It has been a couple of weeks since this whole process started, so I thought I'd give an update. Thanks to everyone here for the suggestions, and special thanks to my new friend, Guido. Guido has been an enormous help both in terms of information, and an inherent willingness to vicariously spend my money. :)
- The Merrill Veritas monoblocks turned out to be the ones to beat, and they are still here.
- Sanders Magtech went down pretty quickly. I believe in amp break-in. Roger Sanders does not. He submits that his amp at one hour of warmup will sound as it ever will. After a couple of days, I decided that I didn't like it, and he graciously took the return.
- Bel Canto REF600M monos came in, and I had a chance to give them a thorough listen, thanks to Taylor at Goldprint Audio. Taylor was very responsive to all of my questions, and provided the amps shockingly quickly. They only had about 300 hours on them, so I'm not sure if they were really broken in, but in head-to-head with the VERITAS, they didn't make the cut. Mind you, the REF600 is no slouch at all, and I could have happily lived with them, but we moved on.
- Currently, I have the VERITAS going up against the Rowland Continuum S2. The CS2 has only about 300 hours on it, so I'm not sure how well broken in it is. And I must say, although the two amps sound rather different -- at least at this stage of the game -- it will be a tough decision. The VERITAS is fully broken in, the Rowland is not, and I have a limited amount of time to make the decision.
Rob
- The Merrill Veritas monoblocks turned out to be the ones to beat, and they are still here.
- Sanders Magtech went down pretty quickly. I believe in amp break-in. Roger Sanders does not. He submits that his amp at one hour of warmup will sound as it ever will. After a couple of days, I decided that I didn't like it, and he graciously took the return.
- Bel Canto REF600M monos came in, and I had a chance to give them a thorough listen, thanks to Taylor at Goldprint Audio. Taylor was very responsive to all of my questions, and provided the amps shockingly quickly. They only had about 300 hours on them, so I'm not sure if they were really broken in, but in head-to-head with the VERITAS, they didn't make the cut. Mind you, the REF600 is no slouch at all, and I could have happily lived with them, but we moved on.
- Currently, I have the VERITAS going up against the Rowland Continuum S2. The CS2 has only about 300 hours on it, so I'm not sure how well broken in it is. And I must say, although the two amps sound rather different -- at least at this stage of the game -- it will be a tough decision. The VERITAS is fully broken in, the Rowland is not, and I have a limited amount of time to make the decision.
Rob