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the Threshold owners thread

Inside my S-450e amp. I saw it on eBay for $1,350 a few years back which is a GREAT price. It turned out to be a Pawn Shop in Schaumburg, IL. which was within driving distance. I called them, asked them to hold it, went out and picked it up for about $100 less after a very fun haggle. LOL DSCF4817.JPG
 
DaveThreshol said:
Inside my S-450e amp. I saw it on eBay for $1,350 a few years back which is a GREAT price. It turned out to be a Pawn Shop in Schaumburg, IL. which was within driving distance. I called them, asked them to hold it, went out and picked it up for about $100 less after a very fun haggle. LOL View attachment 1769780
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Serious business right there. Threshold has always had my respect.
 
damacman said:
I greatly enjoyed the PA-7 I owned in the mid '90s.
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I used one for a year or two and enjoyed it quite a bit. I've gone to tubes since then, but I've held onto the PA-7. I really should sell it though, since there is an upgrade to my tube power amp available and, if I sold that and the PA-7, I'd be 3/4 of the way there. But since nobody locally is interested, and I am not going to be shipping anything, I'm kind of stuck with what I have.
 
Wow, I havent been back here is a while, surprised to see this old thread on the front page. I am still rocking out with my Threshold system, still looking for some big infinity's to match up with it. I hope everyone is doing well.
 
Anyone care to rank Threshold Power amps from best to worst?

I started with a stock S/200 OB, and bought a Jon Soderberg worked on S/150 II just today.

Which of course means that I'm getting a head start on trying to figure out what to replace it with whiles its still warming up and hasnt even played music for me.......
 
I haven't enough of them to be able to rate such a large family, but it seems the ones with fewer output devices generally sounded better. While Harry Pearson praised the song of the Stasis 2 in with issue 19 (Sept 1980), he was not a fan of the similarly powered model One that had twice as many outputs.

"It sounds less like a solid state design than any transistorized amp we have auditioned, including the Mark Levinson ML-2."
 
Ampslut said:
Anyone care to rank Threshold Power amps from best to worst?

I started with a stock S/200 OB, and bought a Jon Soderberg worked on S/150 II just today.

Which of course means that I'm getting a head start on trying to figure out what to replace it with whiles its still warming up and hasnt even played music for me.......
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I would put any of Nelson Pass' Class A designs at the head of the class. Of course they're pricey and run hot, but then most all of his amps are space heaters.
 
Tedrick said:
I would put any of Nelson Pass' Class A designs at the head of the class. Of course they're pricey and run hot, but then most all of his amps are space heaters.
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I'm thinking of the Pass Aleph 1.2, a 200w monoblock, weighting 130 pounds (in the form of a cube covered in cooling fins), that idles at 500w due to running in pure class A. I'll bet it sounds wonderful, but the one party who would be happiest is my electric utility company. :D
 
Tedrick said:
I would put any of Nelson Pass' Class A designs at the head of the class. Of course they're pricey and run hot, but then most all of his amps are space heaters.
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I'm thinking out of the Threshold brand vintage amps, as those are the ones I can afford. And even if I could afford to jump to some more modern Pass amps, I would still like to work my way up chronologically like I did with Sansui's before jumping to a new line.

Wildcat said:
I'm thinking of the Pass Aleph 1.2, a 200w monoblock, weighting 130 pounds (in the form of a cube covered in cooling fins), that idles at 500w due to running in pure class A. I'll bet it sounds wonderful, but the one party who would be happiest is my electric utility company. :D
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Doesn't sound that bad to be honest..... 360 KWH a month. Anyone heating with electricity in the winter only needs a Dyson fan (30KWH/month when running 24/7) to circulate air and keep the house temperature even throughout.

Then the electric is free.

Im in a basement where the upstairs controls the heat and I run an average temperature of 64 degrees in the basement, and that's running the 1500w heater about 4 hours a day before I got the s/200, and s/150 (up to 68 when Im home, down to 60 overnight)

Even in my situation, I could replace the heater with a heater (Aleph 1.2) and it would only cost about $36 Canadian dollars a month. (180kwh @ $0.20)

As you can see...... Landlord has no idea I use 100KWH a month for a Power amp. Doesn't show on the electric bill.
 
Ampslut said:
I'm thinking out of the Threshold brand vintage amps, as those are the ones I can afford. And even if I could afford to jump to some more modern Pass amps, I would still like to work my way up chronologically like I did with Sansui's before jumping to a new line.
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I understand. Nelson Pass owned Threshold and designed all of the their amps until the end of 1991 when he left to start Pass Labs. More than a dozen of the amps designed and marketed during that time were Class A.

You should also expand your search to include early Forte amps. Forte was Threshold's "budget" line, budget being a relative term only in comparison to the Threshold line. Mr. Pass still waived his magic wand over the Forte amps, and the family resemblance in design, build, and performance is unmistakable. The Model 1, 1a, and 3 are all Nelson Pass designs, sound excellent, and can be had for much less money than a similarly-powered Threshold amp. I own several Forte amps, including two Model 3's, and can attest to their build quality and sound.
 
Wildcat said:
I'm thinking of the Pass Aleph 1.2, a 200w monoblock, weighting 130 pounds (in the form of a cube covered in cooling fins), that idles at 500w due to running in pure class A. I'll bet it sounds wonderful, but the one party who would be happiest is my electric utility company. :D
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A possible end-game amp, for sure. I love the look of that generation of Pass amp. I'm sure they sound amazing, too.

And yes, you would probably need to install a dedicated air conditioner for your listening room.
 
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Ampslut said:
Even in my situation, I could replace the heater with a heater (Aleph 1.2) and it would only cost about $36 Canadian dollars a month. (180kwh @ $0.20)
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I like the practical approach to ownership. :D

Tedrick said:
A possible end-game amp, for sure. I love the look of that generation of Pass amp. I'm sure they sound amazing, too.

And yes, you would probably need to install a dedicated air conditioner for your listening room.
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Definitely wouldn't need a space heater. On the other hand, a pair of Aleph 1.2s would likely throw off less heat than the C-J Premier 8 monoblocks I've looked at. They use eight 6550 or KT-120 output tubes each. My room faces to the south and gets rather toasty in the summer, and also happens to be furthest from the HVAC system. But they might be good for winter use to heat the room, toast marshmallows, etc... ;)
 
I want to be apart of this thread , I love Threshold and have some gear. I thought I was the only one .... thanks for starting this thread !!!@
 
I found this Thread looking to see if I have my mono blocks hooked up to my FET ONE correctly, it works but it dawned on me last light that I might not have it connected correctly...:eek:
 
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