Yeah, I have a Servo 120 that I used to power a pair of Yorkville
YSM-1s. It works fine for a small studio setup. Volume controls,
headphone output. The rack ears are way to flimsy to support the
weight of the amp. It sounds OK, but you can always do better. These
days I pretty much use mine to power AKG K240 headphones. Works great
for that.

DaveT

Does anyone have any experience with this series of power amps? I am
looking into them for a home studio application. I have a set of
Behringer 2031 passive monitors that I need to power

wrote:
Yeah, I have a Servo 120 that I used to power a pair of Yorkville
YSM-1s. It works fine for a small studio setup. Volume controls,
headphone output. The rack ears are way to flimsy to support the
weight of the amp. It sounds OK, but you can always do better. These
days I pretty much use mine to power AKG K240 headphones. Works great
for that.

DaveT

Thanks for the fast reply. Would you have any other recommendations?
Some other direction or company that has amps in about the same price
range?

Lots of guy are using Adcom amps. Haflers are popular too, but the
company is out of business. If I were looking, I'd try to find a US
made Hafler. I think the P3000 is US. Adcom would be my next choice.
I seem to recall the Adcom 535 was popular among project studios.

DaveT

Curious: What is a complex load? This term is new to me.
DaveT

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:05:33 -0500, J.D. wrote:

Does anyone have any experience with this series of power amps? I am
looking into them for a home studio application. I have a set of
Behringer 2031 passive monitors that I need to power

Good bang for the buck and better than you would think reading comments on
the net.
Hey, it beats the Alesis RA-100 hands tied behind it's Chinese/Mexican
back

BTW the RA-100 is the only common amp I have ever heard, that I can
actually hear a difference in sound (compared to others) driving typical
speakers at reasonable levels.
It just sounds lifeless to me.


I use a Samson Servo 170 in my smaller live lounge act keyboard rig.
I use an ancient Sansui AX7 mixer to drive it and have two small JBL
cabinets.
Samson doesn't have the greatest reputation for build or sound quality,
but I have dragged this beast everywhere, abused it and so forth and it
just keeps going so I can't complain.
About a year ago some drunk over aged bimbo got her spike heels caught
between the slats on the outside deck and sent her Banana Daiquiri my way
and it hit right on top of the amp. I pulled the plug and got my backup
(Dynaco) from the car, finished the gig and cleaned it out later. No harm
done, but it still smelled like bananas for a couple of months.The manual
also comes with a schematic which is a plus in case it does break.


You might look into a used Hafler amplifier and then there are always NAD
and Adcom as well.
The 2031 are pretty conventional monitors as far as load is concerned so I
doubt you will hear any difference between these amps at reasonable
playback levels.
Crank the sound up or present a complex load (Magnapan) and
the differences will become become obvious as the higher end amps will be
able to provide smooth sound at high levels into complex loads where I
suspect the Samson will run out of steam. I've never tried this BTW so I
might be totally out to lunch on it.
Most el'cheapo amps have trouble maintaining flat frequency response
driving complex loads.

Scott?



--
flatfish+++
"Why do they call it a flatfish?"

In article ,
J.D. wrote:
Does anyone have any experience with this series of power amps? I am
looking into them for a home studio application. I have a set of
Behringer 2031 passive monitors that I need to power

The ones I have used were just awful in every possible way. Look at picking
up a used Adcom GFA 535.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

wrote:
Curious: What is a complex load? This term is new to me.

A load that isn't purely resistive, like any speaker. We consider impedance
as being a complex number, with a real component (resistance) and an imaginary
component (reactance, which is either inductance or capacitance depending on
the sign).

Some amplifiers out there aren't very stable into capacitive loads. Most
are okay with inductive loads. The Dynaco ST120 isn't very stable into
anything.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:23:11 -0400, Scott Dorsey wrote:

In article ,
J.D. wrote:
Does anyone have any experience with this series of power amps? I am
looking into them for a home studio application. I have a set of
Behringer 2031 passive monitors that I need to power

The ones I have used were just awful in every possible way. Look at picking
up a used Adcom GFA 535.
--scott

I agree with the advice for the Adcom, but honestly I haven't found the
Samson 170 to be THAT bad for basic work.
It's certainly no Bryston, but it also doesn't cost as much.
What don't you like about them?


--
flatfish+++
"Why do they call it a flatfish?"

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 13:36:13 -0700, psychodave.thomas wrote:

Curious: What is a complex load? This term is new to me.
DaveT

My own term to some degree.

Speaker loads are a combination of reactive, resistive and capacitive
components all to one degree or another and the load that is presented by
an amplifier will vary over the common frequency spectrum.
Some speakers can be driven by just about any amplifier and sound great.
Others


--
flatfish+++
"Why do they call it a flatfish?"

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:28:47 -0400, Scott Dorsey wrote:

The Dynaco ST120 isn't very stable into
anything.
--scott

Tell me about it
I once tried to drive a set of ESS with the Heil Air Motion tweeter and
the Dynaco went right into full oscillation.
I replaced it with a Carver (one of the first ones made), but that one
made ticking noises that appeared on cassettes I was making so I sold the
farm and purchased a Bryston and have been happy ever since although I now
have BW 801 speakers.
I still use the Dynaco as a backup for my small lounge lizard keyboard rig
and it seems to work fine for that.

--
flatfish+++
"Why do they call it a flatfish?"

flatfish+++ wrote:

I agree with the advice for the Adcom, but honestly I haven't found the
Samson 170 to be THAT bad for basic work.
It's certainly no Bryston, but it also doesn't cost as much.
What don't you like about them?

Undersized power supply. WAY WAY undersized power supply. Poor RF rejection.
Undersized power supply. Output stage runs way into class B. Way undersized
power supply. Flimsy construction (although admittedly because the output
stage is biased so far up you don't need much heatsinking and because the
power supply is so undersized you can live with flimsier metal).

I did a quick and dirty test on the thing when it came out and it just did
not sound very good at all, even into the Magnepans which are a trivial load
to drive. Not as bad as a D-60, but bad. And these days it's not hard to
build a good amp at all. It's just that too many corners were cut.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I once had one of those Samson Servo amps, for a short time. One of the
worst pieces of audio gear I ever owned. Swore I would never buy another
Samson product, and haven't.

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:50:00 -0400, Scott Dorsey wrote:


Undersized power supply. WAY WAY undersized power supply. Poor RF rejection.
Undersized power supply. Output stage runs way into class B. Way undersized
power supply. Flimsy construction (although admittedly because the output
stage is biased so far up you don't need much heatsinking and because the
power supply is so undersized you can live with flimsier metal).

I did a quick and dirty test on the thing when it came out and it just did
not sound very good at all, even into the Magnepans which are a trivial load
to drive. Not as bad as a D-60, but bad. And these days it's not hard to
build a good amp at all. It's just that too many corners were cut.
--scott

I must have gotten the one good unit or maybe I'm going deaf.
Like I said, years of abuse and it still works.
This is for a small keyboard rig.
My larger rig uses a Bryston 4b with a msall Mackie (1604LM) mixer.

--
flatfish+++
"Why do they call it a flatfish?"

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:52:05 +0000, Dr. Dolittle wrote:

I once had one of those Samson Servo amps, for a short time. One of the
worst pieces of audio gear I ever owned. Swore I would never buy another
Samson product, and haven't.

Worst pieces of gear I've owned a
Mackie 8 Bus
Mackie Big Knob.

The 8 bus had the then unknown ribbon cable problem.
The big knob, actually 3 different ones, had trouble tracking left and
right channels evenly and I could plainly hear it in the circuit.



--
flatfish+++
"Why do they call it a flatfish?"