100% agreement.Amir is absolutely consistent…It would be ridiculous to suddenly start rating tube gear positively on its ability to distort the signal.
I agree. I don’t like the look either and would not buy this product in my mind. I was just providing a glass half full perspective.It's $3k and looks kind of cheap. I'm not seeing it as a stand-out bargain, even in that odd world.
But Amir heard the difference between the tube and passive stage of the Schitt Freya+, and I allow for the possibility that some people like the grunge. That means the harmonic levels are sufficient to be heard even if they don’t met traditional Klippel online distortion test thresholds. Here, the EAR does have a different distortion profile.
I personally reserve the headless panther for dangerous products, products that don’t work like an AC cable that’s missing its ground, have grotesque channel imbalance/AC line noise, etc. I have this the second lowest. The 300B SET I reviewed had the pass since it was designed as a historical artifact with a Western Electric 91B replica, and the dynamic treble into reactive loads was really interesting/surprisingly enjoyable.