This is a response a little late to the party about reliability, but very simialar to many other owners' experiences.
One of my amps did not work out of the box, but was repaired locally. After that, it functioned fine for several years, but then developed something that sounded like a bad tube. It took some time for the repair person to fix it, but remember: it DOES have a 5 year warranty, and 3 of those cover parts and labor. Given the exceedingly good pricing on this level of performance, I wouldn't worry about the reliability now. It it was 5 years ago, I'd say "maybe, maybe not..." But in present time, I think not. And the amps are STILL dazzling, period. They have a staggering dynamic range, from ultra soft (pppp) to ultra loud (ffff). They have enormous ambience retrieval capabilities, which means, in soundstaging, it will not be the amp that compresses the rows of players. Ambience retrieval is crucial to reproducing the sense of space between players (as Conrad Johson is famous for, and all their components reproduce ambience retrieval equal to the very best)to the nth degree.
The midbass is drop-dead killer, whether on acoustic instruments or electronica. The low bass is terrific on its own, surpassed by, maybe the big VTLs I hear(at, kee this in mind, $40,0000). As long as it's tight, I can live with it having the "ultimate tightness." upper bass/lower midrange/upper midrange/lower highs are great. Maybe a slight rolling off of the highest stuff, but on a pair of Genesis 6.1s, with a ribbon tweeter, it was still mesmerizing. Whatever rolled off, I didn't care about, and I once had a Goldmund Mimesis 9 stereo amp, which had THE most airy, extended highs I've ever heard.With the Mim 9, you heard reflections off side walls as easily as Michael Phelps swims. The Hurricanes willdo back and side walls jsut fine, just not as completely fine as the Mim 9. HOW-ever, they will image so perfectly that they made my ex-boyfriend, no audiophile, sit up in his chair and point out that he could "see" the drummer in the Bill Evans Trio playing right next to my dryer and he could easily "see" which direction he was hitting his drum kit.
Whatever these amps are not the "best" at (and the best, these days, still isn't the best at everything, and yet it STILL can cost $90,000 [HP's General Electrics}, the Hurricanes are exquisite amps, and that sense of continuousness, a la the Jadis Defy 7 and the Avalon speakers (a breath-holding as well as breath-taking combination)is what makes music seem real. There's no vacuum in the layers between players in a concert hall (at least, none I've ever been in), but very few amps, even the high-prices spread, can manage to avoid that vacuum-in-space effect. The Hurricanes do it as easily as a good butler (if I had one) would pass me a a glass of water: invisibly, as though the water just appeared on the table next to me without me even noticing.
If you don't like the Hurricanes, forgive me: you either just don't want it to sound like the live experience, or you are unfamiliar with the live experience to any degree. Comparisons are not needed, nor required. They are, succinctly put, fabulous (I HATE that word, but it's the only one that fits) amplifiers. FAB-U-LOUS. And I say that as someone who was depressed at how much time they spent in repairs around 2005 and '06. They're repaired now, they work perfectly, and what bothers me most is that I keep asking myself, did they sound THIS good before, because I could swear they sound better, which shouldn't be possible.
Now, that could be how good I've become at figuring out room acoustics, which took year. For example put absorbing materials at the ceiling/wall juncture: use ASC sound panels (or fiberglass or whatever) and try this experiment: put them halfway between the wall and the floor. Then, move up up so that they are right near the ceiling/wall interface. You eyes should now look like Joan Rivers face: Lifted To The Top Of Your Hairline. Take care of the room, move your equipment around fractions of inches -- you'll hear the sound improve or degrade -- and you'll be able to trust your ears. You'll also be able to assess equipment for how IT sounds, and not how your room MAKES it sound.
