Any Hafler Fans?

[Mark of Cenla]

I built my Hafler DH100 Preamp and DH220 Power Amp from kits back in the mid-80s. They are still going strong and sound great. Are there any other Hafler fans out there?

[pelly3s]

I love haflers, I do a lot of studio work and they are my amp of choice for small passive monitors. also the P-3000 makes a great low end amp in a bi-amp system. For the money I honestly don't think there is a better amp built.

[skeptic]

David Hafler was one of the great pioneers of high fidelity amplifier design. His first company Dynaco produced amplifers which competed with the best available at a fraction of their price. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, that meant McIntosh and Marantz. Acoustic Research used his amplifiers to demonstrate all of their power hungry models including AR3 and AR3a when they could just as easily have used the more expensive brands.

His philosophy was to use simple straight forward designs which were easy to build repeatably and which were reliable and offered the best performance the technology could attain at any given time. They were also easy to build as kits so that you could save even more money. He was late coming into solid state equipment because he didn't want to offer another me too product which performed poorly and unreliably the way other manufacturers did. He pioneered a bias circuit which had no adjustments because it never needed any, a first in solid state design and solve one weak point of other designs. My Stereo 120 lasted almost 25 years before it blew up. I have other Dynaco equipment that still performs perfectly after decades. The PAS3 preamp, Mark III power amps and even the Stereo 70 power amp are tube models which are collectors items which are in high demand to this day and there are many mods and upgrades for them from sources like Van Alstein. When he moved on to Hafler electronics, he took his philosophy with him and produced some of the most highly regarded amplifiers of the day (1970s thorugh 1980s) again at a much lower price than his competitors. I currently use a MOSFET 120 in my main system which is a lineal decendant of the Stereo 120 designed by Klaus/Peterson whose patents I've occasionally run across. I built it from a kit for a mere $200 10 years ago and in informal comparisons with fine amplifiers costing far more, it held its own against the best of them. The only thing I regret is that I didn't buy more Dynaco and Hafler equipment over the years.

For people "in the know", Dynaco and Hafler equipment was the most affordable way to the best technology could offer. You don't see many other people like him in this business anymore.

[AudioAlleyCat]

I used to own a Hafler DH 200. It wasnt bad for the money. The bass was a little fat, but a nice sound nonetheless.

[jeskibuff]

I bought a DH-110 preamp and a DH-500 amp in the mid 80s, both in kit form. I still have the DH-110, using it just for the phono preamp section. I sold the DH-500 on eBay a couple of years ago. It was a nice amp - only had one problem where one of the components suddenly flamed out (flames, literally). One of the printed circuit boards was replaced to repair it. Probably the thing I liked LEAST about it was the fan noise. But it was solid and powerful and an incredible value when compared with the rest of the market offerings.