I don't have one but I got to play with one at the Rocky mountain audio fest. I thought it was among the best I heard up there. He had it rigged straight from a metronome cdp and straight to the speakers. Very nice. What you gain is simple circuitry what you lose is nothing really if you only have one source. In a word I would say the carissa sounds fat...fat and powerful, not tubby....Lots of power and you still get the single ended sweetness. They should drive any semi efficient speaker well.