Hello Scott,
Thanks for letting me bring over the space heater and run up your electric bill. As of this Sunday’s listening session, the amp officially has 7 hours on it. It will continue to break in and improve, but the amp will really not get any warmer sounding. As a transformer coupled push-pull design, I was looking for accuracy, detail and tight control of a speaker’s cone movement. The amp was designed to drive electrostats or other load demanding big speakers.
With your speakers and setup, I can understand the allure of single ended amps. The amp I built a few years ago was a single ended 211 amp. It sounded great. I miss that amp. It has more of the sonic qualities you seem to like.
Given the option between the Sapphire and the Topaz amplifier, I would definitely go for the Topaz. High voltage 211 tubes seen to have a magical quality to them.
I really enjoyed the listening session and even learned a thing or two (your listening setup caused me to partially rearrange my room – for the better). I would love to do it again.
Lee