I had one of these back in the day and it was great.
Frank’s designs are.
Case in point:
Cassette tapes(!) are hot items in the used market, as are NOS.
I sold a batch of cassettes including some I made around 1980 when I had its predecessor a PAT-4 Frank had updated.
The guy sends me an email and he is over the moon ecstatic about the sound quality of some of the music! How did I do it? Do I mind sharing?
I told him I was using a Pioneer PL-12D turntable, Grace F9-D cart (still in hot demand), the AVA modded PAT-4 and a Sony cassette deck that was a luggable portable. Ran on 4 D cells. Or AC
And I rarely used Dolby — any flavor (I hate it. Kills the life of music) and I ran meters gently into the red zone.
Kinda neat to make an impression on someone who was running an above average system.
Anyway, Frank’s team puts out the real deal.
Buy with confidence.
BTW, I also had one of the PAT-5 AVA like this example and loved it dearly. It took considerable expense to materially best it.