maxg

Just to add one that no-one mentioned (actually no-one ever mentions). Tommy the Rock Opera by the who. This was originally recorded in Quintaphonic (unique design by Pete Townsend - quadraphonic plus an extra channel for voice). Sony spent 2 years converting it to DD 5.0 (no sub track) and it is quite simply amazing. Well worth the investment imho. Oh and if you want to give your sub a work out Dante's peak is a fairly dreadful disaster movie but when the volcano goes off you really know about it!! At high volume I can usually empty my building with that one (we live in an earthquake zone). ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

About 2 weeks ago I purchased a new turntable complete with all the bits (arm, head, phono stage etc. etc.) It seems to me that the sound is getting better and better. Partly this is no doubt due to my sorting out and earthing problem which has stopped the static build-up I was getting at the beginning. The question is, therefore, does a turn-table "run-in" or am I simply getting used to the sound? Experiences, opinions anyone? ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Pioneer have launched a model in Europe and Japan that must be iminent for the US too. It does DVD, DVDa, SACD, HDCD, CDR, CDRW and god only knows what else. I have heard it is an excellent DVD and DVDa player but only moderate at SACD. Unfortunately I do not know the model number for the US. As an alternative the Sony NS900 (now 905?) does everything except DVDa and does it very well. ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

That is called marketing. If he had an original pair to sell I would be surprised if he mentioned that feature!! Summary - if it has a smaller woofer it must be worse than a speaker with a bigger woofer. So a speaker with no woofer is obviously completely crap, like the KHorn for example, and therefore my Heresy with its mighty 12" woofer is far superior - LOL!!! ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Put me down for a me too on that one: "I still have a preference for the dynamics and impact of music delivered by the Heritage line. To my ears, whether I listen to classical, jazz, rock or other music, the expo.horns sound more dynamic and alive." Nicely put.

A fine time indeed, and yes, I understand what you mean by vinyl sounding incredible when firing on all cylinders. From my limited selection a few standouts have been: 1. Phil Collins (I have 4 of his albums - hardly a hiss or a crack to be heard - and breathtaking in all music departments). 2. Eurythmics. 3. UB40. 4. Dire Straits Sadly the classical versions I have all seem to be acompanied by much more background noise which at times threatens to overpower the quieter moments in the music. This is even for the more expensive discs I picked up (180 gram). On the other hand it does help to justify the semi ridiculous amounts I have spent on SACD classical with their zero noise floor. To date I do not own any jazz on vinyl (I will remedy that next weekend) but certainly Rock, Blues, Reggae and soul all come across wonderfully with much more impact than SACD. Vocals are a bit more hit and miss (or should that be hiss). At some point I will put all my "discoveries" together and post them here but right now I am simply dleighted with the combination of sources I have. The biggest advantages of vinyl over SACD though....availability and price. I had no idea there were so many local stockists of vinyl. It is a pity I dont like Greek music much - every Greek Sony ever released is here on vinyl - it is an even better selection than on CD.

Hi Mobile, Thought twice about posting on tubes knowing you are here with so much more info than I have but I noticed you aint been on so much lately. Take a look at my post on comparing vinyl sacd and cd's if you get the chance - might be interesting to you!! Cheers

Welcome to the Heresy 2 owners club, glad you like them. Interesting to read you points and particularly the fact that you prefer the sound of the KLF 20 trantix horn. This is the reverse of my experience (albeit with KLF 30's rather than 20's) so my guess is that amplification will make a big difference. Basically there are 2 easy routes. Either go for a tube amp or a tube pre-amp - both will make a big difference but the pre probably more so. The good news is that there are variety of very reasonable tube goodies out there, even new. One item you might want to look for is a Bottlehead Foreplay pre-amp. Whilst not the last word in Tube pre sophistication it will really give you a good idea of the sound you can achieve at incredibly little money (like around $100 new from memory). you might also want to take a look at these monoblock tube amps. At $99 they are a steal! http://www.divertech.com/wave.html These should make a dramatic difference to the way you perceive the Heresy's. Of course there are many better products then these out there but for a toe in the water approach to tubes this is silly money!! ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Well it has been a major listening long weekend here. Monday was a bank holiday in Greece and after nipping out on Saturday and picking up 70 albums on vinyl (all brand new for $5 a pop) I spent most of the last 72 hours listening and comparing. Whilst I have no common recording between all 3 formats I do have common recordings between vinyl and CD and between Vinyl and SACD. Obviously there is no way to know what processing has happened to each of the recordings on the media but the issue dates are the same in the common titles and were created from the same sessions. It should be noted that the comparitive players in this quick and dirty analysis are pretty much of a muchness in terms of price. The most expensive unit is my SACD player which cost about $550 (Sony NS900), $70 more than the record player (Pro-ject 4 with project 9 arm) which, in turn was about $70 more than the CD player (Marantz CD6000). Everything else was the same in the analysis (pre-amp, amp, interconnects, speakers, room etc.) I am not confident enough to be categorical about any of my findings as my sample groups are somewhat limited but my generic conclusions to date are as follows: 1. I do not own a single CD that sounds better than the equivalent brand new vinyl release, to me. Some of the differences are very stark and dramatic. This is particuarly true for the Dire Straits Brothers in Arms album, the Carpenters Greatest Hits album and the Dvorak Nwew World symphony with Karajan conducting. Vinyl simp2. Of the common SACD / Vinyl titles the choice is much more difficult. The first thing that strikes as a difference in the evenness of the portrayal of the music from SACD. Vinyl gives the impression of being a very non-flat medium sonically. Mids are massively strong (stronger than SACD) but highs and bass are more uneven. Sometimes it sounds "right" and sometimes off. SACD appears effortless throughout whilst you get the feeling that the mechanics of the vinyl are struggling to portray parts of the sonic spectrum. This effect is more noticable in classical recordings than in Rock. It almost suits rock better but with classical (Mendlesson's 4th symphony for example) it suffers. One thing missing from SACD compared to even brand new vinyl is hiss. Again this varies with the record. Some seem to suffer very badly whilst others the playback is comparible to the digital media in their minimal noise floor. Were SACD titles as readily and inexpensively available as vinyl I would probably not have gone down that route. As it is it seems unlikely that SACD will descend to similar pricing anytime soon I am glad to own both. In conclusion were I to list out my top ten recordings (the stuff I would take with my to a desert island type thing) then there would be a very even split between vinyl and SACD. Obviously the one great leap forward that I have not covered is the multi-channel issue. This is SACD's real strength. The trouble is that these are rarer than hen's teeth and those that do exist are not all produced that well. My best single recording across all the media I own? It is a multichannel SACD - Roger Waters Live and in the flesh, 2nd? Rossini's Barber of Seville on 180 Gram vinyl and I think that that about sums it up. No CD would make it to my top 10, but maybe 1 or 2 would sneak in to the top 20 - these would be XRCD's (three blind mice Sampler disk and Sonny Rollins Sax Collosus). Well that is about it for now - I will keep you posted as I draw further conclusions.

Well thank you all for your well wishes and such. Nice to see the Athens audiophiles are watching...LOL Anyway - just a quick update. Listened till 2 am and love it! Got up this morning at 9 and went shopping. New vinyl is only 6 euros in my local shopping centre (that is about $5.40) for an album and double that for a double album (logically enough). I think I got a bit carried away. Aside from the 5 audiophile titles I picked up yesterday I picked up a few non-audiophile titles this morning - well OK - I picked up 70 titles and nearly gave myself a hernia carying them to the car! I now have more LP's than SACD's - there is so much here I dont even know where to start. Not only that but my brother in law has vinyl and wants CD's. He is going to bring over what he has and I will either straight swap it for the equivalent CD or record it for him and give him the copy. I have other offers of vinyl (since last night) approaching 500 titles. I had no idea this stuff was so plentiful and so cheap. The shop I bought half of today's wears from has apparently got 30,000 more titles in another shop which he is closing and slowly bringing over to this place. We have agreed for me to go back in a week. If I work at it I believe I could have an almost infinite number of records by the end of the month...cant do that with SACD. Note : The total cost of my records bought today is 1/6th of the SACD's!! This is what I call a win win!! ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Just what I was looking for with a new child on the way and 2 dogs!!! I am sure it sounds great but there have to be some limits for the sake of practicality.. ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Almost forgot...well actually I did forget...I got the K6 Head too: Details at http://www.e-dizain.de/project/en/k6.html cheers all

Until I found the Pro-ject audio products that are semi audiophile and very reasonable. Then we found a dealer who would (do a deal that is) and the rest is history: The details are on http://www.e-dizain.de/project/en/rpm4.html I got it with a slightly better tone arm as well Oh yes - and a phono stage : http://www.e-dizain.de/project/en/phonobox.html Not bad for a single lunchtime. We even got them to set the whole thing up (balance the arm and such - and then tape it all down for transport). It is sitting next to me in the office as I type and begging to be taken home. Patience patience....tum te tum te....I bought some vinyl too: Tacet Franz Schubert - The Auryn Series Vol VIII Phoenix Edition JS Bach - 3 disc set - in german (not actually sure what it is yet) - Weihnachtsoratorium(?) Rosini's Barber of Seville - Phoenix Edition Dvorak String quartet opus 77 - Phoenix Edition Ravel's Prokofiev - Phoenix Edition I probably ought to know what the phoenix edition is - but I dont - ah well - it is all a learning curve after all. Finally I also got a record cleaning brush from clearaudio. Do not ask me what all this cost - I lost it somewhere around the point we moved from the project debut to the project 2 and then on to the 4. Ultimately I chose the 4 as much as anything because of its small footprint. I think that this is a good product. I was with an audiophile friend and he reckoned it was such a good deal he bought all the above too (with different records of course). I'll let you all know how this sounds come tuesday (Monday is a bank holiday). Cheers all

There seems to be only one dealer in north america(!!) Sumiko 2431 Fifth Street, Berkley, California 94710 USA + 1 510 843 4500 + 1 510 843 7120 Their web site is www.sumikoaudio.com and there is a section on the Rel's. The Strata 3 in black retails at $1,295 which may make it expensive next to other offerings in the US but you will be hard pushed to find a better sonic match for the Heresy. If you do - let me know - I spent a year trying to find one!!

LOL - the dark side is just so difficult to resist OB1, or should I say Darth HornEd? I am only saying I might be interested.....

I might be in the market for a cheap to reasonable turntable and phono stage (to link to the ZTPRE). I am looking for suggestions on makes models etc. If possible I would like the unit to be of reasonable proportions (as in not too much bigger than the lp itself in terms of width and length - otherwise it can be as high as you like). Try to remember in your suggrestions that what I know about turntables can be written on the back of a postage stamp in crayon so lets keep it simple and make sure that everything I need is included (TT, phono stage (do I really need this?), arm, cartridge, balances, weights, bla bla bla bla bla whatever) If there is a good all in one - vinyl for dummies type solution that will probably be it. A friend has suggested the Technics Mk2 - but its built like a brick out house and I want something smaller. I have also seen a Lynn Basic something or other on ebay in the UK but the guy said something about "draining the sump" for shipment and that put me off a bit. Anyway I await your suggestions with eager anticipation. ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

I am not sure you can buy the sub REL on line - probably the best thing to do is to write to them. They have their own site at www.rel.net I bought mine locally - they generally seem to have a wide distributor network. Good luck hunting.

OK - I have to ask - why is a UPS not recommneded for use with audio?

Thank you all for the input. A couple of questions arise for Arco: "1) To keep stable (at a certain, selectable, point) a non stable AC voltage. This is achieved via a transformer with multiple secondaries associated to a special detecting circuit. APC offers a number of models, here. Some people are happy and some (like me...) not so happy with the results." I think that this is what I have been monitoring. Most of my listening is done between the hours of 10 pm and midnight weekdays. During this period my voltage seems to be stable at 217 Volts plus or minus 2. I am further happy to report that no other items in the house appear to have a detrimental affect on this power as they are all on separate rings (refrigerator, washing machine, owen etc.) Is this sufficiently stable for my audio equipment or do I need to fix the voltage to an even higher degree of accuracy? "2) To protect your equipment from surges, spikes and other nasty things associated with AC current. Relevant circuits are included into most commercial P.C. packages (like Tice and the like), as well into simpler power distribution units (from Monster and others). It might work, but - as I have discovered - usually robs the music of its dynamics." Almost all of the sensitive equipment in the house is connected to the mains via surge protectors which I purchased at a local computer outlet. I have no idea what effect, if any, these have on the audio but I would rather not take the risk of blowing an item courtesy of PPC fluctuations. For reference these protectors were not expensive (about 10,000 GRD - $30). "3) To isolate the system from the high frequency hush AC current carries, especially in urban areas. For this, you only have to use a big (say, 3kVA) 1/1 transformer between the wall outlet and your power distribution unit. This is the solution that works for me giving a "blacker" background as well as a cleaner overall presentation. One must be careful, though, not to mix analog and digital into the same power distribution unit. For digital you can do the same thing, using a smaller (say, 500-600VA transformer. Can you plug power amps into the big one? Well, it depends on the particular amps. Mine benefit from it, but some others clearly prefer to "see" the infinite resistance the power company offers. As always, try and decide for yourself..." You are, as ever, now going outside my knowledge area. Would an on-line UPS do the trick here or are we talking about a specialist item of equipment? I presumre that this item would be used in conjunction with the surge protector - is this correct? "Regarding, finally, vinyl: I can see you coming, earlier than I thought I would!" LOL - thought it might tickle you. I have the feeling that I may well go down this route as I have no found local suppliers of vinyl in Glyfada (both audiophile and non-audiophile). I am sure that this will not be at the expense of SACD though. I just bought 7 more disks and played 2 of them last night - you have to hear Beethoven's Pastoral coming through my (your?) ZTPRE on the normal setting (not aggressive) to believe it! I have never enjoyed this piece so much!!

Nos, I too run the Heresy's on tubes (push-pull - 45 wpc). They go down to 47 Hz audibly at reasonable volumes - but after that there is nothing at my listening position - it is almost as if someone cut the power as soon as the sweep goes down below 47 hz. If at some stage in the future you decide to look for a sub to boost the output of the lower registers I can highly recommend the REL Strata 3. It is a sealed enclosure and a perfect tonal match for the Heresy. At low volumes, at my listening postion, the range extends down to 35 Hz audibly. At conversational levels you get another 10 Hz (down to 25) and at higher volumes than that it goes all the way down to 21 Hz (the limit of my test DVD and therefore maybe lower still). Now I have Heresy's that appear to go down evenly all the way to 21 Hz - a very pleasing result!! ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Oh I see....not what I meant at all... I was monitoring the AC power coming into my house. Many people in Greece have invested in power cleaners for the power itself (I have no idea what else to call them). As I understand it these eliminate the fluctuations in AC power that comes down the lines and provide clean constant electricity for your units. As my power was actually much more stable than I was expecting I was merely musing on whether this would be a worthwhile investment in my case. I do already have a surge protector in place. (I got the idea from Arco - he was monitoring his incoming power and it was a lot worse than mine - he does have a power cleaner)

These are the big brothers of my amps. They are push pull and made locally by Tsakiridis Devices. The version shown is the 150 wpc version with the smaller bulbs (Svetlana's I think). You can also specify them with 6550 WE Sovteks to get up to 200 wpc (I assume that means you can also swap these out for KT88's as I have done). These were on display at a local hiend show - and yes - he is using all 4 of them to bi-amp a pair of speakers (unfortunately I cant remember which ones). Just thought I would share. ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

"Sony brigade with MacGyver connections " I chuckled at that one too. BTW - You're up early this morning - cant sleep?? As for my "solution" I was just playing and got kinda carried away. The mere fact that this worked at all was something of a revelation to me. The fact it both played, and was listenable too astounded me! I am not sure I want to invest in vinyl, as I have said before - certainly not for the 4 albums I have - and I cant imagine growing my collection any time soon - unless there are local shops still selling vinyl at reasonable prices.... Ah.... who knows what the future holds - maybe it will be my SACD collection that continues to expand ....maybe I will get into vinyl after all - time will tell.

On Saturday morning whilst cleaning out a cupboard in one of the spare rooms I happened upon a dozen or so long forgotten Albums (as in vinyl) along with my old Sony (1985) integrated unit that had a turntable. Out of casual interest I pulled the unit out and fired her up - to my amazement the thing actually still works - but as I did not want to risk my speakers on such an old amp I had no idea what kind of sound, if any, the thing produces. Unfortunately the Sony connects to its record player using a very proprietry looking ribbon cable so I had no way of connecting it to my main system. The only output on the amp is a headphone socket - for the larger rather than smaller adapter. I didnt have any headphones other than the ones I picked up with a Sony CD walkman sometime ago so I popped round to my local stereo supplies shop and picked up a few items, namely: 1. Large to small headphone adapter. 2. 2 additional pairs of RCA cables (reasonable ones) 3. 1, 4 way RCA expander (Radioshack - all very low tech stuff). 4. I digital voltmeter/ammeter/ohm-meter(?) I got back home and immediately tested the disks using the sony headphones. I must say it sounded remarkably good - although the records themselves were very dusty. Having proved that the thing worked I grabbed a cable that came with my PC to connect the speakers to the soundcard (headphone type socket to 2 RCA's) and connected the whole unit to my main system as follows: Large adapter plugged into the headphone out of the Sony amp. Headphone socket to RCA cable plugged into that and then connected to the Radioshack port expander. This was then connected to the 2nd port on my ZTPRE. I did a quick test using my SACD player on the Radioshack connecting the main outs to that and then to the pre, whilst connecting the front outs direct to the other port on the pre. To my amazement there was no detectable difference between the 2 as I switched from one to the other. I then disconnected the SACD player from the Radioshack port expander and connected up my CD player, DVD player and satellite reciver to the other 3 ports available. The next step was to find a way to clean the records a bit. All audiophiles had better stop reading at this point - you may get upset... As I do not own anything dedicated for the job (and the store I had visited didnt have anything either) I found one of those magic clothes brushes that are covered with a velvet type material (the ones that brush off fluff in one direction and deposit it in the other). I started the turntable with a record in place and then, starting from the middle, swept the bruch across the vinyl towards the outside. This worked amazingly well - removing all the visible debris. Finally I lowered the needle onto the disk. Now I know you are not going to believe this but it sounded remarkably good. Not only that but there was very little popping and the background hiss was remarkably subdued. Over the course of the next couple of hours I tried a variety of the albums. Some were better than others, and a couple had seriously wicked scrathes on them but after trying them all out I found 4 that played really well: Simon and Garfunkel collection (17 of their hits) Beetles Red Ablum (double) Beetles Blue Album (double) ELO - Out of the blue (double) Did it sound better than CD? Well, to be honest - no, but it was not nearly as far away as the setup would indicate. It did, however, fill me with nostalgia for the days when I was 15 or so, lying on my bed listening to my old Radioshack record player - most of all from the sound when the record just starts playing and there is that slight pop when the needle lands, followed by a bit of hiss, a pop or 2, and then the music starts. Somewhere around I have a bunch of old 45's. If I can find them I will probably try those next. Oh, and whilst I was playing with all this I setup the voltmeter to monitor my power. It seems fairly stable at 218v plus or minus 4 at the extremes. Any opinions as to whether or not I would benefit from a power cleaner? ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

"I was surprised ole Maxg didnt react more to the Hovland and 300B myself. IT is such a DRAMATIC difference from the typical stereo either high end or vintage, tube or solid state, that I found my first exposure almost like a spiritual event!" In a way I thnk I am too - surprised that is. Do not get me wrong - this was an extremely impressive sound - it is just that I think my mind was blown by Horns many years ago on Accuphase equipment and now I have simply absorbed this level of sound into my psyche. I hope that it did not come across in my post that I was in any way dismissive of the sound I heard - far from it - this is an order of magnitude away from what I have now in my own humble setup - it was beautiful to listen to but even with a 300b there are compromises. I am fairly convinced (utterly actually) that these units have less slam than my existing push pull tubes and less speed. In some ways I suppose I am merely saying that they are more tube-like, which is hardly a surprise. On Aristidis' setup you can get away with this as there are a pair of KHorns hanging off the end - but for me? with a pair of lowly Heresy's (in this company) I have my doubts. I could easily tell the leap in musicality, the majestic splendour that the music was wrapped in - what I could not tell is where the KHorn's impact ended and the tubes began. In a couple of months I will have gotten used to my pre-amp and its impact on my existing sound. I will then be ready to look afresh at these 300b's (and that 2a3 Aristidis has) to properly assess whether or not they will work with the music I play. Worst case scenario - I will run both...