By
Brent Butterworth
Don't feel like you're hopelessly unhip if you've never heard of Audio Design Associates. Better known as ADA, this White Plains, New York, company specializes in products designed for custom installation. You won't find ADA products at many retail dealers, but you will find them in many of the country's best, most opulent custom-installed home theaters. Thus, many of the people lucky enough to be listening to ADA electronics probably couldn't even tell you the brand of the amps in their theater.
The PTM-6150 shows its custom-install heritage in its chassis, which clearly favors rack-mounting. It has a large cooling fan on the side, which can get slightly noisy if the amp's just sitting out in the open. (Installing it in an enclosed rack will silence it, though, and we never noticed the noise when listening.) The back panel offers only banana-type speaker connectors, which are recessed. This obviously limits you to using banana or Deltron plugs, which never bothered us. You can't bridge its 150-watt channels. THX certification is still pending.
If you like the in-your-face ostentation of spectrum analyzers, humongous meters, and lots of bright lights, the PTM-6150 is definitely your amp. A paisley Ferrari might not attract as much attention as the PTM-6150's big, bright-red LED level meters. Those who prefer a more understated look can shut the meters off.
The build-quality is solid, but not showy-the PTM-6150 looks like a pro audio amplifier. Thus, it's not the kind of product you'll want to display prominently, like those pretty, brushed-aluminum high-end amps that audiophiles tend to leave out in the middle of the room. But for the PTM-6150's functionality, we'll forgive. All of its connectors and switches are of top quality, and the chassis is definitely built to last.
Sonically, the PTM-6150 just kills everything in its path, bettering not only the less-expensive amps and the underachieving Perreaux MC 6100, but even beating out the Acurus combo, which has been our reference home-theater amp complement for a couple of years now. The PTM-6150 costs less and sounds smoother than the Acurus pair, and offers an extra channel to boot. Disc after disc, we just couldn't find anything to complain about. The sound was always warm and undistorted; voices were incredibly intelligible. Dynamics equalled those of the Acurus rig and bettered those of the other amps we tested. My listening notes started with "Wow!" and contained six more exclamation points after that. ADA vice-president Al Langella obviously put in many hours of critical listening when he designed this one.
If you can swing the two bills and don't mind hunting down an ADA dealer, this is the multichannel amp to get. Partner it with a great surround processor, like the Proceed PAV or ADA's own SSD-66, and you'll have the state of the art in home-theater audio electronics.
I have way too many
hobbies, so I know well the stomach-churning experience of spending thousands
of dollars on gear with at best a magazine review and a quick test-drive
at the dealer to go on. If you're in the same place right now with your
audio electronics, rest easy-the ADA really is an absolute killer amp, at
a very reasonable price. I can't imagine anyone going wrong with it, unless
there's no ADA dealer nearby.
For those who don't want to drive a long way to buy an amp (or drop it off for servicing), I think the Carver AV-806X makes a great choice. It's almost as smooth as the ADA; I enjoyed it with all the CDs and laserdiscs we tried. And it's a couple hundred less expensive, too.
I didn't enjoy the Rane SSA 6's bright sound as much as the Carver's, but if I had some speakers that needed a little extra kick in the highs, I'd probably choose it over the AV-806X. I'd have to go back to using zip cord, though, because of the SSA 6's strange speaker connectors, and that alone would be enough reason for me to choose the Carver instead.
I love high-end audio electronics, but I think that in every case, they
should offer some clear benefit that makes them worth the extra bucks. The
Perreaux MC 6100 doesn't. I know of some considerably less expensive amps
that sound better, so I can't think of any reason to recommend 
the MC 6100.
Brent Butterworth
Being new to this,
I was pleasantly surprised that even I could tell a difference in the sound
of these amps. Locked away with Corey, Brent, and Christy in the recesses
of the studio, I learned why I like to crank the bass up on my car radio-because
the sound is compressed, which is how the Perreaux amp sounded to me. It
was lacking the deepest bass sounds and not worth the money. And the Carver
was definitely my least favorite because the bass was missing. To some people,
it is probably important to hear those middle sounds, but I like to crank
it up and be kicked by the bass.
Choosing the right amp is about personal taste, and in my book, value.
If money weren't an object, I'd choose the ADA amp. It's balanced and the
sound was deep and high. But in the real world, where I am a value-conscious
shopper (I'm that person with the stack of coupons you don't want to be
behind at the grocery store), the Rane felt good to me: It was bright and
enjoyable, the way home theater should be. Plus, with the $400 I'd save
by buying the Rane, I could finally get a great VCR, too.
Sheila Trevett-Hunter
Though sitting in
a dimmed room staring at the foam on the wall is not exactly my idea of
stimulating, my first critical listening experience really was enlightening.
I found out that, even to my unskilled ears, there were noticeable differences
between the top of this pack of amps and the bottom. My favorite, for both
movies and music, was without a doubt the ADA. None of the others could
live up to the realistic reproduction offered by ADA. Stereo recordings
really pointed out the ADA's ability to deliver strong, solid sound without
making more complex sounds jumbled and confused. I had a bit of trouble
finding differences among these units when it came to home-theater applications,
but the ADA still had a sound preferable to the rest. Water really sounded
drippy, instead of the Jello-almost-jelled sound of the rest.
The Carver and Rane tied for second place on my amateur ratings scale. I enjoyed the sound of the Carver more than that of the Rane on stereo recordings. It wasn't as clear as the ADA, but for the price, the Carver sounded good. And when it came to hearing movies, I couldn't tell any difference between these two.
The Perreaux was my least favorite of the amplifiers: I have to credit
it for reminding us about a lot of forgotten Ross Perot jokes, but it was still the brussels sprout
of the bunch.
Christy Grosz
Without a doubt,
the ADA was the best-sounding amp by a wide margin. Clean and powerful,
the ADA never sounded strained, even during the loudest passages, and had
the strongest and most detailed bass of the group. I also heard the most
clearly defined sense of 3-D space with it.
The Carver offers a basically neutral sound for a good price. Its somewhat rolled-off high end and rich bottom end make for a less open sound than the ADA, and its dynamics aren't as lively as the Rane's. But the midrange is clean, open, and not as forward-sounding as the Rane. The Carver's sound is very non-fatiguing even at high levels, while the Rane tended to strain when pushed to its limits. The Rane is brighter and has a leaner, more restrained bottom end. If you like a warm, meaty sound, go for the Carver-if you like a bright, upfront, dynamic sound, get the Rane.
All I can say about the Perreaux is "Ugh." A serious underachiever
and a big disappointment, it was the most expensive and my least favorite.
Not neutral at all, it has a bass heaviness that adds a chesty coloration
to voices, and its midrange is congested enough that dialog intelligibility
is marred compared with the other amps. A murky, confused, boring sound
overall, it was the only amp of the four I distinctly disliked on both music and movies.
Corey Greenberg
Audio Design Associates, Inc - www.ada-usa.com - 1-800-43-AUDIO or (914) 946-9595