Wharfedale Pro PM 600 Review

The PM 600-mixer amplifier system would be ideal as a guitar amp, or even as a PA system. The outside case appears to be wood covered over with felt type carpeting material. It is not too bulky or heavy to carry, and is the ideal size and weight for anyone on the road to take with them. Its dimensions are 475 mm × 241 mm × 188 mm, and mass 11.48 kg.

For technical information regarding its specification, you can always consult the service manual, and other pages of this multi-page article. The design and engineering of this amp seemed quite good to me overall; after all, it is a British product!

There are six input channels in total, and one of the channels has the option for a tape or CD input for a backing track. This is ideal if your band has five members in the group.

The EFX function lets you introduce an echo, and each channel has a dedicated EFX control. The control lets you determine the level of echo for each input signal. The sound from the mixer appears to be clear and free of any hum. The mixer part, which is the bit I heard, provides good bass and treble boost. The echo effect was also very clear, and the sound quality of this amp is also very good.

This amplifier will last many years if properly used according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Cost

In the pre-used market, one would expect to pay from around £40 onwards for one in good working order and condition. Obviously, if it comes with the original speakers, then one should expect to pay more. Avoid buying a burnt one because it may not be a simple matter of a transistor change. It might be like the one I bought where the whole board requires changing. The replacement power transistors are also expensive, and if one had to replace all six of them, and then it would be very costly, as each transistor costs around a five pounds. Instead, it might work out cheaper to buy a power amplifier kit on eBay, however you would need to be an engineer and spend considerable amount of time building and installing it. Hence, a burnt or damaged amplifier on its own would be worth around 99p to £5.00.

I bought this in the auction as "spares or repairs", because I am a qualified and experienced engineer. I paid twenty pounds for the amplifier and a further ten pounds for the courier delivery costing me a total of thirty pounds. My plan was to repair it, and then use it as my guitar amplifier; but unfortunately, the amplifier block was completely burnt out and beyond repair, however I was able to rebuild the power supply and get the front mixer panel working.

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