transparent,powerful,wide sound stage.

slight bass looseness..slightly agressive.

For the money,about £200 from Richer Sounds,I thought this amp seemed very good value.It certainly felt weighty and the feel and finish very good.
Right from the first switch on,the transparency was immediately obvious with a sound stage extending well beyond the speakers.Bass is very powerfull if very slightly flabby.Used with a Marantz cd63SE trnsients are most impressive but on orchestral strings there is a hint of wiryness.The phono inputs even sound OK considering it,s 1 chip with only ceramic caps in the circuit.
Overall though, the sound seems an open window for detail and feel reluctant to upgrade.A new CD player will be my next upgrade and feel certain the a400x will show up the difference with no trouble..A great amp!

Similar Products Used:

Harmon Kardon hk1400..Hart kit amplfier

Clarity, Power, Detail, Agility

None

This is an amazing amp and like most of the others here I cannot believe how good it sounds with top-notch partnering equipment.

The only possible quibbles I might have would be a slight lifelessness at low volume levels and my volume pot got dirty (causing a fuzzy noise at certain volumes) as well, but it's easily cleaned.

The Phono MM stage is pretty good for a budget amp, but the MC stage isn't worth the effort - you'd be better off with a phono stage going into the excellent line level inputs.

An amazing amp. If you see one, get it whatever the price. You won't be disappointed

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A Variety of budget amps, Rotel Pre-Power

clarity, soundstaging, build quality

lack of headphone socket or tone controls

This amp sounds so good as to really educate me as to the importance of amplification in the overall sound of a system. Previous amps I had owned had tended to sound similar to one another; this one made a great difference. Very revealing of quality line-level sources. Volume control got dirty after a while and I had to clean it with switch-cleaner.

Well worth looking out for used.

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a variety of budget amps over the years

Amazing bang for the buck.

None

I have to aggree with the gentlemen from Greece and Russia. I got mine for the equivalent of $300 four years ago, and I have never stopped being amazed at how good a value it is. The little guy has been partnered with a variety of speakers over the years, and been able to make all of them sing! Compared to an Acurus DIA-100 which is about three times more expensive, the 400X holds its own very well.

It's in the box right now, giving it a bit of a rest, but I really think the 400X is a keeper. Why sell something so good that you got so cheap?

Similar Products Used:

NAD 304; Rotel RA-930