Samson Servo 120a 120-Watt Power Amplifier

Great amplifier. Arrived well packed and quickly. ZERO issues upon set up and use over 45 days. AMP is QUIET - no fans - no hiss - no hum. I have another amplifier that is very well regarded here on Amazon and in audiophile circles and it is a more colorful amp (if you prefer that) however it is not nearly as resistant to noise and ground loops - the exact same connections on the other amp produce a hum and hiss that is not present on the Servo 120a. This is billed aa a neutral, quiet, powerful, clean, STUDIO quality amp - and those are all TRUE. I liked this amp so much I ordered the Servo 600 - which is a fan cooled model - based on it's reviews - just to see what the upper end of the Servo Family can do for my system. Note: YOU DO NOT NEED more power for typical high quality home stereo speakers - even high end ones - this puts out a TRUE high current signal that will play all but the least efficient speaks at SPL your neighbors will probably object to (or not if they share your playlist taste) and do it CLEANLY - this amp is CLEAN and QUIET. If you want more - than BRIDGE THIS AMP and get the full power into one channel and buy a second one for your stereo set up. At this price and quality you can stack 5-11 of these in your rack for all the surround options you could imagine and have enough power on tap to light the city block. However, if you just like to have the extra overhead, like your music at the hearing-loss level, or have inefficient speakers and bridging the Servo 120a is still not enough for you...then look at the Servo 600, Behringer A500, or Crown XLi2500. Everyone should start with the 120a and own at least one of these amps as a baseline in their gear for testing and reference.

Short version: They break after two months and the support is levels of terrible beyond anything I've experienced.Long version: Sit tight, and hear my tale of woe.I purchased this to replace a beloved Samson Servo 170 that had produced beautiful sound for over twenty years.The 120a sounded just as good... for two months. Then, distortion and crackling noises began coming through the left channel. I worked with the seller (who did fabulous, by the way; top marks to MusicStoreLive!) to exchange it for a replacement, which arrived quickly.Two months in, THAT one developed a hissing noise, this time in the right channel.This time, the manufacturer took OVER A MONTH to get me an RMA and send me a new unit.Except the unit was NOT new. THEY SENT ME BACK THE EXACT SAME UNIT I'D RETURNED BROKEN IN THE FIRST PLACE. I still had a record of the serial number from when I'd originally purchased it and checked. They hadn't even cleaned off the dust pattern left on it. And yes, the same awful distortion and crackling noises in the left channel were still there, just as they had been before.By this time, MusicStoreLive had graciously granted me a refund, but now I was contacting Samson directly to try to get a functional unit. This time, new RMA in hand, I sent back the unit. Four days later, I called back to get a tracking number, and no replacement had shipped.I cannot tell you enough to STAY AWAY FROM ANY SAMSON PRODUCT. The company that made my trusty Servo 170 is gone, replaced by a batch of rabid weasels on crack who somehow deem themselves a professional audio equipment company. In fact, if they'd sent me a box full of rabid cocaine-addled weasels instead of my old, still-broken amp back to me, I'd have a slightly higher opinion of them, because while they would still have expressed the same aggressive level of apathy and customer hatred, at least there is a kind of honesty to it. And after humanely putting them to sleep (and getting my shots) I could make a coat or leg-warmers out of their skins or something, and at least get something USEFUL for my time.Samson's hair has been shorn; nothing but a pitiful slave to the Philistines remains.

I really like that the VU meters both show the signal when you are in bridged mode. Most amplifiers only show the VU meter on the side you're plugged in. The amp itself is quiet, and amplifies great. One thing I dislike about it is the lack of 1/4" outputs. Maybe I'm the only one, but I assume that a rack mounted amplifier would be used for live sound, and as such would be connected to a speaker with a 1/4" jack. I've thought about pulling it apart and installing one, but instead I just bought a banana jack to 1/4" adapter. It works, but I'm not gigging very much with this piece of equipment. If I were, I wouldn't trust that banana jack adapter.The first one I received didn't work. The box that it arrived in indicated that it may have been damaged in transit. Since it came directly from Samson, I called their customer support. That was kind of a disappointing debacle. I ended up talking to several different "techs" who all agreed that the amp was not working. I thought they'd just give me a return tag, and get me a new one. Instead, they kind of tried to get me to pay to ship it back - so, I returned it to Amazon and just bought it again.

I bought this as an addition to my 308i Portable PA so I could dual use the PA speakers as a monitors in my home studio I find the fan a bit loud in the i308 for lower volume listening (in a live setting you usually can't hear the fan on the 308) so the Servo 120a solved that issue for me since there is no fan cooling with the added benefit don't have to setup the i308 mixer when using the PA speakers as monitors in my home studio. Easy to setup and great sound and construction quality would highly recommend if you need a quiet power amp for the studio - 60 watts per channel is more than enough for my needs and suspect that would be true for most in a studio setting.