[Wayne1]

I received the rest of the power supply caps and installed them. I have had my Panny plugged into a pair of load resistors being fed a signal from the FryKleaner for the past 70 hours now. I will take another listen at about 100 hours.

Right after I installed the new caps, I could tell it had a LOT more punch and dynamics.

Dayne,

I am not too sure about pricing yet. I hear you about the bang for the buck stuff. Right now, if you are going to be using it just for digital input, I would say the IEC, speaker terminals, wire to the terminals and the main PS cap have made the biggest difference.  The parts cost isn't too bad but there is quite a bit of labor involved with these mods. The analog coupling cap replacement does have a fairly high parts cost.

The one thing that may be a deal killer for you is that these units are 120 VAC ONLY. I have not seen a 220-240 VAC version.

Your speaker cables are being built today and should go out Monday or Tuesday.

[ABEX]

Excellent progress Wayne.
That is alot of man hours invested in the unit.A labor of love I am sure!

Will defintely order the mods for the unit to be done in the coming year.

The benefits of using Audiograde parts must place the unit above or on a par with the performance of even the most expensive Digital Amps out there.

Having the unit with it's own pre-amp section bypasses the need of surveying the market for synergistic components and trying to find cables that will work magic.

One of the finest mini components out there is the Linn Klimax Amp and Pre which is out of the league of most value seekers. The updated Panny will be great for those looking for Slimline pieces without the hassle for seperates.I am sure that people that have the stock unit shall want the mods done like myself.

Can't wait to hear the sound eval's of the unit. Great progress!

Good going Wayne!

[dayneger]

Wayne,

Great news on the cable!

They do have 220VAC versions here, but as usual you guys in the USA are able to get your hands on them a lot more inexpensively than I can here.  It tends to be the worst in Switzerland, which is treated like a major cash cow.  The best I can do here is about $500 mailorder!    So I might find it worth it to just hook it up to my big transformer and call it a day.

I see what you mean about the time issue.  Maybe there's a happy medium, where I can do some of the not particularly difficult but time-consuming tasks myself?  I fortunately have access to a machine shop at work since I run the engineering team.  

I have a mixed 2-channel / HT system in the making, with a AKSA 100W (soon to be Nirvana'd) and a GK-1R on the way.  I'm expecting to use the Panasonic just for HT and driving the kitchen speakers.  Unless your mods turn this little guy into a monster that'll challenge those separates, that is!  

Does anyone happen to know if it'll handle 4 ohm speakers?

Dayne

[ABEX]

I wonderd what kind of loads the unit could handle myself.

After reading many post I came accross one user who had Magnepan 1.2's. If the unit can drive them then it's safe to say it can handle 4ohm loads.

With Wayne using Audiograde parts,especially uograding the PS,this unit must go into another class altogether. Having the Analog section upgraded also must help.

There are few things that one can find fault in with a $300 unit,but if they are weeded out then this thing must be one of the best performing units on the market now at any price.

Even paying $500US for the unit your not really losing out because the quality of performance is better than nost receiver going for twice that.

JMO

[dayneger]

What I find curious is that I haven't seen much in the way of blind AB tests of this Panasonic in comparison with receivers in a similar price class, like a Denon 1604 (or whatever the sound-leader is at that price point), much less what one of those receivers would sound like with several hundred dollars worth of tuning.

Anyone know of a link or two?

Sorry to sound a little skeptical, but the lack of comparisons is odd.  So far my only real contact with digital amps was this (apparently $16'000) Sharp 1-bit integrated, digital all the way through.  The analog inputs sounded really bad, with a digital input it was quite good.  Compared with my stock Foreplay and AKSA 100W the transparency and detailing were a bit better, at the cost of a certain organicness--I had less of a feeling that a real person was singing.

Dayne

[mgalusha]

Does anyone happen to know if it'll handle 4 ohm speakers?

We'll find out soon enough. Wayne is going to bring his modded unit over in the next week or two and my Vandies are pretty much a 4R load.  Looking forward to hearing this with his mods.

mike g

[ABEX]

There is one person who has the Panny  that I confer with also has the Carver unit and a few other low priced receivers. He touts it as a great deal. That is what the stock unit is,a great deal. It might not beat other setups because there are always tradeoffs which I confess I find also. I like my Passive setup over this piece on particular pieces of music. Then there are area's it excels in over the Passive setup. Air around instraments is not as good.

When first looking at the unit I did get  to hear mid-fi stuff at BB. The thing I realised is that the presentation was not glazed over like most mid-fi I associate with mid-fi junk.

JMO

[Wayne1]

After I get through with the final week of break-in. I will try to get together with Mike Galusha, Tyson, Pez/Jason, and Turk/Jerry.

I will plug the Panny into their systems to see how it does driving Mike's Vandersteens, Jerry's and Tyson's RM-40s, both single and bi-amped.

I will be hooking it up to my HT system driving 4) 626Rs and a LRC.

In Mike's, it will be replacing an Outlaw multi channel amp and a Denon Pre-Pro. We may bring it upstairs to see how it fares against his Extreme Monos and Grounded Grid.

Tyson has Van Alstine gear in his HT and main system. Jerry has Van Alstine and Parasound JC-1s. I am using a Lexicon Pre/Pro and currently a Parasound multi channel amp.

After the first of the year, when all the comparisons are done here in Denver, I will arrange an audition tour of the modded unit so folks can hear for themselves what the mods do. Hopefully the folks who will sign up will have stock units to compare it to.

I will include some adaptors to convert the suround and center channel output connectors to binding posts, a NITRO power cable, a digital cable and an "ICECUBE" cryo-treated IEC to C7 power cord adaptor, so you can see what the NITRO power cord sounds like on the stock unit.

The sign up will be on my website after New Year's Day. It will be limited to 12 people at first.  You will have to leave your shipping information and a credit card number that will be pre-approved for a $1,000.00 deposit. The card WILL NOT BE CHARGED unless the unit is lost or damaged. This is to protect my investment of time and money in the demo unit.

I will pay shipping to the first person. I do ask that each person pay for shipping and $1,000.00 insurance to the next on the list.

After 12 folks try out the unit, I would like it shipped back to me for evaluation and then we will set up another round of auditions, if needed.

I will ask that anyone receiving the unit for audition, please write a review of it to be posted either here or on AA.

Thank you,
Wayne Waananen

[dayneger]

Any updates on how the mods are sounding?

Dayne

[Wayne1]

Dayne,

The Panny is in my HT system now. I was hoping to bring it over to mgalusha's or Tyson's over the holidays but things got very busy here, and still are.

Right now it sounds very good with DVDs. The sound is more distinct and open than with the Lexicon and Parasound combo I was using. I really do need to compare it to other gear.

I hope to make the time within the next two weeks.

Wayne

[mgalusha]

Wayne brought the modified Panasonic over today and we played with it in my home theater system. My HT is not a high end setup but it's not bad either. Pioneer DV-37i feeding a Denon AVP-8000 pre/pro and a Outlaw 750 amp. Main speakers are my old Vandersteen 2Ci's. Obviously I haven't upgraded any of this in a while. The newest piece is the Pioneer and it's about 3 years old and the speakers are more like 12 or 14 years old. Not quite sure. Overall it sound's OK but I don't use it for serious music listening.

We listened to Dave Brubek's Take Five with my pre/pro and amp to get a baseline and so that Wayne could get a feel for it and then connected up the Panny to the two front channels. We did all our listening in two channel mode.

Well blow me over, the little baby Panny was dynamic as hell and had an iron grip on the speakers. The Vandies are listed as a 6 ohm load but Vandersteen says the amp needs to be stable into 4 ohms and my experience is that they really like big, high current amps. The Panny had zero trouble driving them even through 40ft of cable. Awesome. About that time Tyson showed up and we switched back and forth a few more times and I believe the consensus was that the Panny was better all around except that it was a bit hard sounding in the treble. Wayne said that it smooths out after being powered up for a few days.

I also remembered (finally) that I had the tweeters running 1dB hot as I didn't think the system had enough sparkle. I set the pots back to flat and the sound was quite a bit better.

The real shocker came when I pulled out a 24/96 PCM recording. I have a few of the so-called DAD discs. These were standard DVD's with a 24/96 PCM audio track and no video. Classic Records and Chesky produced these prior to DVD-A. I only have a few but they do sound very nice. I popped in Muddy Waters - Folk Singer from Classic Records and the reaction was pretty much "Holy Shit!". The dynamics and detail were astonishing. I have played this disc quite a few times but it never sounded even close to what we were hearing. I have never heard high-rez digital sound like this.

Unfortunately Wayne had to go but Tyson and I tried the Muddy Waters disc in my main system. The 2 channel system uses the DAC in the SACD 1000 and is pretty good but the dynamics and you-are-there feeling we got was not there. In other ways the sound was more refined and there is much to love about "normal" analog amps. Tyson put it nicely, saying that with the Panny and 24/96 you felt like you were the microphone and with the Philips/GG/Odyssey setup you felt like you were listening to them perform on stage. Neither was bad but the presence of the all digital signal chain was amazing.

Bottom line for me is that I have a $3500 pre/pro and a 1K amp that just got it butt kicked for home theater use by a $300 receiver with Wayne's mods. Anyone in the market for a nice Denon..

Mike G.

[mgalusha]

Also, all the equipment was plugged into a BPT BP-2.5 Ultra running on a 20A dedicated circuit. We used one of Wayne's NITRO power cords on the Panny. The Outlaw and Denon both have captive cords. The ditital IC was a Bolder Silver Bullet NITRO.

mg

[zybar]

Wayne,

What was the final price of your mods?

GW

[Wayne1]

The final mods that I will offer are still to be detemined.

I went a little over the top on some of the parts I used on this unit. The 18 BlackGate caps I put in the analog section was a bit too much. When we listened to the Panny today the digital input was SOOO much better than the analog it really wasn't funny.

Listening at Mike's today reinforced my thoughts on the Panny. It is an amazing piece of gear for a digital input based system. If analog is a main source, I would not suggest it. It is great for HT use. The dynamics and bass control of the unit are suberb.

We will try to get together again next week at Tyson's. We will put the Panny into Tyson's HT system  and maybe even try bi-amping his RM-40s with it.

I hope to finalize the pricing on the mods and the audition package by late January, early February.

Everything always takes longer and costs more than what you you originally think

[zybar]

Wow, trying to tackle the 40's with a $300 HT receiver...I wish I could be out there for that.  

GW

[Tyson]

Well, since I'm late to the party yet again, I'll just post the gist of my impressions.  The Pany is the real deal, with dynamics and bass that are in the "holy-shit" category, low level resolution that is amazing for the $$, and side to side spatial seperation that is also very good.  Overall clarity and detail was on a very high level indeed.  For it's very low price and very slim and light package this is one helluva anchor for a digital system.  

When it came to bass, slam, dynamics, and clarity, Mike's poor Outlaw amp didn't stand a chance, it really had it's lunch handed to it.  

My only real criticism of it was that it was a bit hard sounding, not as mellifluous as some of the better non-digital amps I've heard.  Then Mike mentioned that he was running the tweeters on his speakers about 1.5db's hot, so he adjusted them down, and the overall presentation was a lot better, more integrated and warmer.  And did I mention the bass and dynamics were stunningly good?

Then we put on a 24/96 recording through the Pany and the POWER of the music came through as well as I have ever heard.  It was stunningly good.  Side to side imaging was very impressive and very precise.

Going back up to Mikes to compare regular 16/44 again, but this time via his Odyssey Extreme Mono's, well, it was obvious that the Pany's dynamics really were world class cause the Odyssey's couldn't match them in that area.  But the Mono's did point up a few areas where $3k in amps can still excel, namely smoothness, musicality, and image depth.  For a dedicated 2 channel music system, the vastly more expensive Mono's would be my choice for long term listening.

But, for HT, I think the Pany's strengths are absolutely perfectly matched for the needs of movies.  In fact I'd take the Pany over the Mono's even if cost were not a consideration.  The dynamics, resolution, bass, slam, and clarity of the Pany are the things I think are by far the most important considerations for movies.  Throw in the fact that it's D/A conversion for 16/44 is very good, that it simply kicks ass on 24/96 recordings, never even gets warm even when pushed hard, and is the size of a slim-line DVD player, and you've got a real winner.

[zybar]

Tyson,

Based on your experience, do you think the Panny could drive the RM 40's?

That would be awesome if I could replace my Outlaw Pre/Pro, Sherbourn 5/1500A 5 channel amp, Adcom GFA 555 MK II amp, plus all of the ic's with this small unit.

The only thing I would be giving up is 7.1 that the Outlaw does.

GW

[zybar]

BTW, did you guys watch a movie?  How was the processing?

If this isn't very good, I won't be able to use the Panny.

GW

[Tyson]

We did not watch any movies, but when wayne bring's it to my place next weekend we will.  We'll be comparing it to my Acurus ACT 3 processor and Van Alstine OmegaStar and Omega III amps.

Since I'll actually get to hear it drive my 40's in less than a week, I'll hold off on speculating for now.

[sunshinedawg]

Hi all, zybar turned me on to this circle and the SA-XR45.

I'm looking to upgrade from my Rotel RSX-965.

I would love to hear this little panny in action!

Sean