By Brent Butterworth, January 06, 2003

With 2,100 watts of power and an elite circuit design, ATI's AT3000 is the audio equivalent of an extreme sports car.

Any product can be refined; the question is, do the refinements substantially improve the product? In some cases—increasing a car’s horsepower, for example—the answer is usually “yes.” In others—such as substituting filet mignon for cubed chuck in a pot of chili—the answer is, unequivocally, “no.” With audio amplifiers, however, the answers are seldom so cut-and-dried.

Through the years, many electronics manufacturers have attempted to refine the audio amplifier through sundry means few non-engineers can comprehend. I have heard many excellent amplifiers that incorporate these refinements, but I can seldom attribute to them any specific character of sound or quality of improvement. Furthermore, some engineers consider most esoteric circuit enhancements a waste of time and resources.

There is one refinement, though, on which practically every authority, from the ultra-conservative “everything-sounds-the-same” engineer to the rarified audiophile, agrees: fully differential construction. Author G. Randy Slone, the expert who wrote High-Power Audio Amplifier Construction Manual, describes differential construction as the “Cadillac” of amplifier designs; consider this accolade the highest level of compliment and forgive his limited familiarity with luxury automobiles.
 

The AT3000 does, in fact, sound great. It produces world-class bass, which comes as little surprise because bass reproduction has always been a strong point for ATI amps, and this is the company’s most-powerful, best-engineered amp to date. The bass sounds well-defined at all pitches, and even the deepest, loudest pipe-organ and synthesized bass notes do not overwhelm the AT3000.The midrange impresses me most. Vocals, dialogue, saxophones, pianos, electric guitars—all sound extremely clear with none of the unnatural, strained sound I typically hear from lesser amplifiers. I find it difficult to distinguish the AT3000’s midrange from that of two very high-end multi-channel amplifiers I have on hand.

The AT3000’s treble sounds clear and clean, never distorted, emphasized or unnatural. The treble sounds slightly less present than that of the audiophile amps I cited above; as a result, its stereo imaging is subtly less dramatic. However, it produces considerably more power and somewhat better bass performance than either of those amps. In my opinion, only those whose tastes tend toward large, full-range, audiophile-oriented speakers like Revel Salons or Wilson WATT/Puppies would benefit greatly from exploring more rarified amplifiers.

Reviewing the AT3000 is like reviewing a sports car that can reach 200 mph. In the same way that a Car & Driver writer knows his or her readers will never really actually drive that fast, I am certain that you will never be able to fully experience the limits of the AT3000’s enormous performance capacity.

DESCRIPTION
Two- to seven-channel audio amplifier with 300 watts per channel.

CONNECTIONS
Chassis-mounted RCA unbalanced and XLR balanced input jacks; five-way speaker-cable binding posts that accept bare wire, pins, spade connectors, banana plugs and double banana plugs; 1/8-inch mini-jack for auto turn-on/turn-off control from a surround-sound preamp/processor or a touch screen remote control system.

DIMENSIONS
9.8 x 17 x 21.5 inches (hwd); 19.1 inches installed depth in rack.

PRICE
$3,995 for seven-channel version ($1,995 for two-channel version, plus $400 for each additional channel).