This is a Rockford Corp era amplifier good for 60WPC; made to be _not_
user friendly versus the kit amps of yore. This one looks to have been
around the block though some face plate cleaning helped to remove a bit
of yellowing.
The amp sounded a little tired so I went in and replace the main
electrolytic capacitors, the input caps, and two of the smaller power
supply rail caps. Needless to say getting to the underside was very
frustrating with the number of screws, removing the output mosfets from
the heatsink, and pinching the nylon standoffs to free the PCB. In the
end I also checked the bias, cleaned the RCAs and speaker jacks.
After my work: Overall it is a nice sounding budget amp - to my ears a
little warmer than something like an Adcom 535. Good bass, and more of a
rock 'n' roll sound than say the Musical Fidelity. My Aleph J clone is
a bit more refined with a touch more detail and "space" around the
instruments. Though all three amps are "warm" none of them exactly
sound like a tube amp. An old Frankenstein Eico ST70 - modified to be a
power amp with 6AR6 output tubes - I have kicking around has a presence
and sense of dynamics that I just don't hear with these (admittedly low
powered) SS amps. Nonetheless I could live with the Hafler if I really
needed a compact amplifier.
