Today was like Christmas...found Hafler DH 500

If you can stand the sound of the cooling fan: the bottom is very testicular, they exhibit the usual MOS-FET "mist" which is much better than the bi-polar bite(glare), they'll easily drive the most difficult loads and of course they put out enough current to arc-weld with(well, almost). I used one in my showroom in Florida to demo speakers with for years(365w peaks into 8 ohms), used a pair to bi-amp my Acoustat Mod III's(back in the 80's), and had one powering the woofers in my home system until 6 years ago(all modded slightly). My son is using the last one I had in his smaller DJ system. The only way you'll ever know if you like it is to hook it up. If it appeals to you: Install an IEC plug, internal power supply wiring, upgraded power cord, gold 5 way binding posts and RCAs and enjoy the music. I've still got a brand new(still in the original wrapper) Hafler DH-203 mod kit(Bailey Mod) to replace the input DC blocking electrolytics(C1). I was the exclusive Hafler dealer in Orlando for a few years, and custom built quite a number for my customers.

I just recently borrowed a DH500 till my Odyssey Khartago was returned from being upgraded. I hooked it up to my large horn speakers and Eastern Electric Minimax preamp and WOW it sounded wonderful. A warmish but nice big involving soundstage with good transparency, a very musical amp. I had to be careful with volume since the DH500 is a powerful sucker, more watts then my speaker rating! Once I finally received the Khartago and hooked it up I noticed it had the same attributes as the DH500 but the Khartago was more revealing and more refined. But I left the DH500 with a very good feeling about its sonics, thinking it was a great piece of gear for the price. With further minor upgrades it could easily compete with any modern solid state amp.

BTW- Was the modding done by Musical Concepts? They were one of the first to start commercially tweaking the Hafler gear.

The mod was done by Carl Staub of Paracas Electronics in Reno.