Hafler preamps - good, not so good, and history?

To put it simple, the Hafler DH-110 is probably one of the best(if not the best) "budget Audiophile" preamp on the used market today. They can be found on eBay anywhere from $50-$150(depending on condition). For decades(literally!) people have claimed that the Hafler DH-110 "sounds better than it has a right to". I for one would have to agree with that statement.

In terms of Hafler history - maybe this is what you are interested in - I was one of the initial Hafler dealers - my partners and I where starting a Hi-Fi/Record store - heard a rumor that David Hafler was going to start a new company - sent him $300 as a downpayment on three of whatever he was going to do - his reputation from the Dynace days was that good! While I am out of the industry now - here's what I remember in terms of Hafler:
1.) Initial products were the DH-101 pre-amp. Had a interesting experience shortly after these started to ship. Stopped by Hafler's suite at the Summer (Chicago) CES show. A trio of Japenese engineer's where leaving as we came in. If memory serves me this was like some very senior designer for Sony plus a assistant and a interperter. David Hafler had this odd expression on his face and comented that they had been amazed that he used such expensive transistors in the 101 pre-amp - what amazed him was that he was only paying something like 5 or 6 CENTS apiece - and couldn't believe anyone could find/use anything cheaper! (especially since Sony got a whole lot better price based on their volume purchased than he did). So I asked him what was the single most expensive component in the DH-101 - whithout hesitation he said the chasis. Now I was blown away - 101 where great sounding units for their era - but the chassis was hardly awe inspiring - not exactly Mark Levinson quality. he explained that the chasis and PC board where the only unique items in the design - all the other parts where off the shelf components used in a lot of different electronic products by a wide variety of manufactorers - thus getting the unit cost per part down for everybody - the chasis was unique and at that time was being made in runs of a few hundrerd - which made it quite expensive.
The man was simply a genius when it came to employing engineers who could get a awful lot of good sound out of garden variety component parts - and at prices that allowed many of us to "dable" in high end audio while still eating three squares.
2.) DH-200 power amp was next 100/100 wpc mos-fet output devices.
3.) 110 pre-amp has for it's time a full featured pre-amp with multi tape inputs - was shortly joined by the smaller chasis 100 pre-amp - a stripper model that may have been the best sounding pre-amp of the lot. 330 was a FM tuner.
4.) The 220 amp - basically a up-date and olive drab version of the 200 with I think just a little more power - still mos-fet.
5.) DH-500 - an honest 255 wpc - fan cooled
6.) DH-120 60 wpc - my favorite small amp that can - I still own one of these.
7.)All of the above were in their day - reliable - repairable if grossly abused and very good sounding for their time and price. All were available in kit form as well as factory assembled.All the amps used MOS-FET output devices - which is part of the reason they where so hard to blow up. These amps all have a common and somewhat un-usual arraingment of the "protection " fuses - you can blow this fuse and you will still get distorted sound out of the affected channel - this was the most common service complaint on the amps and almost always - a proper sized fuse and you were good to go!
8.) I don't know if David Hafler sold the company before the SE series came out or the XL series - but somwhere in here ownership changed.
9.) SE series where cosmetically a little differnt - used film caps at some crtical points to improve sound.
10.) XL-600 305 wpc ,XL-280 ,XL-240 - don't think there was a 60 watt version - had some input from the people who designed the Acoustat TransNova power amps.
11.) I didn't have real good luck with the Iris pre-amp - ours where the only Hafler products I ever sold that weren't real reliable. In general the big deal at the time with Iris components was the remote and like a lot of small companies - Hafler had problems implementing this - especially when compared to your average Japenese super' ceiver - which tended to have flawless IR remotes.
Rockford Fosgate owns the Hafler name at this point - big points to them for publishing complete manuals /schematics for all the older Hafler stuuf - especially given they never sold this era gear or made a dime off of it.
I realize that some of the Hafler / rockford/fosgate stuff is (gag) car stereo - but has anyone had much experience with their current line of Hafler amps?

I recently bought a used Hafler Iris preamp and I must say it is a welcome addition to my system. Right away I noticed how transparent, musical and non-fatiguing this preamp is. As stated in the owners manual, it seems to have achieved its goal of combining the best characteristics of tubes and solid state. I have no qualms about this preamp and the price was a steal for such quality. F.R. Ps: I've never enjoyed analog more. The Iris's phono section is amazing!

I still have and use my Hafler DH-101 Pre, with a couple of XL-280 Power amps and a cheap, 20W per channel power amp, this is for a tri-amplified system. After much tweaking the original circuits of the Haflers (selecting every resistor and capacitor to match the other channel ones), I found a very good ACTIVE type Crossover, 3 way, 24 dB/Oct Linkwitz-Riley which printed circuit boards are sold by a genius designer from Australia. Please let me tell all you good Hafler-loving people, that with a tri-amplified system, your OLD but good Haflers are ALL you are going to need forever. There is NO need to use an extremely expensive modern amplifier or magic tube setup, the real weak point in any system is the passive crossovers at the speakers. With an active, correcly aligned crossover, the drivers will be perfectly driven by the old Haflers. Transparency, control, authority and lively but not fatiging sound is easily produced at high levels without needing an extremely powerful, expensive amplifier.
Good Luck, and our prayers to David Hafler, a truly extraordinaire and honest designer that allowed us to reach high quality audio at honest prices and without esoteric false premises.

I have had a Hafler preamp, amps (DH... & DH...), and I loved the sound, but would never buy a Hafler preamp now.
After a short period (1 year and on), every Hafler preamp in my circle of friends ( 3 or 4 of us) developed noisy, damn near explosive switching.
If you forgot to turn the volume down when engaging the various switches, you would be reminded in a noisy, kaboom, pick your adjective kind of way.
In my somewhat limited opinion, they had good sound, but lousy switches, pots, etc.