[AirX]

Okay guys, I'm a fairly young and inexperienced hi-fi'er but I do spend a good amount of time on forums reading articles. Gary's PA2v2 came to my knowledge and I was looking for an upgrade to my portable FiiO E5 + Cowon iAudio 9 setup. The first thing I planned to do was to upgrade the budget E5 a little and it seemed like Gary's PA2v2 was the deal. Great guy to work with, awesome support and instant feedback (does he sleep?, I'm on the other side of the globe!). 
 
Back to the first impressions on the amp. I was very excited to receive this amp because I waited 5 weeks for it to arrive (due to Canada Post's strike that delayed the shipment for more than 2 weeks)...The first thing I did was to plug it in with the AC adapter to give it a listening session (with my Hifiman RE0s). I was a bit disappointed in the sound though. It is warm and with low level bass body, but it comes off with much smaller sound stage and a bit muffled sound overall. It doesn't sound as open and as clear with nice treble as when I used the FiiO E5, which is hard to imagine.
I'm hoping this phenomenon is probably because I haven't stuck NiMH rechargables in yet and this amp hasn't had enough of a burn-in. Keeping my fingers crossed......
 
Anyone have similar experience? And what brand NiMH rechargables are recommended? At my local store, I can find GP's/Sony's/Sanyos most widely available. But is there any other batteries that would work great for this? I am willing to spend a little bit more to perfect the quality of this amp....any other improvement suggestions? ohh I also use the cardas 4" L-shape cable.....
 
Thanks in advance for your feedback!

 

[kfarndog]

Inserting the rechargeable batteries seems to help the sound.  Give it a go!

 

[holden4th]

The Nimh rechargeables are a must!  Gary has configured his amp to work with these and I have read threads where poor sound from the PA2V2 was directly down to this issue.
 
I have one of Gary's amps and it performs very well indeed. Get the proper batteries (they cost a pittance) and see what happens.

 

[Ikelmonster]

3x on the battery suggestion - the amp sounds pretty bad when running on just the AC adapter. I also just received mine due to the postal strike, and my first impressions are really good (with the batteries, of course)

 

[AirX]

thanks everyone for your quick feedback! Just as fast as Gary's responses! ha. 
So any recommendation on what brand of batteries? Or a good 1.2V 2000 mAH NiMH will do the job regardless of brand?

 

[holden4th]

Quote:

thanks everyone for your quick feedback! Just as fast as Gary's responses! ha. 
So any recommendation on what brand of batteries? Or a good 1.2V 2000 mAH NiMH will do the job regardless of brand?

From Gary's website
 
[size=small]The PA2V2 requires two AA sized NiMH rechargeable batteries [/size](1.2 Volts each)[size=small]. There are many good
brands such as Duracell, Energizer, Golden Power (GP), and Sanyo. There are also different mAh ratings.
The higher the rating, the longer the amp will last between charges.[/size]
 

 

[AirX]

ok, I saw that too, just wondering if there were other ones that you would recommend. Thanks for the reminder!

 

[kfarndog]

I used some of the more expensive rechargeables that I had for my cameras and heard no difference over the drugstore rechargeables I ended up using (Energizer or Duracell).