The M-5000 and A-S3200 share many features. (Curiously, they've chosen to rename what used to be called the Tape Loop it's now just Line 2, which has inputs and outputs "for external components that feature analog audio in/out jacks," says the manual.) There's also a Pre Out and a Main In, so you can use it only as a preamp or only as a power amplifier, should you be so inclined.Īll the single-ended inputs connect to a balanced circuit, which, Shea said, "releases the ground to float it off the ground shield of the RCA cable as soon as it gets into the receiver and sends it balanced all the way through to the speaker terminals." The remaining inputs, which feature old-school labelingPhono, Tuner, CD, Line 1, Line 2are single-ended. Because most Yamaha users use single-ended cables, there are only two sets of balanced inputs on the rear panel. ![]() The A-S3200 is a class-AB, fully balanced, floating design. We need to be able to turn transistors on and have them send power down the speaker wire instantaneously so that all frequencies go through at the same time." "The whole idea for the amp is to get power from the wall to the speakers when it's supposed to get there. "Many elements of the A-S3200 were considered for their low impedance," Shea said. The fruits of his team's efforts are the 5000-series power amp, preamp, turntable, and speakers. After a reviewer told him that the amp spec'd out perfectly but didn't move himthe stereotypical criticism of Japanese products is that their sound is accurate but not musicalhe started from the ground up to develop a musical design." "He and his team were also in charge of engineering an earlier predecessor. "The M-5000 is our no-holds-barred amplifier that, together with the C-5000 preamp ($9995.95), took Chief Sound Designer Susumu Kumazawa 14 years to develop," Shea told me by phone. My eagerness to review the A-S3200 increased when 35-year Yamaha employee Phil Shea, currently Yamaha USA's marketing content development manager, told me that the A-S3200's amplifier section is very similar to that of the flagship M-5000 stereo amplifier ($9995.95). (A good start, in a few cases, would be to write one.) If only some high-end companies with far more expensive products would take the same care with their product manuals. ![]() I returned to the 21st century upon examining the multi-language owner's manual and noting that it was free of the kind of Japanese-to-English mistranslations that made some of Yamaha's early manuals so much fun to read. When I first saw the A-S3200's retro, double-meter look and discovered that it has bass and treble tone controls and a front-panel headphone jack, l experienced a moment of time-travel déjàvu. Hence, when Jim Austin proposed that I review the brand-new, top-of-theline Yamaha A-S3200 integrated amplifier ($7499.95), I was eager to discover just how far the company's designs had progressed since I was in my 30s. Yamaha was in a different league (footnote 1). Everyone who ever had a cheap receiver blow upthat's what caused me to move from Kenwood to Pioneeror heard an old Akai that made LPs sound like 128kbps MP3s, please raise your hands. Yamaha: The name evokes memories of my youth when those much-coveted receivers were out of financial reach, leading me to rely upon entry-level Kenwoods and Pioneers and others that sounded worse.
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