quiet background. I understand some versions have level pots, but mine does not and I'm sure that helps all the more to eliminate background noise.

The build quality for this amp is fairly impressive and very impressive when consideration is given to the price. Yes, this amp to many represents a maximum bang for the buck type product. Denon's optical A-Class is suppose to allow the amp to operate free of possible AB switching distortions. Since I have never owned an outright class-A amp I can not tell you if this is true, other than to say that when driven to loud transients it seems to sound totally free of grain.

This amp did not get a lot of press since Denon is Japanese (i.e.: Not KRELL). Amps like this, however, do prove that Japan is capable of not only fine front end electronics, but also brute-force musical power amplifiers.

I would that if you can find one of these amps for sale it would not be a bad deal to pay up to $800 for one in good shape. And in fact you may be able to buy one for less since when Denon decided to build smaller THX rated amps they sold these to dealers at a fairly deep discount. So keep your eyes open and see if you can snag one of these super sounding amps.

Strengths:
Dual Mono Construction
High Power but runs fairly cool
Fairly articulate sound and absolutely no flabby bass

Weaknesses:
Not designed to be bridged for high power mono operation.
Large but sub-standard binding posts for speaker connection.

Similar Products Used:
Dynaco Stereo 400
Hafler 9505