Tom, Tubegroover, Phill; You guys are a tough and dedicated lot, and I surely do appreciate your posts. Truth of timbre is also probably the single most important characteristic of music to me too. And I think tube amps maybe promote it moreso than SS. In fairness, when I auditioned the tubed SFS-80, I had too big speakers in a too small room so it wasn't a very fair audition-- and in those days I had to run my 2Ces at low volume. I'm intrigued by tube amps, and have never read anything bad about BAT or the newer ARCs. My big McCormack DNA-2DX is pretty sweet as SS amps go, but I'd sure like to try some good tube amps in the $5k - $7.5k range (MSRP). I'd have to look for a used one though. Do you guys have any experience/observations on Sonic Frontiers Power 2 or 3 tube amps? I'm also kind of interested in some of the mid-sized VTLs-- seems like you get a lot of power for reasonable cost, and the option of triode operation. I've read that Richard Vandersteen uses an SS pre-amp and big ARC tube monos. Thanks, and Cheers. Craig.
