Dartzeel amp lives up to hype

Essentialaudio, your point about the DarTZeel combo being shown at RMAF and at CES or privately at last January's show is irrelevant to what Jonathan and Elberoth2 are talking about. If you read Elberoth2's comments carefully, he seems to be implying that this combo (ie. the Dart preamp and amp together) was heard, and more importantly, OWNED! by an audiogon member's close friend in his/her system that consisted of Avalon speakers:

I have heard form one of the most credible audiogon users that his close friend wasn't impressed at all by dart combo.

This seems to explicitely imply that the the dart pre and amp were indeed heard together.

He uses same speakers as I do - Avalon Eidolon Vision - and much preffered both ARC Ref2/VTM200 combination (which he sold to get the dart) and the VTL7.5/S400 combo he bought AFTER selling the dart combo (pre + power).

I don't know about you, but this clearly suggests to me that this person replaced the Arc combo with the darts combo but sold the darts combo and ended up with the VTL combo. This really seems to imply that the Darts combo was heard in this guy's system. I of course am not disputing the credibility of Elberoth or the audiogon member or his friend, since it's all about personal preference.

But whether this audiogon user has INDEED OWNED (and not whether he heard it at the show) is the main point of contention here I think. So if there has indeed only been 3 DarTZeel preamps shipped, has this close friend of a supposedly credible audiogon member really heard it?

At the present time , there are only two units in the US. Mike Lavigne has had a pre production unit for several months and Jtinn had the unit for the RMAF and CES shows. The first production units are schudeled in the US in about 10 days

Mike , you may want to know that I'm listening ( in Old Europe) the last 3 months to the Dart combo in one of my systems, the plate reads "Pre Serial number 000 " .
They worked flawlessly so far , and the sound is truly special with analog sources in the battery mode.
Dan

Steinway57- tell your dealer friend it's time to retire- his ears are no longer functioning properly. Thank him for the 30+ years of serving our community.

Fmpnd- If you already have the SST, there should be plenty of warnings in the instructions about the consequences if the product is misused or applied incorrectly. I feel some people don't realize that once you use it on a female XLR or RCA input (like on an amplifier input), how do you remove it from inside the female inputs? Subsequent connections of new male cable pins or cleaned and treated male pins with SST will not prevent the excess build-up inside the female pins. Once too much "highly conductive paste" builds up inside where you can't see it, I would imagine the potential for disaster is high. The ONLY place I would use SST or similar products is where the paste could be completely removed from BOTH contacting points (both inside and out) thereby preventing any build up. Even if used only once, an excessive amount of paste can build up if not applied cautiously. Good luck.

I really think that hearsay proclomations about the performance or reliability of a product that the poster hasn't actually heard, reflects worse on the poster than on the product. Let's remember that in the end you're talking about someone's livelihood here, and negative comments that have no credible basis in fact can be really harmful even if not intended that way. I have never heard a Dart product nor do I know anyone associated with the company or its distribution, and really my comments can apply to any number of threads and posters. Sometimes I wish that we could all think twice before hitting that submit button.