TEAC A-R300 Amplifier

The first thing that hit the eye in the amplifier TEAC A-R300 is a big round of the volume control in the center and two symmetrically located handles of regulations of the smaller diameter. Certainly almost in any amplifier with distance control the volume control is motorized, but the developers of A-R300 found their simple joint to be not enough. At pressing power off button the handle of the regulator turns itself to the zero. After power on the motor again rotates the volume control independently, installing the same position which was before turning off. In addition, electronics remembers the position of the volume control regulator for each input! For example, you listened to tuner, then switched to the tape recorder and changed the volume. But when the tuner will be again chosen by the selector, the volume, which was installed before, will be recovered. The function is of course funny, but is it so necessary? If you turn off the amplifier TEAC A-R300 when it worked at high volume level, at turning on the volume control will be set at not far than the middle position. TEAC A-R300 has a microphone input with the regulator of sensitivity. The fact of MIC input presence causes some confusion. Perhaps the karaoke lovers will appreciate such possibility. The back panel is simple and designed technically correctly: all low voltage connectors are located on the one edge at the maximum distance from power supply. There are the connectors for the connection of distance control bus and external equalizer. The remote control, in addition to the amplifier TEAC A-R300, allows you to control the entire audio set: tuner, two tape-recorders and CD-player. The moments happen when you need to lower quickly the volume, for example to talk on the phone. Certainly, you can just turn off the volume by pressing the power off button of the speaker systems or by switching to another input, but this is not always nice, we still want to hear music, but quieter. It is important here to choose the coefficient of volume decrease. It is definitely depends on original volume level, but the decrease of 20 dB (in 10 times) like in this amplifier is very close to the optimal value. The lack of loudness a bit disappoints. Loudness is often excluded from amplifiers, believing that it makes a significant distortion. But, probably, not the idea is guilty in this, but imperfection of implementation.

Quiet and distant plates in the fragment of "the Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky seemed to be slightly "blurred"; a little dimness of high frequencies is felt in the total picture of the symphonic orchestra, which causes a feeling of a crowded concert hall... At the same time the solo instruments like violins, reed pipes or flutes sound quite clear and freely with detailed draughtsmanship. On the contrary, the playback of pop (Rebecca Pidgeon) and instrumental music (Miller Anderson) was quite bright corresponding to the properties of the records. TEAC A-R300 confidently "holds" the orchestra at different volume levels, accurately placing all the instruments at the stage in accordance with the "table of ranks".