Cary 805s or Atma Sphere M60s?

Agree with Mechans on autoformers, to some extent it defeats of the purpose of OTL, though they we still be excellent amps, but not the same with as without.

For my taste, no amp has sounded better with my Merlin VSMs than the M60s, I even preferred to my CAT JL2s which I thought I would never replace and if I had a more difficult speaker to drive I might well have kept them. I don't focus to much on "warmth", what I hear with the OTLs is a sense of presence to the musicians that sounds more real than other amps I have tried - it is uncanny, and particular to OTLs (I think).

That is a good thing:) Might be part of what is special about SETs as well.

Goes to show the difference between theory and practice, on paper you would never think the 805s could drive the Maggies optimally, in terms of both power and current to drive the low impedances in the bass region - yet you never know till you try. The 805s must be very special, would love to try them with my tube friendly speakers.

I think of the Joule warmth can be attributed to their very fine, but warm sounding preamp, did the same (added warmth and color) thing when I paired it with the M60s - a signature sound many love, but hey, I like passive preamps, so not the way for me. Hard to say if one will prefer the 805s or the Atma-sphere, different approaches that will appeal to different types of listeners.

Glad you had a chance to try the Atma-sphere OTL and come to your own conclusion, we all hear differently and seek different things from the sound of our equipment, in both cases it seems we might be on the same page. Which is not to say I would not also love the Cary, simply have not tried it.

I think most would agree, the Atma-sphere is generally leaner by comparison to the Joule, or the Joule is plumper, depending on your perspective - I guess that Ying/Yang thing - my ears lean towards a preference of the Atma-sphere soundscape, I also expect that impressions and preferences between the two will vary based on the speakers being used with the respective amps.

Thanks Onemug. I recently read the reviews of the 3.7 which sounded very interesting indeed. The I went to the Mag website and reading the stuff on type of amplifier needed and they almost defined a "good" amplifier as one that doubles down output between 8 ohm and 4 ohm and started thinking this leaves me out, at least with the M60s, and most other tubes amps, sounded like a recipe for SS which I will not do. So perhaps this hope, I know they use to show with ARC for many years so you would think it must works with certain tube amps. You are right of course, for tube amps, smooth impedance is the key, and just enough watts.