On the one hand, the weight of the thing is impressive. There doesn't appear to be any cost savings in the materials used since it's a high-performance mode. Second, it's actually pretty pretty, even to the point where my wife thought it looked pretty (which audio gear never does). The cage is included and it looks great too. The assembly consisted of a simple arrangement of tubes. All tubes were hand labeled so it was easy to see where everything went. I connected my Bowers & Wilkins 606 bookshelves and the process of embedding in the tube began. I had probably 10 hours on it before actually listening to it and the tubes really need time to develop their full sound. The sound is incredible for this price range. EL34's are almost as legal as tubes as many guitarists use them in their cards and I love it. If I keep this amp I'm sure the sound would get even better over the next 20-50 hours. The triode mode sounds very good, but reduces the power output so it's slightly better for lower volume levels. My Bowers sounded good, but when I turned up the volume I could hear things my less efficient speakers lacked. If your speakers have a sensitivity of 90+ that would be great. Next, the mic in the tubes is a bit of a problem as it adds noise to the sound, which is most noticeable in the upper midrange on upbeat rock songs. HOWEVER, with this amp I had speakers on a dresser. I'm sure some anti-vibration pads on the speakers and maybe this amp could fix that. If that doesn't fix the problem, you can screw in other tubes that may be stronger and/or have thicker glass. amazon.com/gp/product/B07L6DDYPP/, by order) because I think it will be enough for my speakers. I've already bought cheap isolation feet for my speakers to combat microphone noise https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075KK8WXM/. IF I still have noise I'll buy some Gold Lion preamp tubes and I think that will eliminate them completely (plus the Gold Lions are awesome).
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