God help me...I’m jumping into the fray.
As a consumer, at this price point, I want exceptional reliability. If Hypex can’t convince me that they can provide that, I’ll go elsewhere. Part of it is having experienced the reliability of the Japanese manufactured components I grew up with. A stereo receiver did the same thing a stereo receiver did from twenty years prior...there were no real significant changes, so reliability really mattered. You didn’t need replace something until the old one died. I still have an Onkyo A5 from 1978. Works great...it lives in my shop and continues to play flawlessly...and the conditions out there aren’t exactly like the ones in my media room. That’s impressive, and impressive is what I want.
Here’s the thing, and this might already have been mentioned here...if not, certainly elsewhere. We are talking about reliability in a TOTL amplifier....the one component you can purchase without feeling a further need to upgrade as long as it is powerful or stable enough to drive your chosen speaker. If we’re talking AVR, computers, TV’s or any given video disc player, well yeah...it isn’t such a big deal that your caps might burn out after ten years. Most of us will have upgraded long before they crap out. But amps? I own a Rotel 1095. Doubt it tests worth a damn but I love the thing, and hope I will never need replace it...or god forbid it’s Coca Cola can caps. In an amp, above all else, I want reliability, because it can be the constant that your system constantly evolves around. It has one “simple” task, and as long as it’s doing it’s job, there is no need to replace it.
Can’t speak for the reliability of the Hypex modules, but I’d be happier knowing they had top of the line caps.