Best integrated ever made ?

the OTL Tenor 75Wi monoblocks are the best amps i have yet heard, integrated or not. each amp has a passive volume control. they can be used in direct mode, bypassing the volume control or integrated mode.

recently i compared a few different amps including the levinson #33, the halcro dm58, the red rose amp 1, and the atmasphere ma2 mkII.2. all great amps. i was using my levinson #32 preamp. the atmasphere was the best. the OTL design combined the best of ss and tubes. extended at both frequency extremes and pure in the mid-range. the quickest and most resolving amp i had heard.

then i tried the Tenor. WOW!!

a whole new level of clarity and musicality. the proverbial vails were lifted. if there is a better integrated than the Tenor 75Wi i would love to hear it. i compared the Tenor in integrated mode with the Tenor and the atmasphere thru the preamp. i still preferred the Tenor thru the preamp but neither compared with the Tenor in integrated mode.

if you get a chance to try the Tenor i think you will agree.

Badwisdom,

a link to the glowing French reviews would be nice. some of us DO understnd French.

Thanks

I have been thinking of going to an integrated amp. Has anybody here and heard the Cary sli80? How does it compare to some of the others mentioned here?

badwisdom -

I'm not disparaging your ears in anyway, but I do think maybe your experience and "sea change" simply MUST represent some of very interesting and important auditory "learning" process. Specifically, until you heard the Maestro (btw, will this name work in the American market, where the name recalls for some that goofy minor-league conductor character on Seinfeld) you said you had LOVED the krell integrated. (I've heard the Krell integrated too. I liked it, and was gonna get it, but then I heard a BAT ss amp.... 'nother story) But then you heard the Maestro, and then you said the Krell made you feel as if your ears were bleeding?

Assuming you weren't just writing a bit hyperbolically (is there such a thing as being a "bit" hyperbolic? hmm), this means that a piece of gear Z that you found to sound wonderful to you at point in time A sounded horrible to you at point in time B, all because of your exposure (for only 3 hours!!!) to piece of gear X.

I wonder if this is how our ears can sometimes work: an experience can actually rearrange, in a quite short period of time, our hearing, or at least our subjective experience of our hearing.

No wonder objectivists get worked up at us: we are experimenters in the plasticity of sense experience!

pcanis

IHAVE LISTEN MANY INTEGRATED S AMPLIFIERS AND I THINK THE BEST OF THE BEST IS THE PATHOS TWIN TOWERS.
IT S VERY SWEET DETAILED CLEAN IT HAS WONDERFUL SOUND
AND IF CHANCHE THE TUBES WITH SOMTHIG SPECIAL LIKE
NOS TELEFUNKEN SIEMENS PEARL CRY.VAC ECC 83 THE SOUND
WILL BE TWICE BETTER.
AND THE LAST IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL INTEGRATED IN THE WORLD.
I AM VERY SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH I AM FROM GREECE.