AudioSource Amp One/A 2-Channel Amplifier

Product Rating
3.82 of 5
28 reviews

Price Range
$137 - $169

Featured Merchants

	$137.36
	$157.95
eTronics	$168.82
More Prices >>

Product Description

Summary

Excellent sounds quality and power for a very little money. Amp can be bridged from 80W rms stereo into a 200W rms monoblock monster!

Strength

Open, clear sound quality with deep and wide soundstage. Nice looking product. Low profile makes it easier to place. Heavy - a good indicator that the toroidal transformer is sufficiently powerful. Can be bridged from 80W rms stereo into a 200W rms monoblock monster! AC outlet at the back is useful too.

Weakness

Build quality is perhaps not the greatest.

Summary

First of all I have two of the Amp One/A's, not just one. I have one amp per speaker, i.e., both amps are running in mono. While I can't say how these are in stereo I can say how they are in mono. Lot's of juice with no signs of fatigue whatsoever. Specs state that they each run 200 watts in 8 ohms when bridged and by the way they perform I believe it! I have Polk RTA-8t's hooked up to them and they sound great, to me anyway! Into the higher listening levels they tend to screach the highs but the bass and mids are definitely solid. At moderate listening levels there is nothing to complain about. Make sure you have plenty of ventilation if you purchase this product. They do run warm but when you push the limits they run darn near hot! Though they are amplifiers and amplifiers do create heat these are the warmest runners I've ever had. It doesn't seem to effect performance though. Putting one on top of the other I wouldn't recommend. The only thing I with these had was the auto on/off which the other Audiosource amps have, but, with the space I had, not to mention price limitations.... Excellent small amps that will rattle your home!

Strength

Size, price, sound, plain face with no extra doo-dads or gimics that tend to break on electronics.

Weakness

Cooling could be better designed.

Summary

This review is for the Amp ONE/A, not just Amp One. The only real difference is the Amp One/A doesn''t have the level meters of the original Amp/One. But that''s good, I auditioned the original Amp One and it came with a broken meter. Why buy an amp with one more thing that can break? So when I saw this Amp One/A for about $220 I decided to buy it. It still has the volume knobs for each channel. If you''re using a preamp you''ll just want to leave them turned all the way up. I wanted this amp for my computer''s sound system to listen to CD''s and MP3''s. This amp is really a great value for the money. It is rated the same as the Amp One and Amp Two with 80WPC. I''m not sure why the Amp Two is more, maybe it has a little better parts but the specs read about the same. This amp is real quiet, it has plenty of power for its category. Don''t ask it to do miracles, it won''t replace a $600 Parasound or Adcom but gets 85% there for a fraction of the cost. For the price it does do miracles. It will be the crap out of any cheap mass market $300, $400 or $500+ receiver''s amp. I use it with a pair of NHT Super Ones and it sounds really nice with my setup. I just hook the soundcard directly into it and it sounds great. For a budget system it''s really hard to beat. You can even hook a CD player into it directly and use the volume knobs direct without even needing a preamp. For about $500 for someone who spends a lot of time at the computer there''s no way you could beat the sound for the price. The ultimate mp3 computer system. $220 amp + $300 NHT Super Ones + $30 Creative Esoniq sound card. Save your money and skip the Klipsch Pro Media when you can have real hi-fi sound for a little more.

Strength

Value!! Quality, power, quiet, small size, toroidal ransformer, great sound for the price.

Weakness

None for the price. But it has cheap binding posts that won''t accept spades (boo, hiss). I''d gladly pay the $10 or $20 extra for some good WBT 5 way binding posts!

Summary

Audiosource AMP One/A (2x80, 0.04 THD, 110db S/N, 2db dynamic headroom) This model does not have analogue meters, thank goodness. I steered away from the AMC 2100 amp, because of bad reviews and the +100 dollars for 20 more watts of power. I paid 180 brand new from SoundCity.com for this amp and it performs better than an H/K 3470 stereo receiver amp which is over 300. The amp has muscle, and is tonally accurate. The bass lacks the absolute gut wrenching punch of a Krell or Sunfire amp, but as long as you’re not driving speakers with built in un-powered subs or fifteen inch drivers you should be ok. This amp drives my JBL HLS 620’s without mercy. The only problem I can see with this amp, it lacks power. 2x80 watts of power is great, but don’t expect it to bring the roof down. A lack of power is not a problem as long as you don’t expect what it cannot and will not deliver. This is an absolutely fabulous amplifier for smaller tower speakers and bookshelf speakers. Add a subwoofer if you want gut wrenching bass, but don’t try to drive huge speakers with this amp. I tried driving some AR9’s and this amp just wasn’t up to it. The bass was muddied and noticeably softer than when powered with my ATI 1502 power amplifier. Use this amp for what it’s made for and you will be pleasantly surprised. This amp does not have the silly inaccurate analogue meters to burn out or distract. Really it only lacks A/B speaker outputs and soft clipping control that the AMP Two provides, but neither of these amps should be using these features anyways. Let me repeat myself, if you use it for what it was meant for, it will perform admirably. This amp will drive the heck out of 6.5 in driver towers and bookshelf speakers of similar size with precision and accuracy at anything less than ear bleeding volume. For 180 dollars, this amplifier is a steal. Pick one up and use it for what it’s built for, not what you think you want to do with it. If you want to drive big speakers, get two and mono-block them and you will have an excellent stereo system, but one will not cut it. The bottom line is: buy this for a great beginner component stereo system, or rear surround amp, but don’t expect miracles. It’s a great bargain and sounds better than most amps out there priced higher.

Strength

Great power output for small towers w/o passive subs and bookshelf systems. I would not recommend this amp for a sub amp, it is not built for that application.

Weakness

None. My expectations were completely fulfilled.

Summary

I first became interested in the Amp One several years ago. It seemed like a nice, basic quality amp, with more attention given to sonics than extras--something tough to find in the low-cost catagory. It''s always seemed to me that if you don''t have a lot of money to spend, it makes more sense for that money to go towards the basics, rather than pretty lights and do-hickeys that I''ll never use. The Amp One fits that bill, and even throws in some nifty lighted VU meters to boot. I bought two Amp One''s--these are the original model ''Ones, nearly identical to today''s Amp Two--on eBay. I ran the first for a couple of months and liked it, so I decided to go with two (yup, they are bridgeable). In stereo mode, I was impressed by how detailed this amp is. The low end is solid--probably not high-end solid, but better than the generic stuff most people end up with at this price point. Running two in mono, the sound stage opens up, and of course you get more raw volume to play with. And that can be important, as my main problem with the Amp One is that it runs out of juice pretty early, given it''s 80 watt per channel / 200 watts mono rating. If you push it to the limits, it sounds strained, even a little harsh. I''m not talking about obvious clipping, but rather a change in the openness and detail at the amp''s safe limits. Treat it like a 50 or 60 watt unit, though, and you''ll have no problems at all with the sound. If you wallet or spouse won''t let you sink the money into Adcom or Rotel, Audiosource is a company to look at for your amplification needs. A couple of other things to keep in mind: the analog VU meters are cool--or rather, warm, giving a off a nice amber glow--but seem to be delicate. I replaced the bulbs on both my amps--fairly easy if you are at all comfortable with a soldering iron. I don''t know if they were burned out to start with (both eBay sellers claimed they were not) or if they died in shipping. If you buy one of these used, tell the owner to pack them very well. Another potential problem, depending on the individual amp you get and on how you will be using it, is transformer buzz. If you will be physically close to the amp a lot, it might bug you. It''s worse on some units, and not even there at all on others--if possible, listen to the actual unit you''re thinking about buying.

Strength

Price, detailed and open sound (if not pushed to the limit), bridgeable, cool looking VU meters.

Weakness

Strained sound at the absolute limits, VU meter lights can burn out, transformer buzz can be annoying if you are sitting close to the unit.