[Wayne1]

I just saw this over on AudioAsylum

     Posted by schuesmp (A) on February 11, 2005 at 09:03:40

    I recently purchased this amplifier used on Audiogon and set it up in my system yesterday. This particular unit has the works: the full Bolder Cable home theater mod. package plus four Large Bybee Quantum Purifiers in the speaker outputs. Prior to the installation of the Panny, my amplifiers consisted of a Rogue 99 Magnum preamplifier and a Musical Fidelity A3.2cr power amplifier. My front end, power products, and cabling are all top notch.

    To sum it up, the Panny embarrased the Rogue / Musical Fidelity combination. After hours of listening, I was convinced that the Panny was just plain better at EVERYTHING. That's huge at only $850 used. With the modified amplifier, I heard bass transients and dynamics unlike anything I had heard before and, most surprisingly, the overall presentation was much smoother than the separates while maintaining superior resolution. I'm a believer now. Bye, bye separates.

I do have plenty of parts on hand to mod the Panasonic receivers

[schuesmp]

Wayne, this is so odd.  I just discovered AudioCircle today and decided to register.  Funny to see my AudioAsylum post from this morning here.  Regardless, you deserve loads of credit.  I'm just sorry you weren't able to benefit financially from the transaction.  Maybe I'll check out some of your other offerings.

I do have a question.  I spent a fair amount of cash modifying a Denon DVD-2900 (Parts ConneXion / Underwood Hi-Fi).  As an extra, I also purchased an Audiocom Superclock II.  With my previous setup (Rogue pre / Musical Fidelity power), the modifications paid massive dividends in enhanced sound quality.  Do any of these modifications make a difference when transferring the digital information to the Panny for processing?

Thanks, in advance, for your reply.

[dwk]

From a technical perspective, yes - clock quality matters with the Panny receivers. They use the recovered SPDIF clock as their master, and so jitter on the SPDIF interface will contaminate the recovered clock.

Where it gets somewhat more unclear is that the Equibit chipset used will then subsequently use ANOTHER PLL to derive the modulator master clock. It is really *this* clock that determines the ultimate quality on the output.  Unfortunately, what I have no idea about is how the quality of the modulator clock is impacted by the quality of the I2S master.

My time listening to the Panny's in good system is limited as my system has been in DIY-project-delay flux for a long time. Hopefully Wayne and others can provide some direct personal experience based on listening.

[Wayne1]

Thanks for posting your comments at AA. I am glad that you like the receiver and the mods I did to it.

Mods to the power supply and the clock will help out with the digital signal into the Panasonic. Any mods done to the output section, new op-amps, etc will have no effect.

You can always spend some money with me to upgrade your cables

[rotcoddam]

Wayne,
         Do you know if these amps are still for sale anywhere?

[GefellTaper]

There a bitch to find.  I spent 6 months looking for one before I found it.  Try posting a wanted ad on audiogon etc, search ebay over and over, then hope to get lucky unfortunately.