Pioneer Elite A-35R Integrated Amplifier Review
You can’t buy a competent 4 ohm stable stereo amplifier for less than $200, can you? Yes you can and you can get it with a competent stereo preamplifier built in. But you may need to hurry. The Pioneer Elite A-35R will be replaced with a new model in the near future.
You know how audio nuts are. We’re always fiddling with something or upgrading something or adding something to our growing collection of gear. This week’s project was to add some decent audio to our bedroom TV set. I found the A-35R for $175 on-line and thought it might do a good job driving a little sub/sat speaker system that’s been in a closet for 10 years. That would give me better audio than the TV set itself for satellite TV and DVD viewing. So I ordered it.
My first reaction was disappointment when I read the manual. The unit could not be turned on and off with the remote. That would mean either getting out of bed to turn it off or letting it run all night after we turned everything else off. I didn’t like either option so I decided to bring the receiver that drives my upstairs stereo system to the TV project and install the A-35R in that system in its place. After all, I never use the remote with that system anyway.
As it turned out, it was the right way to go. My upstairs stereo system has two recording components – an old Nakamichi DR2 cassette deck that still plays a large collection of home made cassette tapes and a Teac CD recorder that I’m using to digitize my vinyl record collection. The Pioneer Integrated has two tape loops so now I can actually record to the cassette deck if I decide to do that and I can do it without fooling around with recabling the back panel.
I was a little concerned about the phono section in the A-35R because it is critical for my long term vinyl digitizing project. No need to worry. The phono stage has a clear, quiet output and enough gain to handle even high output moving coil cartridges along with moving magnets. Low output MC’s would be struggle, however. The specifications are a 2.8 mv sensitivity, 150mv output level and an 85 db S/N ratio for the phono stage – not bad at all.
In addition to the two tape loops and phono input, the unit features three additional line level inputs. It would be a complex stereo system indeed that needed any more than these six inputs. Source switching is accomplished either with the remote or with an input selector knob on the front panel. Indicator led’s let you know which input is currently selected. The line level stage and amplifier stage together have a 106 db noise floor. It is as quiet as the proverbial mouse.
The front panel has bass and treble tone controls and a balance control, a large volume control, and a headphone jack. There are also switches for a and b speaker pairs. Since the unit is 4 ohm stable you can play two pairs of 8 ohm speakers at the same time – something that is risky with many receivers and integrated amps. A direct switch causes the signal to bypass all the signal processing controls and feed the unvarnished signal to the speakers. An SB switch turns off the unit’s ability to be remote controlled. So, if you buy this unit to power a pair of surrounds, as an example, you can make it work just like a solo power amplifier but with complete manual control. You could even use the unit as a phono preamp, if you like, and prevent it from reacting to any remote control.
The speaker terminals for both pairs of speakers are strong and sturdy and the RCA jacks are spaced far enough apart to keep them out of each other’s hair. There was nothing on the back panel that caused me any concern at all.
Did I mention, how nice looking the shiny black finish is on the front panel? All Pioneer Elite components have this finish and it is quite attractive. I own a Pioneer Elite VSX-92THX receiver for my home theater as well. I’m getting very fond of the Pioneer Elite product line.
The amplifier is rated at 45 watts per channel RMS into 8 ohms and 65 watts per channel into 4. The frequency response is ruler flat and THD is an inaudible .3%. Is 45 watts per channel enough for you? I don’t know. It is overkill with my system in a spare-bedroom-sized listening room. It may not be enough to handle inefficient speakers in large listening rooms but it will handle the great majority of stereo systems without any problem at all. It is clearly more powerful than the 100 wpc rated receiver it replaced. Goes to show you the importance of how amplifer power is rated, not just what the rating numbers are.
So yes, you can buy a competent 4 ohm stable amplifier for less than $200 and get a competent preamplifier and good looks to boot. If you are in the market for a nice integrated amp get one while they’re available. They won’t be available much longer.
Oh, in case you wondered, the bedroom TV audio project worked out just fine.
