Hafler DH-500A
A high-power Hafler that buyers in the mid-1980s could find new in the back pages of the audio magazines for hundreds below what the big dealers charged.
Overview
The DH-500A is the factory-assembled version of Hafler's DH-500 power amplifier. The mail-order prices show where it sat in the lineup. In a February 1988 Audio classified, Q Audio listed the DH-500A as new stock at $595. That is a wide gap between "new" mail-order stock and dealer list. It was a serious high-power amplifier, and discounters used it as a loss-leader to pull in catalog shoppers.
The professional side of the catalog gives some context. Modern Recording (January 1984, p.49) reviewed the David Hafler P500 professional amplifier and noted that its internal circuitry was not too unlike that of the company's Model DH-500A, which the magazine described as intended for high-powered home audio installations. Per that review, the differences were mainly in the professional version's provision for a variety of input connections and options, both balanced and unbalanced inputs among them. So the DH-500A was the home-facing sibling of a pro amp, and the review treats the two as sharing a circuit lineage rather than being separate designs.
The sources available here don't document what the DH-500A delivered in watts, distortion, damping and so on, so this page won't guess. What is documented is how it was sold and how it was regarded. Mix (1984, p.14) credited the David Hafler Company with a reputation for producing state-of-the-art power amplifiers at rock-bottom prices, and singled out the DH-220 and DH-500 as amplifiers well known for sound quality, reliability, and value. The DH-500A sits in that lineage, sold through both full-service dealers and the back-of-the-book discounters.
Hafler's catalog of the period used K and A suffixes - K for kit, A for assembled - and the DH-500A carried the A. The Oxford Audio ads spell out the pricing gap: the DH-500K kit was $675 while the DH-500A assembled unit was $850, and the export variants (DH-500KE and DH-500AE) ran $20 higher in each case. Buyers who wanted to save money and didn't mind a soldering iron bought the kit. Buyers who wanted the warranty and someone else's handiwork bought the A. Oxford's ads also noted a three-year warranty on assembled units.
By the late 1980s the DH-500A was still in the dealer channel but increasingly a discount item. The 1987 Audio ads from Oxford still list it at $850 alongside the newer XL280, which the dealer was pitching at $600 with the line that it could be compared to "a straight wire with gain." The DH-500A wasn't the newest thing in the lineup anymore, but it was still the big-power option. Q Audio's $595 new-stock price in early 1988 suggests the model was moving into closeout territory.
The DH-500A is a Hafler power amp from the era when the company's reputation for value was at its peak. It was sold through both the mail-order channel and the traditional dealer network, and it shares circuitry with a professional amplifier that working studios used. The caveats are the usual ones for a Hafler of this vintage: it's an older amplifier, it will likely need service, and the assembled units command a premium over the kits. The magazine ads and the Modern Recording review pin down what the DH-500A was and who it was for, even though the spec sheet is missing from the record.
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