Ashly FET-500 (1983–?)
What survives on the FET-500 is mostly trade-press announcements and Ashly's own advertising. No full independent review appears in the period sources available. The amp was Ashly Audio's follow-up to the FET-200, introduced about a year after that model and announced in Mix (September 1983, p.110) by Ashly Audio Inc. of Rochester, NY. It was built around sixteen MOS-FET output devices that were fully self-current-limiting, which let Ashly leave out the usual protective circuitry. The same announcement lists a high-energy power supply, generous heatsink area, a carefully designed cooling system, modular construction, balanced inputs, and three-color LED level indicators as standard.
A later news item in Recording Engineer (April 1986, p.115) lists a similar feature set - balanced inputs, tamper-proof rear-panel controls, mono/bridging selector switches, forced-air cooling, three-color LED output meters - and rates the FET-500 at 675 watts RMS per channel, with the FET-200 at 225 watts per channel. Ashly's own advertising two and a half years earlier had claimed "500 watts into 8 ohms and 800 watts into 4" (Mix, August 1983, p.71), and the ad leaned heavily on the FET-200's then-established reputation for sound and reliability. The two output figures may reflect different measurement conditions or a revised rating, but the sources don't reconcile them. Treat both numbers as period claims, not a settled spec.
The documented record, in short:
- Professional stereo power amplifier, MOS-FET output stage with 16 devices
- Self-current-limiting output - no protection circuitry needed
- Balanced inputs; modular construction
- Three-color LED output level meters; tamper-proof rear-panel controls
- Mono/bridging selector switches
- Forced-air fan cooling
- Advertised at 500W/8Ω and 800W/4Ω (1983); later listed at 675W/ch RMS (1986)
Beyond the output-rating discrepancy, little else is firmly documented. Production years, price, dimensions, and weight remain unrecorded in the sources we have.
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