Editor's Choice - Recommended for driving any speakers

Reviewer: Brent Butterworth, CFG Labs

ATI impressed us back in January '97 with the neutral sound and amazing build quality of its AT1506 amp and the new AT1505 follows in the same vein. Weighing in at 73 pounds, this 200-watt-per-channel amp has a huge toroidal transformer and a separate, vertically mounted plug-in circuit card for each of its five channels. Each card, in turn, has its own heatsink (eliminating the need for a cooling fan) and two large 10,000 microFarad storage capacitors to help it hit the loud peaks with ease. Along with sturdy RCA input jacks, the back panel features a DB-25 input (for single-cable hookup to processors with a DB-25 output) and excellent speaker binding posts. In a three-way mini Face Off with a $2,000 ADA PTM-6150 and a $3,595 Classé CAV-150, Brent found that the AT1505 sounded "more dynamic, more punchy and more immediate" than the competition. He characterized the 1505's midrange as somewhere between the ADA's slightly bright sound and the Classé's warmth - "neutral, but without the lushness or depth of the other amps". The trebles had depth galore, however, and made instruments sound as if they were being played "on a real stage extending 10 or 20 feet behind the speaker". In the final analysis, this is a recommended amp for driving any speakers, but especially inefficient full-range models.

ATI AT1505 Five-Channel Amplifier $1,695