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anusbisgrau, is your Tap X the buffered version? If so, have you compared the buffered versus the passive mode?
Thanks! That's very informative. So how does the Solaja Audio SA-TVC1 compare with the Myth? Does it have similar dynamics and transparency?
I find it curious you preferred the Tap X buffered output over the passive. Everyone I've talked to including John Chapman says the buffered output is inferior to the passive output. Dave Slagle also told me the modified Slagleformer in the Tap X sounds better than a Slagleformer using Elma for volume control. I'm really wondering if there is something wrong with your Tap X.
we've had this test yesterday evening and the results came out quite interesting.we've tested passives in a friend's system i'm not too familiar with however it sounded decent: engaging but not aggressive, quite musical for solid state gear and very detailed and transparent so we were able to notice plenty of difference. it consisted of micromega power amp and CD player (the best they've ever made but i don't know exact models) and quite interesting transmission line symdex speaker designed by snell's kevin voecks (with lots of tonal attributes of later classic snell sound)....we've had bent TAP-X, DIY AVC based on slagle's autoformers and solaja audio SA-TVC1 (apart from micromega active preamp we haven't been too interested in). the most disappointing was - as i've hinted from my home experience - TAP-X. it sounded just too reserved, made us yawning a bit and it also had a roll off in the lower bass. sounded clean but a slight reduction in microdynamics was obvious - a guitar track on "dali" test disc lacked impact and brute force of pickin the strings and vibrations from the crowd.slagle's AVC was much better, with lots more open sound and restored microdynamics. it was also much more involving, we've had a feeling the musicians are here. however my suspicion it doesn't perform well in the lower registers was proven here - a slight lack of control though frankly much less evident here on 7" woofers of symdex than on my speakers' 2x15". i'm pretty much convinced these autoformers needs to be restacked to be tuned to the system and i will play with them soon.suprisingly (as i really didn't expect this product to shine so much), solaja audio SA-TVC1 came unanymously on the top. it had a rock solid sound, musicality that no other matched, music was again involving and exicting, the feet were tapping to the deep and tuneful and perfectly controlled bass.... for those who are not familiar, solaja exhibits together on RMAF or CES together with RAAL speakers and he really is a good builder of transformer and tube based gear. he wounds his own transformers and his current TVC uses japanese amorphous double-C cores of a decent size (a bit bigger than others). later we tried TAP-X via bufferred output (sub) and surprisingly it sounded better than through non bufferred one - though not so much better to change the above order - there was a bit more life in the music and slightly more drive but that's all. it will be probably put on sale - which is a shame because i hoped it would be a perfect magnetic, fully functional (remote, multi inputs) preamp which didn't turn to be true at least with my unit and in my system...don't know if this helps anyone, hope it was fun reading...
