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Review on YAMAHA A-S501BL: Powerful Natural Sound Integrated Stereo Amplifier in Black by Mark Grady

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Very pretty, very practical, looks and sounds good

I've had it for a month now. I use it to power some Altec Lansing 890c Bolero speakers and some Tannoy PBM 6.5 studio monitors. I have a Klipsch R-10SWi subwoofer. I only use one set of speakers at a time. I run my TV/Roku, Audio Technica LP-5 player and Bluetooth device through it. I really like the transparent sound of this receiver. It's not as harmonically advanced as a tube amp, but it sounds great and clean. It has enough power and stays really clean even at high volumes. The functions of the remote control are simple. I use it in "Pure Direct" mode, which skips the EQ and some other front panel features that I find pretty useless, and I think it sounds that much better. I use the player's built-in preamp and everything is fine. It has lots of gain and is clean. Nothing special but works well. My only real criticism of this unit is the subwoofer output. It's fixed at 90Hz (wish it was variable) and the subwoofer output has no polarity. I fixed this by reversing the polarity on my subwoofer, but I think the subwoofer sounded better when I split the signal from my TV, at which point it was in phase. But it doesn't work for me because I want the subwoofer to be on all the time (not just from the TV). So I'm not sure what's going on in the subwoofer circuit, but it could definitely be better.

Pros
  • Amplifier
Cons
  • So-so