Sonny:
There's nothing wrong with my Tempest. On line-level sources, there's no audible difference between it and my (modded) Acurus. The Tempest really shines on MC phono and will send my Acurus P10 phono stage (also modded) to Audiogon in due course.
Problem is spouse, who expects remote volume control, which the Acurus RL-11 has. Solution is obvious, retrofit Tempest for it. But Klaus's announcement of the "Extreme" upgrade and my middle ear surgery (successful) last month postponed that a bit. Since my hearing has been obtuse during recovery, there's been no reason to balance the Tempest's MC phono advantages against its lack of remote (spouse isn't "into" vinyl). So the Acurus pair remains active and I'll set up the Tempest upgrades w/Klaus this week.
SA-8260 is another matter. It would not read ToC on 14% of my CD library, including (natch) too many of my wife's faves. It went into the shop a week ago ... we'll see how that goes. Does sound great on RBCD, though. Fun part of this was that it arrived when I couldn't hear ... she raved about how much better her piano concerto and solo favorites sounded (well, those with ToCs that read) ... so no criticism for spending the bucks ... Wow! ... rare treat!
Thanks for your comments on the SA-8260 compatibilty. Audio's a part of my "day job" and I'm a "headroom fanatic", so it will be interesting to test the Tempest/Marantz compatibility both on the bench and with the (repaired) ears.
Karl
