YBA Designs

It replaces the audio refinement gear and is better in my opinion.

YBA Designs replaced the aging Audio Refinement line. Last week I bought my dealer's demo amp and CD player. The tuner should be available in the fall. They're interesting, aesthetically very gallic looking pieces. They're meant to stack up. They're made in the PRC (some dealers assumed that they would be made in France). Sonically, I can't compare them to the all-Audio Refinement setup I have at work: the YBA Designs are used in my living room with ceiling-mounted speakers so they're purely for background music. Cool looking, though ....

Velo, I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion on the differences between the AR gear and the new YBA Design. I've been a fan of AR for a long time and currently have the intergrated and cdp.

Thanks.

S7: I, too, am a fan of the AR equipment. Sure, some people have made the argument that it's been around "too long" (whatever that means) without a stylistic upgrade but I've been very happy with the trio and yes, I think that the CD player is a really capable unit.
Since the AR stuff is that the office and the YBAD pair is at home and functioning under less than ideal setup, maybe this weekend I'll take the YBAD pair to the office and compare it to the AR setup. That would be a more valid approach. One thing, thought: the YBAD stuff sure is pretty....

Spiros, it wasn't enough that you were supporting the French when good American high end companies like Bose were barely making it, now you are supporting the French supporting the Taiwanese. And clearly my good American interconnects are too declasse for this YBA gear or you would have tried them by now. You probably drink Dom while shopping for all those third world Asian goods at Wal-Mart. Why take the long way around, just adopt, it's a much less circuitous route.