In Germany the price just went up from 169€ to 179€. But currently it's out of stock in most of the shops.
Ay, don't worry too much about the price hikes. Keep checking different sites. I got mine for 172 from Bax-shop. They're a local Dutch shop that sells gear. The prices
will fluctuate, and that's normal! They'll drop again too.
I got this amp about a month ago. I had amazon deliver it. First off I noticed how little the amp is. 800 watts in this box, I don't think so. And the plastic face didn't make me feel any better.
This is normal. Cut costs somewhere
Got a two prong power plug and plugged amp into that no hum, as matter of fact, no noise at all even with Yamaha turned on.
See about getting a ground loop isolator for your audio cables instead. Leaving an amplifier ungrounded seems and probably is really unsafe, and the only other return path it has is your audio cables.
First impression (hdcd source Yamaha bd-s681) was my speakers were much crisper with the extra power but sounded a little like PA speakers.
Is that a good thing for you, or a bad thing? What makes you feel they sound like PA speakers? Is there a certain range of frequencies you feel is different? Or is it just the sheer difference between your receiver and the new amp?
This was at normal volume which for me is three of the green lights on front of amp. Gain controls on amp at 75%, 50% on Yamaha. About 85db. After 45 minutes of listening to different stuff between hdcd and vinyl. I decided it was time to see what it had. Amp turned up to 95%, 75% on Yamaha. Stupid loud. Both yellow lights on amp lit and dancing. Steely Dan's "Bodhisattva" blasting away. I'm sure speakers dropped below 2 ohms but never complained. Clean, loud with the best bass coming out of those speakers in the 30 plus years I've owned them.
Don't worry
too much about the impedance drop. They can handle it, musically. And the only risk is that they got hot, for which the chips themselves have internal shutdowns.
After now living with the amp for over a month. My home theatre sounds great even without a sub woofer. My Kappas really appreciate the extra power. Much brighter and the bass is really tight. Still for music the sound seems to lack warmth (depth) maybe. At times a little like a PA system not HIFI. No way this amp puts out 800 watts but still more power than I need. Maybe that's just class D power. All in all I think it is a great bang for the buck power amp.
Warmth is often a product of distortion that many like. It's a fairly subjective preference. The amplifier surely doesn't produce its rated power. That's quite usual to see from Behringer, even if it's a bit nasty. It does about 250 watts at 4 ohm and 150 at 8 ohm I think? Class D is a lot more efficient, but with them being so efficient it's also easy to fool with the numbers because you can shortly overpower them and say "Look ma, more power!"
Cheer, Anna