Have you tried the ART SLA-1 amp yet?

I have spent quite a bit of time listening to the SLA-1 for the past week or so, and have more or less arrived at the following conclusions. First, it is an unbelievable value, and I like the idea of having it in a second system and as a backup amp for my main system. I cannot really improve on the impressions of Dlshifi in his excellent review--I agree with everything he said. The amp is dynamic and clean, with precise placement of instruments in the soundtage, but can sound hard or lean at times and does not quite have the extension/dimension or musicality of reference quality amps costing thousands of dollars more. At first, I was so impressed by the sound coming out of this little booger that I wasn't quite coming to terms with the fact that I was missing something I had with my Plinius SA-102.

So, was it a close competition? Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the SLA-1 exceeded my expectations and amazed me with its performance for <$200. It is a credible performer even in audiophile systems. If I ever fall on hard times, I could easily "settle" for the SLA-1 and be fine. But the Plinius is just more musical. As my girlfriend said, "It just gets down in your ears more." Simple, but true.

I'm still impressed by how good the SLA-1 is, but I also know that I would choose the Plinius 10 times out of 10.

How can one tell when Mr. Nance is being disingenuous, dishonest, and duplicitous?
His lips are moving or his fingers are typing.

“My unit uses an Airpax breaker switch which I have found to be far superior sonically to the breaker I was once going to use.”

I’m quite pleased that your mod page no longer specifies those ludicrous 20amp breakers, but simply breakers.
http://www.dn-audio.com/id11.html
Respected folks such as Bob Crump have long advocated the use of breakers to replace the switch and fuse. I hope that your new ‘discovery’ of that better sounding breaker is also properly specified so as to not only provide an improvement of subjective audio qualities in addition to preserving the safety function, which is there to protect life and property. Whether this enhancement was facilitated by my comments or is simply an example of the synchronicity of the universe is not germane.

“I think this character thinks he can bait me into telling him about my circuit. He even attempted on Audiocircle to get me to send him my schematic (so that, according to him he could help me). I didn't ask for your help, I don't need your help, I don't want your help.”

There you go again, misinterpreting what was said, and not giving a link to what was actually said. So I will provide the link –
http://www.audiocircle.com./circles/viewtopic.php?t=2982&sid=9dab4c4df79b07e07ed2bad5a854dea0

I had thought it was clear that my response to Donny’s testosterone fueled adolescent challenge to a mod-off, was that before considering such, I would need either a schematic of the stock SLA-1 or a stock unit from which I would derive the schematic. In addition to Mr. Nance’s fine qualities he so amply demonstrates, we can add poor reading comprehension. Mr. Nance’s proclivities are amply demonstrated in another thread –
http://www.audiocircle.com./circles/viewtopic.php?t=2984&sid=9dab4c4df79b07e07ed2bad5a854dea0

“This is the last I am going to comment concerning this character.”

Amen. I will do likewise, assuming you keep your word.

Nice summary. Did you figure out how to use spades with the ART connectors ? I have found that amplifier is transparent to the upsteam source. The lean nature of the amp dissappeared when I tried the "skip track access" of Todd Krieger/Jerome Lang. Have you tried it on your digital playback...very significant improvement?

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=digital&n=67210
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/general/messages/273637.html

The standard binding posts on the amplifier can only take banana plugs and bare wire. Those with spades on attached to their speaker wires are out of luck. I recently updated the plastic shrouding from the existing binding posts with a the corresponding portion a more conventional binding post and can now use spades.

Below is an exerpt from my SLA-1 page after having used the amp for about 5 weeks:

The SLA-1 made a return to Danny's Soundtech/ATC/Kimber/(DI/O)/Marantz system with modified speaker connectors capbable of taking stacked spades. The Kimber 8TC cables are a double run of stiff cables necessitating binding posts capable of solidly connecting the wires...the experience from the first trip(see Day 19 above) used skward adapters that never really worked out. Any thoughts of interchanging hot and neutral to experiment with absolute phase were dashed in the previous evaluation....not this time around...we started with the phase flipped from the last time. The results were a return of dynamics, soundstage, ease and naturalness. Three things had changed:

No akward connectors
Reversed absolute polarity at amp connections to speakers
Addition of Jon Jon Risch twisted pair 89259 with spaced off shield

I had a mild headache resulting from being over some details on a project for most of the day...so my listening acuity and comments that follow reflect mostly what Danny heard. Prior to plugging in the SLA-1, the Soundtech Tube amp with the new JR interconnect was audioned. As Danny put it: "I'm able to listen and hear more information at lower volume levels with greater enjoyment". His conclusion is that the cable and shield have lowered the noise floor and increased the signal to noise ratio. To me the Norah Jones album sounded non sibilant in his system for the first time. In its place was a better integrated mix with certain textures to plucked string that I had not hear before but without any sibilance and all very relaxing. On the Mary Chapin Carpenter album (Come On Come On), I got the best impression of the room size and acoustic that I have heard. You could sense the witdth and depth of the recording venue and almost even sense the height of the room...quite special. Some of my listening preferences are a result of getting used to what is not right...it is that sound associated with "silver" where certain parts of the spectrum are emphasized giving the sense of more information and a larger soundstage. The quieter background of the JR cable seem to have dminished this euphonic colouration. Putting in my next favourite cable, the Van der Hul Thunderline, confirmed this. With the JR cable back in, the SLA-1 was auditioned and comments are made relative to the Soundtech amplifier.

As I have already let the cat out of the bag about the improvements(dynamics, soundstage, ease and naturalness) in performance over the previous audition, there still remained some room for improvement. Cold out of box, it initially sounded lean in the midrange but with a upward tip to the balance (this was alluded to by other reviewers) and a lightness to the bass. It still sounded very analog but very low level detail was missing.

Playing an extremely dynamic recording of a large church choir from Chesky's demonstration disk through his ATC speakers gave a wide and deep soundstage using this wide dynamic range recording. The volume controls were at the 12 o'clock position making the organ hiss very audible....the amp hardened at times on peaks at this volume levels but did not clip audibly and gave a good account of the recording.

With more warmup, some of the warmth and naturalness returned. It seems as if the stock SLA-1 errors on the side of omission did not compliment the JR cable's neurality. Putting in the Thunderline cable confirmed this as seemingly missing detail and balanced seem to have been restored (to me). To Danny, it was brighter and a more outlined presentation (what some call mid-fi) but with less inner detail due to a raised noise floor (Note to myself: Try to figure out this aspect of Danny's called noise floor and its sonic signature). If I assume the signature with the JR cable is the right one, then I I think I can hear that signature that I associate with poorer quality resistors, capcitors, wire and opamps. Eliminating this signature and improving the subtle sonic quality that makes a system listenable for hours at a time is mark of success. In its default form today, I can easily filter these slight flaws and enjoy the music. It is only in comparison to knowing what is possible that will lead to a slow evolution of the SLA-1...hopefully to the level of the Soundtech Poweramp One Tube amplifier

Swapping the speaker posts for some 5.00 ea gold plated 5 way posts is a matter of unbolting the stockers and bolting up the new ones.

No soldering or de-soldering is involved...ie, anyone can do this mod.

As far as the 1/4 inch pro jacks, i simply carefully broke the plastic housing on the interior of the amp, and bolted in the 5.00 ea gold plated replacements and soldered them to the board mounted inputs.
Almost anyone can do the second mod also and you can use your rca's direct without the use of the cheesey 1/4 adapters.

Doing these two mods improves the already amazing sonics of this little amp by letting you use your favorite spaded cables, and alowing a direct connection of high quality rca ic's and my total investement so far is 220.00. It has more detail resolution in the upper mids up than my 4k powerbloc 5 amp.
Nobody could purchase this amp and feel they did not get a lot more than there moneys worth imho.