[mresseguie]

@mresseguie
Thanks for sharing. Merry Christmas to you!
I look forward to hearing your impressions.
Enjoy!

Sonicxtc,

Did you read the two PMs I sent you?

Mike

I think you will really like the ST-10 as it will better situated to your needs and situation.  And since neutral in character won't cause you to have to discount any type of speaker.  One thing you might have to look into depending on the gain in Don's preamps are the Rothwell Attenuators.  The ST-10 has a very low input sensitivity of .75 volts. Works with the DAC-10 or W4S STP-SE on it's own but does need the attenuators with the Modwright LS-100 with a gain of 13 db.  Enjoy.

Jackd,

I'll pass this along to Don to see what he thinks and to remind me how much gain his preamps have. My pre is sitting in storage back in Oregon because of a snap decision to wait until next year to bring it over to Taiwan. If there is a need to make a change to the gain, I can easily send it to him to tweak.

Thanks for the heads up.

Merry Christmas, all. It's 9 am on Christmas Day here. Sleep tight over on the other side of the Pacific!

[opnly bafld]

Not much different, but a little better according to the website specs, 0.89 v for rated power.

[mresseguie]

Mike

I think you will really like the ST-10 as it will better situated to your needs and situation.  And since neutral in character won't cause you to have to discount any type of speaker.  One thing you might have to look into depending on the gain in Don's preamps are the Rothwell Attenuators.  The ST-10 has a very low input sensitivity of .75 volts. Works with the DAC-10 or W4S STP-SE on it's own but does need the attenuators with the Modwright LS-100 with a gain of 13 db.  Enjoy.

From Don Sachs:
"You have channel attenuators.  If you have too much gain then turn them down a click or two.  They are built in!"

[JackD]

Sounds like you are all good then.  Even though I certainly don't need another preamp I keep getting tempted to try one of Don's creations against the Modwright.  Been successful at resisting temptation so far.

[j3n5]

The only down side of ST-10 vs STA-9 is that it tends to get a little to sharp with some electronic sounds and some female voices in some recordings. STA-9 bridged as mono blocks has even better control in lower sounds off course but otherwise ST-10 outperformes its little brother in every way!

[mresseguie]

My ST-10 just arrived this afternoon, so it's had just a few hours to burn in.

I've got a pretty simple system here (in Taiwan) - Mac Mini => Squeezebox Touch => Gustard X20u DAC => ST-10 => Fritz Loudspeakers LS/5-R two-way monitors. In August of 2017 I'll bring my D. Sachs preamp with me to round out the system. Oh, I may add an inexpensive CDP, too.

So far, I notice the ST-10 is a lot more powerful and better sounding than the IDA-8, but this is no surprise. Why the hell did I wait so long to get this amp? 

Michael

[John Casler]

Looks like Casler "woke up"   

Michael, hope you enjoy it.  It was a good decision (cause there aren't any really bad ones)

Happy New Year over there.