Hafler DH-160
A Hafler equalizer that the used-gear ads priced at $119 while the rest of the rack ran into four figures.
Period coverage of the DH-160 is thin, but Audio (April 1983, p.74) reported harmonic distortion below 0.035% in mid-band and IM distortion close to the test meter's 0.002% residual.
Overview
The DH-160 is the equalizer in Hafler's line, and the paper trail on it is almost entirely the resale column. Audio Classics, the Walton, New York dealer, ran standing classifieds in the audio press through the late Eighties and early Nineties. It listed the DH-160 at $119 in issue after issue - the same $119 in the July 1991 Audio, the August 1991 Audio, and the November 1991 Audio. That price shows where the unit sat. It was below the four-figure preamps and CD players sharing the page, and in the same bracket as a used McIntosh MQ102 at $75 or an MQ104 at $175.
The Audio Classics listings show a different number earlier. In the April 1988 Audio classifieds, the same dealer carried the DH-160 at $225 against an original list price of $375. That is notably higher than the $119 in the 1991 ads. Whether it reflects a price cut, a different version, or the dealer's changing margin is not documented. The $375 list and the $119 street price are two points on the same line, not a contradiction. The equalizer was evidently discounted heavily as the decade turned.
Hafler's own advertising in the mid-Eighties pushed the DH-100K, DH-100A, DH-110K, DH-110A, and DH-120K as the core of the line. The DH-160 sat off to the side as the tone-shaping accessory, not the centerpiece. It was never the reason someone bought into Hafler. It was what they added once they already had the preamp and the power amp and wanted a little more control over the room.
The one useful piece of measured data on the DH-160 is Audio's April 1983 equipment profile, where the magazine's test bench put the unit through its paces. It reported harmonic distortion below 0.035% in mid-band and IM distortion close to the test meter's 0.002% residual (Audio, April 1983, p.74). That review is the source for any claim about how the DH-160 performed. The numbers there are the only independent verification of the equalizer's behavior that survives in the period literature.
The surviving documentation on the DH-160 is thin. There's no service manual excerpt in the archive, no owner's manual, no spec sheet. The magazine profile exists, and the dealer listings exist, and that's about the extent of it.
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