Sorry john, but I have taken the liberty of copy/pasting here some of the very insightful comments you just posted on the LS25 vs Calypso thread. They are most useful in the context of this very high end linestage thread:
". . . Two years later, enter the Aesthetix Callisto Signature. It's a very different experience here. Never had I heard a line stage impress me so greatly across the board. I remembered how the 31SE did the bass. The Callisto takes this to another level. And unlike the BAT, the Callisto renders a mulitude of low-level detail in the highest frequencies. The LS5 never came close to this. And the LS25 did not steal the show vs. the LS5 in this regard either. The Callisto and Calypso are very very similar except for one most important attribute: portrayal of space. I am so impressed when I hear the neutrality and resolution of the Calypso at a local audiophile's (Jadem6) home. But a changeover to the Callisto and that awesome 3-dimensionality is there like you hear from a real performance. The stage exceeds far beyond the boundaries, images are not 1-foot wide - they are so lifelike. A return back to the Calypso and that awesome openness is significantly diminshed. This is one area where I would have trouble going for the Calypso. Even with the BAT's soft top end and lower level resolution, it was far more lifelike in its portrayal of the harmonics, decays, images and space and this alone brought on the emotional connection. The LS5 did the same for me but not at well as the BAT or Callisto."
Thank you again John for your patience!
". . . Two years later, enter the Aesthetix Callisto Signature. It's a very different experience here. Never had I heard a line stage impress me so greatly across the board. I remembered how the 31SE did the bass. The Callisto takes this to another level. And unlike the BAT, the Callisto renders a mulitude of low-level detail in the highest frequencies. The LS5 never came close to this. And the LS25 did not steal the show vs. the LS5 in this regard either. The Callisto and Calypso are very very similar except for one most important attribute: portrayal of space. I am so impressed when I hear the neutrality and resolution of the Calypso at a local audiophile's (Jadem6) home. But a changeover to the Callisto and that awesome 3-dimensionality is there like you hear from a real performance. The stage exceeds far beyond the boundaries, images are not 1-foot wide - they are so lifelike. A return back to the Calypso and that awesome openness is significantly diminshed. This is one area where I would have trouble going for the Calypso. Even with the BAT's soft top end and lower level resolution, it was far more lifelike in its portrayal of the harmonics, decays, images and space and this alone brought on the emotional connection. The LS5 did the same for me but not at well as the BAT or Callisto."
Thank you again John for your patience!