The P3600 arrived this morning. It was the best packing job I've ever seen. A heavy duty box containing the original Phase Linear box. Advertised as "Open box new unit", I was skeptical until I opened the box. To my amazement, there it was, just as it was packed in 1982. If it were a baseball card, it would be graded a Gem Mint. I took a look at the jacks to look for telltales signs of ever being used. There were none. The User manual, warrantee card, the "Guide to trouble shooting your stereo units", and even a safety card, were perfect and still in original packaging. I sat back with a cup of coffee and dwelt on owning a brand new never used Phase Linear unit, contemplating 42 years ago, somebody twisted a tie wrap around the power cord, and set it in the box.
I hooked it up to the DBT, a mini mp3player, and a set of headphones, hit the switch... and nothing. No DBT light at all, and dead silence. I started the MP3 player and out came sweet music into my headphones. I had preordered capacitors in anticipation of a recap, but decided to run it through the big system while waiting for the Mouser parts to get here.
I set it up with a PL400 Full WOPL amp, fed by a Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD DVD/CD player, running a pair of JBL L7's.
And... Wow, the system is mind blowing. My choice of "First Tune" was "Arriving Somewhere, but Not Here" by Porcupine Tree. My PL3000 Series 2 are good preamps, but the sound quality of the P3600 is clearly superior. The biggest difference I noticed was at lower volumes. At somewhat quiet listening levels, the P3600 filled out the JBL's nicely, almost like having the Loudness button on, but without the bloated unnatural sound of said effect. Full, clean, clear. The 2 PL3000s are headed to Ebay land!
At higher volumes, like, 11 O'clock on the volume knob, the control of the bass was tight, the tweeters sang without screaming or distortion. I could visualize damaging my hearing not realizing how loud I actually had it, clarity and power being superb. If I dare say, the preamp gives the system a sound somewhere between the warmth of a Marantz, and clinical cleanliness of a Mac. If I were to give a direct comparison, it sounds close to the SAE system I had as a younger fella.
My Citation 11 holds no candle to this preamp, and while the PL3000 is good sounding preamp, neither compare to the purity of this preamp. I can hardly wait to do the recap and run some vinyl through the reportedly excellent phono section of the preamp. After that, I'm going hookup the recapped PL1100 equalizer, and the rebuilt with caps and IC's PL1200 Real Time Analyzer. I'm still on the hunt for the original PL microphone for the RTA, but in the meantime, I can still watch the pretty bars race up and down with input from the preamp.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
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So far so good with the Yihua desolder gun. I found the trick is to let it heat up real well and draw the old solder in while poking it with a supplied wire. After that, it seems to be OK. I haven't used the Hako, but I hear they are great.