Hafler Power Amp
 

I have an opportunity to trade some t-shirts for a Hafler P230 power amp. Can get a nice Rotel preamp for short $ to make it work.

Anyone experienced with Hafler?

DH was a genius in the 1970's & on.

It was a high quality amp back when.

It is well worth a few T-shirts. Is it worth 100 samples of artistic design?? I dunno...

what Randy said !
Hafler is/was good stuff. I had a Hafler pre-amp back in the 80's hooked up to
a PS audio amp that I really loved.

I've had several Hafler 500's. And at one time I had two McIntosh MC500's. With my Canton LE 109's there wasn't much difference between the two. That's a $300 amp compared to a $4000 amp, used market prices.

Thanks guys. I'll be connecting a Rotel RSP 960 preamp to and either Advent Maestro's or B&W DM610s.

In the worlds of Adcom, Carver, Marantz, Conrad Johnson, McIntosh, Rotel, etc., where would you generally place Hafler? How would you rank those?

any thoughts?

maybe below Rotel & prob. below CJ
prob. as good as Adcom

McI has a big name but the sound is not that impressive...

I have 2 Hafler P3000s and a P5000 in my work rig that I love. Sound great for the money, and no fan, and not much heat. I'd say a P230 is worth $150-250, if you wanted to put a money value on it.

Sorry to get down to model level, but if you could choose between:

Hafler P230, 115 wpc

Adcom gfa 5200, 60 wpc

Rotel RB 971, 70 wpc


Which would you choose?

The Hafler would probably win sonically. Adcom was always dreck. Rotel pretty decent. Hafler the same. The difference between 70w and 115w is very small.

I had a DH2OO Hafler back in the day.

Ian

Thanks Ian, which would be cleaner between the Rotel and the Hafler? When we went shopping for my last gf's set-up, we used (of a few) the first 30 seconds of Bring Me to Life by Evanescence. We ended up with a Rotel RX-1052 receiver and a pair of B&W 803s. This intro was so crystal clear, the interplay between the piano and Amy's voice was magic. Though not as strong, this set-up even rivaled a $5000 Krell system. We thought getting it back to her apartment and setting it up, we'd never be able to tell the difference.

I'm looking to approximate that sounds as best I can on my micro budget.

what are your thoughts?

dreck is a tad strong

I think you need to try out the Rotel vs. the Hafler

If you cannot do that, then I might opt for the newer one.

Well, the Hafler is pretty cheap given the barter, so I'll go with that. Really can't go wrong, can always eBay it if I don't like the sound.

Adcom always offered big power with no current for little money. I loved going head to head with them using teeny integrated amps. Very easy to win those demos.

Agreed that a side by side listening is the only way to tell.

Ian

After all my trading, I ended up with the Adcom amp/preamp. Very pleased !

Well, the Adcom's are above the dreck level - that is all I'm saying.

chuckr - try an A-B test with some good used amps....

yup, Shaun, you can't go wrong with the setup you have. You can certainly spend more and get a marginal improvement. My advice would be to leave the amp and address the transducers on either end - CD Player, etc. or speakers; next get a nice tube pre-amp. Last, kill off the Hafler for a used Sunfire or Bryston.

yeah, I wish I could buy it all and listen and then sell what I don't like. It's almost cheap enough. if this were September, I could.

Almost bought a Carver C-4000, & Carver C-500, but after some research, just not for me.

Net-net is:
Hafler amp
Rotel preamp
Nakamichi CD-3 (sticky door, but for $25, can't complain)
Advent Maestro's
B&W DM610s

Both speakers are in excellent shape and will most likely resell one of them. the B&W's are going to be crystal clear but lack bass, the Advents are going to be warm but lack a little detail...MAYBE.

Can't wait to get it all together on Saturday.