Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pioneer A-307R Excellent integrated amplifier, 14 Aug 2007
Was looking for an integrated amplifier with a phono stage(so rare these days). Has all the inputs you could want. Sounds excellent with a wide range of music. Very well built with an aluminium fascia, sturdy controls.
Pioneer quality. Thanks Amazon for a fast delivery.
|
|
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
a307 first weeks ownership, 14 Oct 2009
please note that i bought this amp second hand from a cash converter type shop and not new from amazon.
story.
I sold all my existing hifi gear six months ago (redundancy)
Which contained a culmination of five years worth of careful purchases and decisions
( cyrus cd6, michell gyro se, icon audio stereo40i, focal 1007be)
long story short, (ish)
i just wanted to spend a saturday afternoon in the second hand shops trying to find a collection of separates to get some music back in my life.
well, i succeded and this is the amplifier review (also found some monitor audio br2 and a beaten up project 1 deck)
i picked this up second hand for £80 and its been well looked after, clean and tidy and remote is mark free too.
build quality is typical pioneer hifi...excellent. unlike their new portable blue ray player which is dire to use and in build quality.
so build quality good, and it has binding posts for speakers, but a big glaring problem... the speaker terminals do not take 4mm bannanas or any other plug for that matter. they look like they do but the binding posts are solid and dont have a bore to accept plugs. and because there are 2 sets of terminals its not possible to shove em in sideways where the bare wire would normally go.
still its a budget amp so not the end of the world.
holes for wire are large enough for most solid and multi core cable.
phono stage is included, but its not exactly fantastic, muted midrange and the sound is shoved way back into the background, im using an old nad pp1 phono stage and thats way better, so just about any seperate phono stage should be an improvement, but again as a budget model most people will be grateful just for the inclusion of vinyl playback.
overall sound is actually quite pleasing. now im a valve lover (icon stereo 40) so i like a natural analogueish type sound, and this doesnt dissapoint.
hit the source direct button and the soundstage opens up nicely, treble is kept in check and bass is present, but could be a little more deep and full, but still ok for such a budget amp, listening on a tatty old project one deck with just the standard om5e cartridge has produced some rather nice results. very natural sounds with no extremes of bass/treble to trouble my ears, in a nutshell, sensible but not too boring.
i was expecting a dull and lifeless sound from the deck and amp combo especially considering the state of the deck/cartridge combo. not so.
having said that be careful of what cd player you use it with , im using a cyrus cd6 and anything brighter than that could spell trouble in the upper frequency.
you can always tame it all down with a different speaker cable, im using qed silver anniversary (£4metre) and thats fine.
remote is a little cheap and cluttered. and is a generic one used for most pioneer hifi , should mean that its easy to find one if its missing from and second hand deals.
good bit is that it controls volume !!, but will not swith from tone to source direct ( small gripe)
in general a very pleasing amplifier that will suit most people buying their 1st hifi amp or like me just looking for anything reasonable to get them back in the hifi chair again.
i reckon i will use this one for a few months and when funds allow buy something more exotic...but this amp will remain with me for many years. its quality of sound and quality of build will mean that its worth keeping hold of. (especially with that elusive phono stage)
7 out of 10 for me
|
|
|
|
