Lately I’ve been using an old Yamaha AX-570 amplifier for my computer audio needs. It’s a reasonably good amp and most of all very powerful, but it has developed a faulty source selector, which seems to be a common problem with that vintage of Yamaha amps. It’s not easily fixed since the source selector is encapsuled and motor driven, I’ve tried conductor spray to no help. So, I had to find a replacement to drive my tiny HiFi-speakers and 120W active subwoofer and of course – headphones. But I got lucky and found a second hand advert on the net for a much newer Sony amplifier right in my neigbourhood, a model which had got good reviews in it’s hayday. The TA-FB940R. And the price was only 3o$ so I just grabbed it 
First impressions, nothing was faulty, it sounds subjectively good and has no noise, and it is equipped with A+B speaker out making connecting the subwoofer much easier. So far a solid buy.
Then came the bonuses, it’s not exactly any run-of-the-mill amp but a serious effort by Sony to produce an affordable entryl level audiophile grade amplifier. In short it’s a cheap clone of the acknowledged Accuphase E-20*-series from the 80/90-ties featuring the following buzz-features from Accuphase of the past:
Single stage Push-Pull MOS-FET power amplifier all DC
Phase-Linear circuit design
Very high frequency response DC-300000Hz
Very low distorsion 0.008% THD+IM
Very low noise -106dB on SACD/CD input
Toroid transformer
Dual mono construction
High Power 2x70W 8Ohm FTC 20-20kHz, 2x120W 4Ohm DIN
Very high damping factor of 500
Solid build quality indicated by 10.5Kg weight
Elna Gold filter capacitors and generally good component quality all over
A similarly well built new amplifier today would cost at least in the range of 6-700$! And it ain’t that old either, being introduced in the year 2000. My Yamaha AX-570 was built in 1993, and the german Dual-amplifier I used before that was built in 1987. Add to that the good clean look of the amplifier and you can understand why I almost drool over this bargain 
And last, after some more listening tests I can be definite in saying that this was a substantial upgrade from the Yamaha sound quality wise, apart from being able to use a fully functional unit. The resolution of any music is noticeably higher adding even more value to the Xonar DX soundcard i use for most music listening, also 3D imaging of the soundstage is much improved while music still is sounding powerful and have deep bass impact like the Yamaha. The most audible improvements is with transient instruments like guitar and piano and voices which sounds more lifelike, and acoustic instruments sounds more acoustic or “wooden” rather than electronic as with the Yamaha. Here’s how it looks:
