Be honest Jacco you were smitten by the meters….
The ‘e’ in SA/1e means E Series Balanced?
Just bought a black and silver pair (non ‘e’) and a former tech from WBS advised me to install speakerprotection inside the amps because apart from the railfuses and circuitbreaker, they have no DC sensing protection.
Do you think that’s a good idea?
Hi Robert!
Thanks for your nice wrap up! It’s fascinating to know the story behind of the gears to such a level!
Yeah, unit number 1 is at the moment with me and luckily it is in a perfect working condition. Of course if Papa wants to have it back we can come up with a solution!
My side of the story is this:
Initially I was feeding a black Threshold SA3 stereo via a Sony TA-E88 which belonged to my father, and I was intensely doing my homework and reading about other Papas preamps to replace the Sony give it back to him. When the PCR-1 pop up in internet, I was overly confused as I couldn’t find any information about it! So I ignored it initially. Some days later my father told me about that he also saw this unit and not sure what is it exactly. So I told him I’ll take a risk and give it a shot..
Your story about 15 years ago make it more mysterious about the whereabout of this unit in the past 15 years!
Maybe the last owner reads this forum one day and let us know!
By the way, those Statis 1 monos are real looker, never saw a pair up for sale! Do you know any for sale by chance?
So Ronald Fischer owns some pairs of SA1s?
I saw in some post you got SA1s as well as pass X350 if I am not wrong. How do you like them?
Regards,
Karl
Thanks for your nice wrap up! It’s fascinating to know the story behind of the gears to such a level!
Yeah, unit number 1 is at the moment with me and luckily it is in a perfect working condition. Of course if Papa wants to have it back we can come up with a solution!
My side of the story is this:
Initially I was feeding a black Threshold SA3 stereo via a Sony TA-E88 which belonged to my father, and I was intensely doing my homework and reading about other Papas preamps to replace the Sony give it back to him. When the PCR-1 pop up in internet, I was overly confused as I couldn’t find any information about it! So I ignored it initially. Some days later my father told me about that he also saw this unit and not sure what is it exactly. So I told him I’ll take a risk and give it a shot..
Your story about 15 years ago make it more mysterious about the whereabout of this unit in the past 15 years!
Maybe the last owner reads this forum one day and let us know!
By the way, those Statis 1 monos are real looker, never saw a pair up for sale! Do you know any for sale by chance?
So Ronald Fischer owns some pairs of SA1s?
I saw in some post you got SA1s as well as pass X350 if I am not wrong. How do you like them?
Regards,
Karl
Hi Karl,
The Stasis 1 is very seldom offered. Mostly in Japan where it choosen by a magazine as audio product of the year 1980 I believe with the Mark Levinson ML-7 pre-amp.
Your SA/12’s are the culmination of the Threshold SA Series and probably the best Stasis amplifiers.
I have two pairs of SA/1, a black and silver version, a pair of Pass Labs X600.5’s and an old Stasis 3.
Of course the 600.5’s are great but from Pass I think the single-ended XA160 & 200 where the best but that’s a guess based on what these talented DIY people are building here.
The Stasis 1 is very seldom offered. Mostly in Japan where it choosen by a magazine as audio product of the year 1980 I believe with the Mark Levinson ML-7 pre-amp.
Your SA/12’s are the culmination of the Threshold SA Series and probably the best Stasis amplifiers.
I have two pairs of SA/1, a black and silver version, a pair of Pass Labs X600.5’s and an old Stasis 3.
Of course the 600.5’s are great but from Pass I think the single-ended XA160 & 200 where the best but that’s a guess based on what these talented DIY people are building here.
Last edited:
Unfortunately, our dear friend Jacco moved to Sky Prairies
One thing is sure, knowing his spirit, in case of reply given, it will be in form of poop from above
to Jacco
Apart from the awkward mistake I made to address a well regarded former member that has passed away, I still wonder if a DC protectioncircuit like this Canadian made Guardian-86 module: https://neurochrome.com/products/guardian-86
would be beneficial for my Threshold SA/1 also in due of the 35 years of service they already have?
would be beneficial for my Threshold SA/1 also in due of the 35 years of service they already have?
Interesting, do you know what are the main design differences between SA series and older Statis 1s/e ?
also what’s are the differences between SA1es and SA1s? Only the balance section?
Usually it’s suggested not to use additional protection circuit as it “could“ affect the music itself, but apart from that if you are concerned about the speakers it’s not bad to implement it. I would always stick to the process of turning on sources first and the power amp last and vice versa for turning everything off by starting from the powers, also stick to volume at min for the preamp, this would put away the risk of damaging the speakers. And never remove any cable in the chain while the system is on, even when pre is at min volume while turned on.
I believe that the frontend of the Stasis 1, 2 & 3 had an extra amplifierstage compared to the later versions.
'e' series for the SA/1 meant balanced provision with a switch to choose balanced XLR input or RCA.
Update was 900 USD
That's of course standard practice but it won't help if your amp has an internal misfunction and puts out 40 Volts of DC on its speakerterminals...
Threshold did not write this warning in CAPITALS for nothing I reckon.
I have to say I'm surprised to see such a current thread for these amps. I've had a pair of SA/1 for twenty-four years now. They have proven updgrade-proof in all that time. They visited Jon Soderberg years and years ago, but I've forgotten what he did. I think the power supply caps may finally need replacing.
In years past I also had an S/500 and an electronic cross-over which I used to power a pair of Apogee Stages with DIY mini-Grand-like subs. I miss those, but needed the floor space for our kids, who were young at that time. I still regret selling that cross-over. I've never seen another for sale.
In years past I also had an S/500 and an electronic cross-over which I used to power a pair of Apogee Stages with DIY mini-Grand-like subs. I miss those, but needed the floor space for our kids, who were young at that time. I still regret selling that cross-over. I've never seen another for sale.
Great to hear that you have the SA/1’s for such a long time. As said before Threshold amps are rarely seen in repairservice shops in my experience. I love them and they are powerful enough to power my Infinity’s fullrange to very loud levels. And they look great too according to my wife.
I power them up with a big Variac to expand the life of the Airpax circuitbreaker and avoid the thump over my speakers. I also can keep them on a 220 Volt AC as they were designed for.
I power them up with a big Variac to expand the life of the Airpax circuitbreaker and avoid the thump over my speakers. I also can keep them on a 220 Volt AC as they were designed for.
After keeping up with this thread since '16 it seems I have opportunity to comment. Just agreed to purchase a pair of SA-12es to replace my SA2s that I've had in my system for years. Originally purchased individually one from the east coast one from Colorado two years apart they were sequentially serial numbered. First driving a centre channel then a pair of Infinity Ren 90s. Selling the Rent and requiring a pair of Kappa 9's has left the SA2s a little underpowered. So after much debating I decided to get the 12es. Will be picking them up when I head to my winter home before the snow flies. Anyway here is my question, I had the SA2s recapped some years ago by the late Dan Santoni and we ended up upping the capacitance to 240,000mF per replacing the 2x27,00mf caps with 4x60,000. We also upgraded the rectifiers. Given the age of the 12es I'm assuming I'lll need to swap the power caps here soon, any thoughts as to sizing up from the stock caps? Also figuring new rectifiers will benefit the amp as well?
Hoping to solicit any experience with this particular amp. As my friend who has passed would provide a sounding board for my upgrade ideas, figured to get a sense of practice limits with capacitance on the 12es. Generally been a go big or go home kinda guy but as with anything sometimes more can create its own set of problems.
Love that! Earlier in the thread someone was discussing the replacement of the 12e caps using 100v caps. I seem to recall when upgrading S500s and SA2 that 75v was sufficient. Much bigger capacitors available today at 75v than in 1980. There is a 41,000 and 46,000 that should fit from CDE at 75v. 46,000x8 would be a drek if my math works!
So without the amps apart in front of me I would like to order the parts to have them ready when I get these back in Canada. Seem IXYS has a large amount back ordered so wondering which part # would work best for these amps to get an order in now? Any advice here would be appreciated thanks.